About Resources

[Before you read this post, I feel compelled to point out that I wrote it in the dead of night when insomnia grabbed hold of me. Thus it has several bits that magnify the weirder, stupider side of my sense of humor, which usually you can't tell is there.]

What’s very important to an author?
That’s right, kiddos: chocolate.

=D

…But also important are resources. Stephen King, an author who I have only recently begun reading, does a lot of research before he writes his stories, and it shows: his prose is confident and absorbing.
Dan Brown, on the other hand? Not so much. I mean, you can judge the results for yourself if you want. Or you could just trust me when I say that Dan Brown is not someone you want to go to for writing advice, unless that advice is “how not to ever, ever, ever write anything approaching a work of literature”.

So, without further asides, here’s a discussion of some things that every author needs.

One: a dictionary. Note that I did not say thesaurus. As Stephen King, whose quote I was planning to use even before I ever read anything by him and wrote him into the above paragraph, says: “Any word you have to look up in a thesaurus is wrong. There are no exceptions to this rule.”
I would like to add to this my interpretation of it, and I’d like to think that my interpretation is a pretty good one. If it’s not what he meant, screw it, because he’s used some above-average vocabulary words too.
What’s he’s saying is not “don’t use big words.” He’s saying “don’t use a word that you don’t really know how to use.” Thesauruses (also thesauri) and dictionaries rarely provide good examples of usage, and they’ve never been much for nuance. It is dictionaries that are responsible for rigid definitions—no language can be held to boundaries like that.
I’m not knocking dictionaries (I have this huge, beautiful, two-volume giant set of the OED), but I am recommending that you use them for exactly what they are: a reference. Not a source. Not a generator of prose. Merely a reference. They are what you use to check to make sure, once again, that the word you are using means what you already think it does.

Two: Some kind of nice place.
I obviously need to explain that in more detail. I mean a place where you can retreat, hide away from the world at large, and then write. Once you get used to this concept, I believe, or if you’re already extra-introverted, then you can write anywhere, because you’ll be able to conjure up that feeling of seclusion and solitude.
This is one of the rules that may not apply to a few people, but I’ve tried to word it so that it’s helpful to everyone. Let me know how I did.

Three: Books, books, books, books, books, books, literary works of magnificence, books, books, books, books, and, finally, books. And don’t forget ...Boggle. Boggle is an interesting game and it’s fun to say.* Boggle. Boggle.
That's right, you thought I was going to say "And don't forget books", didn't you? I try to avoid the obvious joke when I can. ^_^
Anyway… to get back to the dispensing of advice, books are the "drive" for a writer. You’re trying to write a book. Or, at least, something vaguely resembling one. And, of course, you want your book to be good. So it makes sense to immerse yourself in the language.** Personally, I live and breathe English. I’d try to describe to you how that happened and what exactly goes through me when I pick up a book that makes me want to cry tears of happiness, but I can’t. I can only say that it’s a mixture of excitement, awe, jubilation, reverence, and… some other stuff I don’t know the names for.
Boggle.
And don’t worry if you’re afraid of getting too inspired by a work of literature and writing something exactly like it by mistake—if you read to much Steinbeck, for instance, balance him out with something bad like Dan Brown, or James Joyce. Either one is the literary equivalent of tapir shit.
OMG HE SAID A BAD WORD. That’s right, kids… and don’t do that. If you say that word God will kill a kitten. Or maybe your mother.
Back to my point: James Joyce pretty much sucks—wait, that wasn’t my point. Whoops.
My point was that you shouldn’t be afraid to just sit back and bathe in words once in a while. Just make sure to always be listening for that little voice that says "a-ha! that's it!".

Four: A Good Ear.
Have you ever heard it said of a writer that they “have a good ear for dialogue”? No? Yes? Are you being indecisive? Splunge?
Anyway, you need to learn to write dialogue like real people talk—it’s as simple as that. Or, if you can’t write like real people talk, at least write like how people expect them to talk. ;)
Five: A Method.
Self-explanatory. Well, it’s not, really, but we’ll be covering it more sometime in the distant later.
Six: Couldn’t come up with one here if my life depended on it. Boggle.
So, yes, these turned out to perhaps not be so orderly and direct but still, I hope, helpful nonetheless. I apologize for the rambling—but then again, if my posts were straightforward, dry, and formal, then what’s stopping anyone from just ignoring me entirely?? =(
Anyway, have fun, my little literatis!
Did I make that word up? I believe I did. I hope I spelled it right.

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Notes:
* This is a perfect example of what I was talking about. In this sentence, Word suggested changing “it’s” to “its”. That would have been very, very wrong. More on that in the next post, cheerfully entitled “The Wonderful World of the Apostrophe: Now Use it Right or I’ll Blow Your F---ing Head Off” =D
**Yet another example of Word being stupid. It recommended changing “yourself” to “you”. Because that totally fits.