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One of my kids took this in Wyoming. We did not see any other elk that day.
I'm a writer living in the Washington, DC, area. My work has appeared recently in the anthology, Writes of Passage: Coming of Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review, and on NPR's "All Things Considered."
For more about me, see the Bio page.
We like the shoes.
"Mom takes a long time putting on her powders."
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September 3, 2010
Tags:
creative process, storytelling
I have the greatest admiration for storytellers; they not only have to come up with an interesting concept, write a piece, and brutally edit it, they have to know how to put themselves “out there” and present it for an audience. There’s a unique talent involved, part writing, part acting and interpreting, part showmanship. And now rising-star storyteller SM Shrake and accomplished memoirist Cathy Alter have joined forces to create a new DC group for serious storytellers, Story League.
For those who are unfamiliar, as I was, with the storytelling world and its conventions, I talked with Shrake to get an idea of how things work, and how he got involved in storytelling in the first place.
Me: What's the most important element in a story that's told, rather than written?
Shrake: Live storytelling is show business. First you need to punch the audience out… the way a good lede in a newspaper story hooks you. Then, there has to be a payoff. When your stories pay off, people start to trust you. There HAS to be a reward for listening. Our motto is “Stories Worth Telling.”
Me: Why a new organization? What’s different about Story League?
Shrake: First of all, we won’t have open mikes, only “curated” shows—selective shows. We’re going to keep the group small, and our approach is collaborative. We learn from each other. It’s like a guild.
Me: Why no open mikes or “slams”? Aren’t those really popular?
Shrake: There are two kinds of people who tell stories at open mike events: People who take it seriously as an art form, who prepare -- and people who had that unfortunate fourth cocktail… We’re looking for people who are going to take it seriously.
Me: What drew you to storytelling in the first place?
Shrake: I’ve always liked trapping people and making them listen to my stories. When I did Mortified DC, I realized that first dose of applause is intoxicating, like a drug; your first show is your best show, and you spend the rest of your career trying to recapture that. But of course you never do.
Me: I wonder if that’s why so many famous writers have been alcoholics. No applause? It seems to me that, being a writer, people can choose whether to read your stuff. Of course, they can choose not to listen to you when you tell stories, but it’s harder if you’re right there in front of them.
Shrake: Yeah, it’s great how when you’re onstage no one interrupts you.
Me: So what are your goals as a storyteller?
Shrake: I’m trying to assemble, story by story, a public persona. I want my stories to start acting as a mask I can wear.
Me: That’s really interesting. Because I would think of it as revealing yourself, but you’re calling it a mask, as if you’re constructing the fictional character, you.
Shrake: I write a lot of unpopular things. People who know me will make excuses for me, but those disturbing things are how I really feel. But I also have a soft, kind inner core. So what I mean is, I want to take all of my bad stuff, make it into entertainment, and keep it in the public realm so that I can be nice privately—offstage/offpage.
Me: What makes a good story?
Shrake: Some stories are so good, or fresh, you can’t screw them up. They tell themselves. The story of how I collected Barbra Streisand memorabilia as a 12yo is like that. I just say the plain facts, and people laugh. But the other kind of storyteller can take the most banal facts and turn them into something indelible. That’s my goal. I want to get to the level where I can make the story of how I bought a bike lock into an unforgettable ur-narrative that reveals the secrets of the universe.
SM Shrake has been a published writer for 12 years, and began telling his stories in public in February 2010. In the 6 months since then he has appeared on 6 stages in 3 cities. All things Shrake can be found at YouWannaKnowWhat.com. Story League has its first meeting in late September. If you would like to get in on the ground floor of this new organization, please send an email to smshrake@storyleague.org.
Cathy Alter's feature articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in local and national newspapers and magazines including The Washington Post, Washingtonian, The Atlantic, Self, McSweeney's, and SMITH Magazine . Her book, Virgin Territory: Stories from the Road to Womanhood was released in 2004 and her memoir, Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over was released in July 2008. She holds an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, where she is currently a faculty member and nonfiction advisor.
August 5, 2010
Tags:
books, authors, creative process, letters
I'm a latecomer to James Salter's work, having just recently read and been bowled over by his novel, A Sport and a Pastime. It was published in 1967, and I expected it to seem quaint and dated. In short, it's not. Its exploration of a love affair between an American man and a French girl is probably the best narrative of "good" sex that I've read. Because face it, most of the sex one finds in novels these days is "bad" sex. You know the difference; I don't need to explain that. And when there is good sex (particularly if it's at all explicit), it's often badly written to the point of being cringe-inducing--even by the best writers. So...I humbly suggest Salter's book as a primer for those who are preparing to attempt a scene of that kind in their own fiction.
