Anne Faye

I hadn't realized it had been so long since I've posted here. I've come across some good articles on writing, but I've mostly just posted links to them on Twitter. If you want to follow me there, please visit: https://twitter.com/#!/AnneMFaye (I'm happy to follow back). I've also returned to writing fiction, but due to time constraints, I'm not making the progress I would like. Since finishing up the non-fiction book I was under contract for, I've tried to move sleep a little higher up on the list of priorities, which means cutting out time for other things. I get the chance to work on my story in my head during the day while I'm engaged in other activities, but not having time to get things out on paper is frustrating. When I do have the time, I can't necessarily remember what I thought about and because I'm not writing regularly, I have to face my own fear when I do. It makes it seem like a bigger deal than it is. When I write every day,...

We live in a world where almost everything is typewritten. It can easily be argued that it is much more important from a practical standpoint that children today be able to type well rather than write well. My local school system doesn't even teach cursive anymore. In all honesty, my own cursive writing is atrocious. I pretty much failed handwriting in Catholic school. People forced to read my handwriting are subject to a puzzle of brain-numbing proportions. Thankfully, most of what I write is typed, but the one thing that I still hand write are my private journals. I've been keeping them since I was 15 and I have always planned to leave them to a grandchild someday, hoping that they may be interested. But, I recently realized, that yet-to-be-born grandchild may not even be able to read it, and not just because my handwriting is poor. He or she may not even know how to read cursive. Children may not need to learn to write in cursive (with the exception of a signature), but ...

It's only natural that writers have other writer friends on Facebook and Twitter (and any other social media that you may be keeping up with.) Out of necessity, writers use these tools for self-promotion to promote their books, latest successes, etc.,  but it can be downright painful to watch everyone else share their daily successes while yours are few and far between (if existing at all!). In "Writer Envy," in the March/April 2012 issue of Poets and Writers , Maura Kelly shares her struggles with the green-eyed monster: A cultural shift seems to have occurred, so that Mark Zuckerberg's site is less a place for camaraderie than a platform for self-promotion. And a ton of people I'm connected to were getting a lot more successful, whereas it seemed I was only becoming increasingly resentful. . . That kind of information shrapnel tore through my small, petty heart. . . . If Sartre were around today, I imagine he'd say that hell isn't other people as much ...

Could you turn your book into a museum? That is what Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk did with his book, The Museum of Innocence . You can read about it here: A Nobelist's Novel Museum While this particular book is about a museum (and no, I haven't read it) and lends itself to this idea very easily, it is a very interesting concept. What are the worlds that we create in our stories? What objects would represent them? I have been to author's homes which have been turned into museums, and it is always interesting to see what items influenced, or made guest appearances, in their stories. We live in a physical world. Our stories do as well. Perhaps we lack the money to create a whole museum dedicated to one of our books, but it is an idea to ponder. If we could, what would we put in it?  Pamuk reflects on his museum: "Novels are about preserving the ways we feel, detailing the ways we hold objects, the way in which we smell something," he explained. "E...

I was feeling seriously discouraged yesterday. I was cleaning out a closet, purging a bunch of stuff, among them items related to failed career attempts. Some of this was from ten years ago, and I am sure no one cares, or remembers, but me, but I still felt like a failure. Then, I got a present-day career disappointment. All of which left me feeling, why bother? Then I walked into my hallway, where I have this poem hanging. I first discovered this poem when I was a sophomore in high school. I typed it up (on a typewriter!) and made a frame for it and hung it in my bedroom. It helped keep me going through some very bad days. A few years later, I came across a framed print of it at a craft show. I bought it and it has been hanging in my home ever since. Most of the time, I hardly pay attention to it, but every now and then, it is just what I need. I can't say that it totally brightened my mood. I still feel pretty discouraged, but it serves as a good reminder to keep going, even ...

The June 2012 issue of Writer's Digest features an interview with Lisa See. I would be unfamiliar with this writer, except for the fact that one of my oldest and dearest friends sent me a copy of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel . She said that it reminded her of me because it talked about two women who had been friends since they were very young. While it was not something I would have usually picked up, I did enjoy it very much. In Writer's Digest , See shares: "I would say what I've always said to myself, which is that you've got to write what you're most passionate about. You shouldn't think that writing will change your life - but what it can do is create passion in your life . . . "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was my fifth book. At that point I was what they called a "critically acclaimed writer." You know what that means? You get lovely reviews and nobody reads your books. . . "And so I had in my mind a numbe...

My alter-ego just finished a major non-fiction project and my first book for a traditional publisher - one day before deadline. The files have been sent. I wasn't sure how I would feel at this moment - whether I'd be doing a happy dance or feel exhausted. In reality, I don't feel anything at all. I have devoted nine months to this project, working on it almost every day. The last four and  a half months have been particularly intense. I wrote over 120,000 words in that time. The project came to me at perhaps the most unexpected time of my life - another illustration of God's impeccable sense of humor and timing. My spiritual director said it was my "chocolate" - my reward for saying "yes" to another of God's requests that changed my life. Could be. I said "yes" to this project without having any idea how I would get it done. I went to Church and told God if he wanted me to get it done, He had to help me have the time. He must have w...