Review of the Quo Vadis Habana Notebook

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Oh boy, do I ever know what I’m going to be passing out to everyone this year.

The wonderful Karen Doherty from Exaclair, Inc., the exclusive U.S. distributor of Clairefontaine, Exacompta, Rhodia, Quo Vadis, and a bunch of other really fine paper products, sent me a Quo Vadis Habana notebook to test run.

As you all know, I am a paper freak. I covet nice paper, and pristine notebooks to capture my thoughts. Earlier this year I bought myself a Moleskine and started keeping all my thought in one place in an attempt to work in a more streamlined, GTD life style. I like the Moleskine, but the paper is yellowish, and I can see the notes from the previous page, which means I end up starting a new page every time I have a thought. 

My friend and fellow author Jeff Abbott turned me on to Clairefontaine notebooks and their lovely, clean white paper. I’ve become a bit of a convert, and this revelation has sparked an extensive search for the perfect notebook.

Clairefontaine makes the nicest paper in the world – heavy, very white and no bleed regardless of the pens I use. There’s nothing better than the heavy, steady feel when turning the pages. So you can imagine how excited I was to get the Habana, loaded with it's yummy Clairefontaine 90g paper.

The Quo Vadis Habana notebook is a great size too, 6” x 9”, bigger than my Moleskine by just the right amount. (Sadly, my Levenger pen keeper is too small to fit around the edge, so I’ll have to order a new one.) The notebook opens and lies almost flat, and has a solid backing that isn’t too stiff. The pen slips along the page, allowing notes and thoughts to flow unhindered. And the extra inch of space means I rarely have to stop and flip a page in the middle of a thought. For folks like me who hate to waste paper but don’t like to have multiple thoughts on the same page, this is perfect.

All in all, I have to give this notebook 5 stars. And I’m going to be passing them out as Christmas presents to all my friends and family who love the feel of an elegant notebook, and I’m going to the store to take a gander at their highly-rated planners.

Check out the excellent Quo Vadis blog here for lots of great info, reviews, and random musings.

You break it, you buy it

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Revisions can be hell.

I’m currently working on a revision of book 5, THE IMMORTALS. When I started, it looked like it was going to be simple. I needed to add a subplot. No big. Move a few chapters around, dump the story in the appropriate spots, read through and voila! Revision done.

Yeah. Not so fast, there, Sparky.

After staring at the computer for three days trying to decide just exactly how I wanted to do this, I realized it wasn’t going to be the snap I first thought. If I wanted to do it right, I needed to do things a little differently.

I write in a very linear fashion. There are a few times when I’ll jot notes toward the end of the manuscript of what the next chapter is about, or throw down some words to describe my climax. But for the most part, I start at the beginning and write sequentially, allowing the story to unfold as I go instead of jumping around from scene to scene.

I had a great opportunity a few months back—I was the media escort for Diana Gabaldon when she came to Nashville. Now that’s not a job I’d ever want again, because I was a stress monkey the whole day, worrying about getting her to the right place on time (you’d think since I live here I wouldn’t be so damn worried, but I was.) One of her talks, she mentioned how she builds a book. I’d heard this before, but I paid special attention this time, to see if it was something I could do.

Diana writes scenes. Separate, living, breathing entities. When she has enough of them, she starts stitching the book together. Sometimes she’ll find that the season is wrong, or the time of day, and rewrite it to match, but for the most part, the way she puts it together sounded absolutely seamless.

Now, I’m a realist. Of course it isn’t seamless. Proper chapter and scene arrangement is vital to the story – you can’t have things out of order, your readers will get confused.

So when I realized I needed to do this subplot, I decided to try it her way.

Surprisingly, it’s sort of working.

But here’s where I got stuck. The subplot revolves around a situation that happed six years earlier. You know what’s coming next. Yep, I have to write in the dreaded of all forms – the flashback.

Stop your groaning.

I’ve never written in flashback before, not extensively like I’m doing now. It’s not the easiest endeavor. Which is fine, I’m always up for a challenge. But I don’t know what the standards are. As the story unfolds, I’m seeing two things: one, it could be a book of its own, and two, I might be better served if I have a second POV. But you’re not allowed a second point of view when you’re flashing back in someone’s head, are you?

I spent a day fretting about this, then finally called New York.

My brilliant editor scoffed slightly and said, “Write it and see if it works. If it doesn’t, you’ve cost yourself nothing.” Which of course is the right answer.

It’s not the easy answer, though. No one wants to spend time exploring when they’re on deadline. I immediately mentally resisted, listing out all the reasons why I shouldn’t try – time being one of the biggest ones. I’m not much for throwing work away—when I write it, it goes in. The idea of writing scenes basically on spec to see if they might work is an anathema to me.

But in the course of all this angst, I suddenly realized what I was really asking. I wasn’t worried so much about the dual POVs in the flashback. I was asking if I could break the rules.

And since when do I ever worry about the rules?????

Happily, when I went to my office, this was the first thing I saw. It’s on my door.

 

“There are no rules except those you create, page by page.” ~ Stuart Woods

 

You can imagine the chagrin I felt. Permission? This is writing, damn it. We’re writers. We are the all-powerful creators of universes. We do what we want, when we want. We defy gravity, boundaries, planes of existence. We bring the dead to life. Yes, there are rules, but it’s our job, our mission, to break them. That’s what we do. All successful writers thumb their nose at the rules. Even Stephen King says, “Know the rules so you know when to break them.”

Ah. There’s the rub. We’re allowed to break the rules, but we have to know them first. Okay. Consider this your hall pass.

