{"id":2496,"date":"2013-10-27T08:48:44","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T13:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2496"},"modified":"2013-10-27T08:51:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-27T13:51:44","slug":"taking-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/?p=2496","title":{"rendered":"Taking Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just watched an interview on BBC World with American writer Donna Tartt<\/span><\/a>\u00a0whose work I don’t know but\u00a0must read soon.\u00a0\u00a0All three novels including her just released “The Goldfinch”<\/em><\/span> are available on kindle and audio.\u00a0\u00a0Recorded books are\u00a0a great help to me, as I can ‘read’\u00a0while doing\u00a0other no-brain-required stuff like walking the dog or quilting.\u00a0 Interestingly\u00a0Tartt was talking about the pre-writing stage of a book, which termed evanescent and exciting as she gathers up ideas, and consults the vast quantity of ‘notes and bobs’ she constantly puts into a note book<\/em><\/span>.\u00a0 She always has\u00a0a notebook with her\u00a0 to jot down ideas and observations as she experiences them.\u00a0 In this planning\/designing phase of a book she can write absolutely anywhere including a friend’s couch, in the bath, in a public library, and on the bus.\u00a0 The interviewer countered that many writers would balk at writing in a public library as being too, well, public.\u00a0Tartt responded that to her its wonderful, as\u00a0whenever you need a character there’s a passing parade of potential to choose from to flesh out a story.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The next phase, which can last a long time is the hard work of writing the story, for which\u00a0she didn’t use\u00a0my term ‘hackwork’, but mentioned the hard work to\u00a0be got through once\u00a0her planning or designing has been done.\u00a0 In this phase I usually put on the headphones and listen to a recorded book or favourite.\u00a0\u00a0My hands are busy but my mind can be elsewhere.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span>She talked removing an 80-page passage of writing from her recent book in this phase. The reviewer was aghast at the thought of removing 80 pages from a draft, as after all,\u00a0that’s a high percentage of an average modern novel !\u00a0\u00a0To Tartt\u00a0a particular\u00a0piece of writing had to be done, if only to then show her where she should\u00a0really be heading with\u00a0the work; and if it meant ditching a chunk to improve it,\u00a0then so be it.\u00a0 I don’t often ditch large sections of quilts I’m working on, but have, and for that same reason.\u00a0 And occasionally a problematic work might take a spell in a cupboard, and emerging appear fresh, and redeemable.\u00a0 Writing a novel is not the same as planning a textile work, but there are definite strong similarities.\u00a0 I know\u00a0people who’ve cut up sections of a larger\u00a0work and presented them\u00a0as small works, and I have one or two that\u00a0I’m tempted to ‘reshape’ this way, being\u00a0OK because\u00a0its still the artist’s hand (and eye) at work.<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Tartt writes her notes on paper.\u00a0 I’ve blogged in a long post\u00a0\u00a0here<\/span><\/a>\u00a0about my own use of a visual diary.\u00a0In addition\u00a0I use the notepad on my iTouch or phone for little lists, odd thoughts,\u00a0snippets or\u00a0‘bobs’.\u00a0 And as I always have some camera or other with me – pocket-size digital, phone or iTouch – \u00a0I can take a pic, each of which is worth a thousand words, they say.\u00a0 I just ‘read’\/listened to a marvelous book “The Mobile Wave’<\/em> by Michael Saylor<\/span><\/a> which I need to listen to again, as I now understand the potential of smart phones much more and need to maximize the use of the one I just acquired.\u00a0\u00a0I finally decided to abandon the pre-paid one that works only in Uruguay, because too many functions weren’t working\u00a0well on it (um, I did drop it a few times )\u00a0 And yes, I\u00a0have got one of those impact absorbing cover thingies for the new one, JIC\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0;-p\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just watched an interview on BBC World with American writer Donna Tartt\u00a0whose work I don’t know but\u00a0must read soon.\u00a0\u00a0All three novels including her just released “The Goldfinch” are available on kindle and audio.\u00a0\u00a0Recorded books are\u00a0a great help to me, as I can ‘read’\u00a0while doing\u00a0other no-brain-required stuff like walking the dog or quilting.\u00a0 Interestingly\u00a0Tartt was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[217,165,294,295,166,216],"class_list":["post-2496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-authors-are-designing-artists","tag-creativity","tag-decision-making","tag-inspiration","tag-keeping-a-record","tag-note-taking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6uxpF-Eg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2496"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2503,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2496\/revisions\/2503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alisonschwabe.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}