Essays, Catcher, and My WIP

So I’m back to balancing work and writing. This happens every time I take in a set of essays. I have two sets of personal essays, plus I’m teaching Catcher in the Rye and that means rereading. Add to that the fact that I’m having to write daily quizzes because my little darlings aren’t reading. Who the heck doesn’t read Catcher in the Rye? I start it by reading out loud, and that usually catches their attention. If that doesn’t work, I promise them drinking binges, prostitutes, and the F bomb dropped no fewer than three times. Is that getting this group to read? No. Gotta give quizzes. Sigh.

I love Catcher, but this time, it’s making me crazy. I wish I had a dime for every review of a romance novel that complained about characters being stereotypes. (Okay, yes, I got that twice from Kathe at RT). Has anyone noticed that in Catcher in the Rye, EVERY character except Holden is a stereotype? There’s a reason for that, you know. They’re what’s known as literary devices. Why is it all right for Salinger to use people as literary devices, but not romance novelists? What? We’re not “literary” enough to be allowed to use literary devices? Aargh!

Anyway, it’s very hard to make myself grade when I’m trying to get through the rewrites so that I can get on with the story. I’m almost there, though. This shift to first person is trickier than I thought it would be. It’s good; it’s just hard sometimes. It’s so much easier to develop secondary characters when you’re writing in the third person. It’s killer when you can only convey things about them by looking through one other character’s eyes. Boy, it really does make you acutely aware of how much perspective means when it comes to human communication. As the author, I know all these things that my main character doesn’t know. It makes me wonder how much I think I know about others when I really don’t know anything about them at all. There are insights that come with writing that don’t come to you, or at least not as powerfully, any other way.

Okay, I’ve tried three times to get this published onto my blog, and it’s not working, so I’ll try again later. This reminds me, however, to give Amy a little tip: I compose blog entries on Word first, then cut and paste. For one thing, that gives me the luxury of spell check. For another, if my blog rejects it, I can save it and post it later. No more “my blog ate my entry” excuses!