A volume of Salter's correspondence with longtime friend Robert Phelps, Memorable Days: The Selected Letters of James Salter and Robert Phelps, edited by John McIntyre, will be out this month from Counterpoint Press. Although I don't read literary correspondence all that often, what I've seen so far of these letters has led me to believe I'm missing out. In addition to which this kind of exchange may soon become a relic.
Robert Phelps, a fiction writer, literary biographer, and writing professor, sent an adoring letter to Salter after reading A Sport and a Pastime, and so began an affair of friendship that lasted until Phelps' death. Excerpts from the letters have appeared in The American Scholar.
In their letters, the two men commiserate about everything from travel to bad reviews. (On reviewers, Salter reminds Phelps that "they are not the only readers, they are the paid readers." Something to keep in mind.)
What interests me most are their references to the creative process. Richard Ford is quoted in The American Scholar as saying that Salter "writes American sentences better than anybody writing today." In which case, it's gratifying to know that writers like Salter can have days like the rest of us:
"I'm still at work, disheartened, on the final chapter of my book...It still eludes me...Somewhere in all that boring clay is the shape I'm looking for." Later, he describes a play he's working on: "I don't know anything about it yet except there are parts I don't detest."
I think I can get on board for that, writing a passage that I don't detest.
Phelps says that if every writer has his given form..."I sometimes think mine is the footnote....I think I am an annotator. The story exists for the scribbled notes in the margin."
Salter, on the other hand, loves "the infinities, the endlessness..." He will clearly always find something new to say, or a new way of saying it. "We must consume whole worlds to write a single sentence and yet we never use up a part of what is available."
I can't help being struck by the likelihood that this type of relationship may never again be immortalized and made public this way. Unless of course you're a person who saves emails (intentionally--not just to avoid cleaning out the inbox), and (even less likely) you're corresponding with a person who writes emails that are worth saving.
For further insight and reflections on Robert Phelps, see this essay, written by Derek Alger, a long-time student of his and editor of Pif, the online literary magazine.
August 2, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
It's not often that one has a chance to witness the moment where a neurosis is likely to be born. I wish I hadn't overheard this, but I did, in the ladies' room at the good Greek breakfast joint.
In the stall, mother talking to 3-year-old son. (I know he's 3, I don't even have to see him.)--
Mother: Want to go to Target next? And get a new backpack for school?
Boy: I don't want Thomas.
Mother: Thomas the Tank Engine? You don't have to get Thomas. We can find another character...
Boy: I want Dora.
Mother: Dora the Explorer?
Boy: Yes. I want Dora.
Mother: Dora's a girl. That's for girls. We'll find something good for you.
Boy: I want Dora.
Mother: Silly, Dora's for girls.
Boy: I'm a girl.
Mother: No [laughs], your sister's a girl. You're a boy. You can have Diego. Dora's for girls.
Boy: I want Dora the Explorer.
Mother: [exasperated sigh] Well, let's tell everyone in the bathroom about it...
Me: [writing it all down...]
Note to the mother: I hope you're setting aside money for the therapy fund along with the college fund.
July 25, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
From Graham Greene's novel, The End of the Affair:
So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days. One may be preoccupied with shopping and income tax returns and chance conversations, but the stream of the unconscious continues to flow undisturbed, solving problems, planning ahead: one sits down sterile and dispirited at the desk, and suddenly the words come as though from the air: the situations that seemed blocked in a hopeless impasse move forward: the work has been done while one slept or shopped or talked with friends.
Greene's narrator complains that he's having trouble with his book, in spite of writing 500 words per day (just as the author reportedly did), because he's preoccupied with thoughts that go "deeper than the book"--his unconscious is at work on a different obsession.
Certainly many of us have experienced this--that the day can be filled with mundane tasks having little to do with writing, which would seem to take one away from a focus on the work, and yet because those ordinary activities require little creative energy, they can serve as indifferent fuel to the unconscious. So your mind continues to work independently, crafting solutions to your creative problems at the same time you take out the trash. That is, I suppose, as long as you don't become obsessed with the deeper meanings to be found in the things you throw away.
Now that a fast and furious storm has left me with two trees sitting on the power lines in my front yard, as well as a broken driveway, I'm counting on my subconscious to continue working on my novel, while my conscious mind is taking estimates from the tree people... I must admit that I would welcome Greene's list of superficial distractions over sitting on hold with the insurance company any day.
July 21, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
According to the Authors Guild Bulletin, Plato rewrote the first sentence of The Republic 50 times.
Here's the first sentence of The Republic, as published:
I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston, to pray to the goddess; and, at the same time, I wanted to observe how they would put on the festival, since they were now holding it for the first time.
Now don't tell me that doesn't draw you in. I couldn't help wondering what that opening looked like 50 rewrites ago.
I know, I know. This is probably a ridiculous example of what I'm getting at. Someone is certainly going to explain the meaning of this passage and provide all the reasons why this is actually a perfect opening for the book. It telegraphs meaning, and it hints at things to come. But it's a long way from there, stylistically at least, to "Call me Ishmael." Let's just admit that right now.
Anyway, this got me thinking about openings, not just first sentences, but opening pages. If you're like me, you rewrite the opening of your story or your book at least 50 times, until it is absolutely the best dang thing you've ever written.
And then you toss it.
Because odds are, if it needed that much work, it was wrong wrong wrong from the start, and you need to go somewhere else with it entirely. Meaning Brand New approach. Not just different words.
But how and when do you make this determination? I mentioned Richard Peabody's approach before--he routinely cuts the first 3-5 pages of work he's critiquing for others, and he's usually right. Because one part of knowing how to begin the story is knowing that before you find what it's about, you're likely to put too much down on the page. Especially if you're less experienced, but even sometimes if you're not...You're going to be tempted to take the reader for a walk down the street, past the cracks in the sidewalk, the sprinklers that come on even when it's raining, the ugly Airstream in the neighbor's driveway, the misshapen hedge of Japanese holly, all before you get to the house where the important conflict will occur between the mother whose letters have revealed a secret life and her daughter who based her whole life on what she thought she knew about her mother. Most of that early stuff turns out to be wallpaper. Wallpaper that should be stripped to find what's underneath. Otherwise, someone better get pushed into the holly hedge and escape in the Airstream before too long. It can be very tempting to look at those early pages with a sort of love bred from familiarity, to keep going over them and over them, in case it's really just the words that are not quite right.
But no, it's not the words, it's the whole thing. If it takes that much going over, it's time to start over, in my opinion.
I like the way the novelist Benjamin Percy describes the revision process in a recent issue of Poets & Writers:
"So much of revision...is about coming to terms with that word: gone. Letting things go."
He goes on to describe what happens in terms that remind me of early medicine in the days of leeches: "...the professional writer mercilessly lops off limbs, rips out innards like party streamers, drains away gallons of blood, and then calls down the lightning to bring the body back to life."
And as everyone knows, when the body is brought to life again, it's irrevocably changed.
July 6, 2010
Tags:
conferences, creative process, awards
From the press release:
The American Independent Writing Prizes for 2010 were awarded at the June 12 annual conference in Washington, DC, to Mary Collins, Heather Lynne Davis, Herta Feely, Peter Galuszka and Paula Whyman. The annual competition is open to all AIW members and recognizes outstanding freelance work.
Whyman won the short fiction prize for "Statute of Limitations” [March/April 2009, Bethesda Magazine], which skillfully explores the “tension between surrendering to self-interest and taking responsibility for the life [people] have created,” the judges said.
More specifically, this story is about bad parenting, bad drugs, and bad sex. And I'm grateful to Bethesda Magazine's fiction editor, Susan Coll, and publisher, Steve Hull, not only for publishing fiction in the magazine in the first place, but also for taking a risk with the magazine's content. Bethesda Magazine may very well be the only regional glossy that puts short fiction in every issue.
July 1, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process, art
I'm chatting with award-winning artist Tim Guthrie, over at Stephen Elliot's website, The Rumpus.net, as part of the new Mini-Interview Project. Check it out!
Tim does such a range of work, from subersive political installations to traditional Old Master style paintings, I could do ten interviews with him and not scratch the surface. I've mentioned his work before here.
June 28, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
I've been thinking about heat. If you live in the DC area, you will know why. For those of you who don't, be glad, for now. Today is the 10th day in a row with 90+ degree heat, and there have been a total of 17 such days in June so far. This is the kind of summer, already, that turns into one in which people talk about only one thing. The upside of that is they stop talking about politics for five minutes. All right, maybe three minutes.
Yesterday, my dashboard thermometer hit 101. Arizona: You think you're tough? You and your "dry heat." You haven't experienced true torture until you've stood on an asphalt parking lot in broad daylight in the DC suburbs with 90+ degree temps and 75% humidity pressing you into the pavement. It's like being sat on by a Sumo wrestler. Not that I know what's that like.
The novel I'm working on is set in the summer of 1980, when there was another severe heat wave in the DC area. I was trying not long ago to remember the feeling of day after day of meteorological oppression. Before computerized forecasts gave us some indication of when relief might come, the days could stretch on indefinitely like the big sticky vinyl seat in my dad's Pontiac. Now, at least, we have some idea what the future will bring (I can hold out until Thursday, I think). Heat like this changes things. It can change history in the big picture, but what I'm interested in is how it changes history on an individual level. If heat is a character, its goal is to break you. It seems worth asking: Which alliances shift, which decisions are ill-considered, which relationships fail, which disagreements takes a violent turn, when even the people who never seem to sweat are sweating?