Here’s the rallying cry. Go forth, and break all the rules. Write something today that’s been eating at you, something that you’re worried about. Something your mind says won’t work. Maybe it won’t. But until you get it on paper, who knows???

When’s the last time YOU broke the rules?

Wine of the Week: 2007 Primaterra Primitivo

PS: Happy Friday the 13th!! Unlike Halloween, good things usually happen in the Ellison household on these days. I hope something good happens for you too!

 

Why I write

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(From the Tennessee Writers Alliance Newsletter, Summer '09)

I’m constantly inspired by reading the great works of art my fellow crime novelists contribute to the genre. The level of sophistication, the new treatment of stories, the hero’s mythic quest - all are influences and daily reminders to strive to keep the level of my own writing to their standards.


I write because I want to tell a story, to entertain my readers, plain and simple. But on some level, this is an opportunity for me to right the proverbial wrongs, to allow my characters to see justice, to see their tormentor punished. There are so many victims whose stories are never told, whose murderers are never caught. In writing psychological thrillers, I can acknowledge them, solve their cases, allow their families to heal. I like to find the end of the story, give a resolution, and ultimately, redemption.

The 24/7 Work Week

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I have been the absent-minded professor lately. It’s the worst feeling in the world. I’ve lost the beautiful silver and rope badge holder Randy gave me for my birthday, can’t find my earbuds to my phone (which means no talking in the car, I need to be hands free to handle the new behemoth I’m driving, ie: the foster truck), misplaced the receipt for a very expensive blouse that needs to be returned. I stepped in as a media escort for one of my literary heroes, Diana Gabaldon, and ended up driving the wrong way three times, made wrong turns, nearly ran a red light. And that’s just the past week.

Knowing I was becoming a stress puppy, I signed up for a virtual Zen retreat. I know that’s an oxymoron, but the concept is sound – the retreat consists of emails with podcasts, discussions, guided meditations, just like you were at an actual retreat. One little problem. I’ve been too busy to open the emails and actually participate.

In and of themselves, nothing on this list is world-ending. Add them all up, though, and it’s indicative of a more serious problem.

I. Am. Distracted.

Why am I so distracted? Now, there’s a good question. Stress over the new book, which isn’t exactly writing itself? Stress over trying to keep the marketing and promotion side of the business under control, coiled for the perfect opportunity to strike and get my name in front of millions of people? (Okay, thousands. Hundreds. Ten?) Stress over maintaining some semblance of normalcy while traveling all over the country to attend conferences, trade shows and literary festivals? Stress about personal issues that I have absolutely no control over?

You get the idea. Things are a little crazy around here. Randy’s business has taken off and he has more work than he can handle. I feel the same way. And the response to having more work than you can handle is… you work all the time.

We writers are a rare breed. Every moment of our day is related to our work, even when we have full-time jobs. Every conversation is loaded with possibility, each chance meeting, traffic jam, song on the radio… anything and everything triggers our internal senses. Commit that shaft of light to memory, the look on that woman’s face, the smell of the wet asphalt, the indescribable color of that fallen leaf. It’s no wonder we go on overload sometimes.

I already knew the bane of being self-employed is getting yourself to stop working and actually focus on living life. I didn’t realize that everyone seems to be having this problem until I read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which I found via Karen Doherty on the wonderful Quo Vadis blog.

We are a twenty-four/seven world now. We are immediately accessible not only to our bosses, our friends, and our family, but to strangers as well. Facebook, Twitter, e-mail etc., is our main path of communication. And they don’t close for business at 5 p.m. five days a week. Being self-employed is even worse. Instead of having a set schedule – in the office at 8:30, lunch at 12, home at 5:30 (or 9) – we have to mandate our own time. Some folks are brilliant at this. Some can’t find enough hours in the day.

That’s what being driven is all about. Who can fault that?

But…

The WSJ article was a wake up call for me. I wrote a few weeks back about how social networking is killing our creative spirit. I see now that’s its much more than that. Our inability to turn off, the relax, to let things go for a few hours. That’s what’s killing us. I don't know about you, but I'm on the computer pretty much from the moment I get up to the time I go to bed. Yes, I turn it off for TV and reading, but it's still an all-consuming presence.

When’s the last time you took an hour to yourself? No kids, no music, no planner, no computer. No multi-tasking, not even slipping a few minutes of reading in. Just you, living in the moment.

Yeah. Me too.

What’s the solution? Well, the WSJ article’s suggestion of one day a week completely unplugged is a good start. I can do that. With a thorough understanding of what I need to accomplish during the week, altering the allocation of time should be relatively simple. I use a time map anyway, I’ll just shift some things around. Cuts will have to be made, and there’s no question where those will come from – online and the social networks. I’ve actually been pretty good lately, (it all feels so superficial anyway) so that’s not a big loss.

Slowly but surely, I feel like I’ll be able to take my life back from stress and worry. Will I be able to shut my brain off for a whole twenty-four hours? That’s doubtful, but so long as I have a notebook near me, I can write things down as they occur and move on. I won’t be setting a slew of new goals—I agree with this premise on Mnmlist.com that setting too many goals, too stringent goals can mean we’re determining our happiness based on whether or not we achieve those goals—but I am going to try to unplug for a day a week.

We'll see if that helps.

What about you? Have you already come to the realization that being plugged in 24/7 is bad for you? Or are you still grasping, trying to find the right balance? And are you sick to death of these types of articles? I know time management isn’t exactly mystery oriented – well, it is for me, because how I manage my time is directly proportional to the quality of my writing, but you know what I mean… : )

 Wine of the Week: 2005 Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva