Gigi Amateau was our guest on December 9, when she gave a tutorial on using a wiki (a simple online database) for organizing research. In writing her first historical YA novel, she plunged in to more research than she had done with her first three YA novels. Notebooks weren’t quite cutting it for keeping track of all the dates, places, and details of the world she was recreating: Richmond at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries.

So she turned to a wiki. Often, wikis are used for large group projects, like Wikipedia, but Gigi found it helpful to compile her very own personal online encyclopedia. She was able to include links, documents, photographs, drawings, and almost anything else she wanted to use for reference. She has even kept a log of conversations and emails between her editor and herself. When her book is published in fall 2011, she’ll provide a public version of her wiki as a resource for readers and teachers.

How do you get started creating your own wiki? We’ve included links at the end of this article for sites offering wikis. Set up categories that make sense for your own project and start entering text. Link your text to websites that explain or elaborate. Link your wiki pages to each other. Think of it as a free-form database, all custom designed for you. It’s especially useful for collaborative projects, so allow access to your editors, writing group, or work colleagues.

Links to Wiki Providers:

We have not done exhaustive research on the list below. Think of it as a starting point. Thanks to WikiMatrix for listings and comparisons.

• Wikispaces - This is the provider Gigi uses. It’s free if your wiki is public (the content will be indexed by search engines). There is a charge if you want it to be private. Multiple pricing levels.
• PBWorks – Has Basic (free), Premium and Business levels.
• Intodit – Free, but has ads
• PicoWiki – Free, specially designed for PDA and SmartPhone use. Slogan: “All your notes, wherever you are.”
• Springnote – Free. An “online notebook.”
• Zoho – Free up to 3 users.

Some of us fall into a debate with a friend over a prickly issue and walk away muttering to ourselves. Fran Hawthorne walked away with a book idea.

A chance discussion over the merits of Whole Foods Market was the genesis of The Overloaded Liberal: Shopping, Investing, Parenting and other Daily Dilemmas in  an Age of Political Activism, released earlier this year by Beacon Press. Hawthorne tackles the surprisingly complex ethical challenges faced by environmentally-aware, socially-concerned American consumers…including herself.

In fact, including herself as something of a main character in her narrative was a departure for Hawthorne, who has worked as a journalist for twenty years, and was comfortable with the third-person voice.

“It had to be a personal book, because I was living it, my friends were living it,’ Hawthorne told an audience at WriterHouse in Charlottesville last week. At the same time, it was “so scary, because you are putting so much of yourself out there.”

The Overloaded Liberal is not primarily a memoir; it’s a fact-filled account that involved conducing dozens of interviews and reading scores of books and articles. How does she get all that information in some usable form? “Oy vey,” she says via email interview, “you’re going to be sorry you asked…”

Using a technique developed over her years as a journalist, after every interview, Hawthorne types up her notes as a narrative outline complete with topics and subheadings. She does the same with articles she’s clipped and books she has read.

“Then, when I’m ready to write, I create sheets of topic pages — all this is longhand, not computer. On each sheet, there will be subheads. For instance, there might be a sheet labeled “Food,” and then then subheads “organic,” “meat,” “local,” “labels,” she says. Larger subheadings might be further broken into categories. “Then I go through all my typed notes, and basically every comment in every interview will fit into one or more of my pages.”

“Yes, doing this outline takes days and days and DAYS. But, believe me, it is a life-saver when I actually start writing.”

With about a year to write and revise a full manuscript, designing a plan of attack is critical — particularly for Hawthorne,  a full-time freelance writer for publications like the New York Times, The Scientist, and Newsday.

“You just have to push yourself. No days off. No evenings off,”she says. “For my last book, I actually set a  schedule: I would write Chapter 4 from October 14th to the 17th, Chapter 5 from October 18th to the 20th…I’ve never done that before and I hope I never will have to again.”

Her manuscripts go through three major drafts before they ever get to the publisher. After writing the first draft, she goes back through to check her facts and quotes for accuracy. Then, in the third pass, she works on style and language.

Once with the publisher, there are two or three further rounds of edits, ending with the typeset “proof” copy of the manuscript where, she says with a laugh, “they threaten you” if you change more than 10% of the material.  So far, she’s always come in under the threshold.

It’s hard work, she says, but highly rewarding. “I’m a craftsperson. I love words. I love language that sounds right, that sings and flows. Bad writing – repetitive sentence structures, paragraphs that begin with the same word over and over – make me physically cringe. So I love playing with my words to make them better, without the burden of fact-checking hovering over me.”

Asked for one piece of advice for aspiring nonfiction writers, Hawthorne notes that “information is the key. So the most important skill is the ability to get that information. And I think the key tactic there is knowing how to talk to people, how to get them to open up to you….and to keep your own mouth shut.”

Reading about the “worm” that is making its way around “old, unpatched” versions of WordPress, I imagined the segmented, legless creature making its way through my mother’s mending pile. Weaving in and out of grass-stained dungarees, bare at the knees. In and out of holes in the linen, scorched by Cora’s iron. In and out of the heels and toes of socks, waiting for the darning egg.

I have no idea how things get patched in cyberspace, but I am assuming that it does not require the likes of a thimble, needle, and thread. Disposing of the worm does not require touching the untouchable and tossing it back into the dirt outside the back door. I am guessing that patches are easier to find in cyberspace than they are in the twenty-first century shopping mall.

All of this has got me thinking about blogging. That insidious worm is blogging its way through open spaces. A wide open page invites bloggers to blog, making their way into unpatched territory because they can. Lately, I have been inundated with blogs. Some days as I make my way through numerous holes I feel as though I am an aimless Alice, having lost my way, having no idea where this wiggling and wriggling is taking me. Blogs are linked to other blogs, just as the worm finds the hole in the overalls on the other side of the linen napkin. My day is spent and the mending still awaits my attention.

WriterHouse Public Events

»NaNoPrepMo, 10-10-2009, 10-18-2009 and 10-25-2009, 2:00 PM—Come to meet the other local Wrimos (people participating in National Novel Writing Month) and get a jump on November. The rules allow outlines, character sketches, and any kind of planning that doesn’t involve actually writing your novel. Be ready to hit the ground running on November 1.

»Save these dates:

• 10-23-2009, 7:00 PM Ayn Rand Biographer Jennifer Burns

• 10-24-2009, 7:00 PM Stephen Elliott & The Adderall Diaries

• 11-07-2009, 2:30-4:30 Literary Journals: Both Sides of the Transom

More Public Event Details…

Half-Day Seminars (Registration Required)

If you’ve wanted to take a class, but can’t commit to an eight-week schedule, our Saturday Seminar Series is for you.

• 10-17-2009, 9:00 AM-1:00PM Elements of Fiction: Plot

• 10-24-2009, 9:00 AM-1:00PM Writing about Food—Turning Appetite into Art and Articles

• 11-21-2009, 9:00 AM-1:00 PM Elements of Fiction: Dialogue

• 12-5-2009, 9:00 AM-1:00 PM Spiritual Essay—Writing into the Questions