June 25, 2010
Tags:
books, fiction, creative process
I just finished reading Scott Turow's New York Times review of Mr. Peanut, the new book by first-time novelist Alex Ross. The book sounds marvelous, exactly the sort of story I'd enjoy reading. It's about three faulty, possibly deadly marriages, and includes a character based on the real-life Sam Sheppard, who was accused (and then acquitted) in the murder of his wife. All three husbands portrayed here consider killing their wives. Which made me want to ask my husband a few questions. Anyway, the plot is complex, the story multilayered, and Turow describes it as "daring, arresting" and praises its "audacious and moving honesty." So far so good; it sounds brilliant, and I can't wait to read it.
And then Turow interrupts himself midstream to congratulate Ross on tackling such a forbidding topic: Marriage.
Really?
Turow tells us that back when he was in writing school, Richard P. Scowcroft, then Director of Stanford's Creative Writing Center,
"told those of us in the advanced fiction seminar that the one subject he had always feared writing a novel about was marriage, because it still seemed to him the most complex and frequently unfathomable of human relationships, notwithstanding his own long and successful marriage. Scowcroft’s remark is a testimonial to Ross’s bravery. In many ways it would have taken less courage to present a sympathetic portrait of Osama bin Laden than it did to write this novel, which flouts the treasured conceptions of love and marriage many of us depend on to make it through the day."
Wow. Did I read that correctly? Less brave to write a sympathetic portrait of an international terrorist than to write a deep and accurate portrait of marriage? Flouting treasured conceptions? Maybe it depends on who's doing the flouting.
If all novelists did was reinforce conventional wisdom, I suppose that would be pretty dull stuff. So, is that what most novelists who write about marriage are doing?
My complaint about Turow's review has nothing to do with what sounds to me like an intriguing book that I'd love to read. It's about Turow's puzzling assertion.
Normally, when one writes about marriage--attempting to get to the meat of it and portray, deconstruct, analyze, explore, whatever--well, such books are not often called out for their brave importance, are they? The authors are not usually lauded as fearlessly confronting this awesome yet central human territory. And yet, there are so many that do it. I'll leave their mention to others. (Yes, I'm being lazy, but this is my blog... so I'll just say that the first one that came to mind was Nadine Gordimer's None to Accompany Me, and the second was Paula Fox'a Desperate Characters.)
I'm led to wonder--I just wonder...whether the topic of marriage is suddenly deemed such a difficult and brave one to tackle because a man finally decided to write about it.
Those of you who know me will know that I'm not given to knee-jerk feminism, and usually I pay little attention to these kinds of inequities. That's because I'm not interested in keeping score or evening out a playing field just for the sake of it. And frankly, I want some help changing that flat tire. But this strikes me as all too rich. Our little novels of domesticity written by women are considered a dime a dozen, but as soon as a man tackles the subject, whoa, what courage!
One would think that women rarely produce myth-busting examinations of marriage, and only the husbands lie in bed at night dreaming of murder.
June 18, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
This morning I got on the elevator in the parking garage, and there was a man in there holding a briefcase. His back was toward me and the door, and he was looking out the window (there's a street-side window). His body was rigid, and he was completely still. It seemed like he wasn't breathing. He stayed precisely that way when the doors closed and the elevator started to move down (we were almost on the top floor). I glanced at his profile and wondered what he was thinking about, his eyes not moving even to acknowledge the passing of treetops and streetlights and roofs and office windows. He seemed instead to be staring at a fixed point inside his head. I wanted to know what happened in his house before he left for work. What phone call came that preoccupied him? Whose birthday did he forget? What earth-shattering decision had he made over breakfast? When we reached ground, and the door opened, I was almost afraid to see him from the front, like that scene in Psycho where you find out who's sitting in the chair. When he turned to go, his face was expressionless, but in a way that held intent, like his stance. I couldn't escape the impression of something being kept in check. He got off the elevator first (polite, too, ay?), and I watched him walk past my building, his movements perfectly balanced and controlled, his eyes still fixed straight ahead, determined. To do what? I noticed his briefcase was open. I was dying to know what was inside.
The elevator is a great place to find stories. The problem is having time for all of them.
June 4, 2010
Tags:
conferences, creative process
The American Independent Writers' annual conference is fast approaching. This year's theme is "New Realities: The (R)evolution of Writing and Publishing." The conference takes place on June 12 at GWU's Cafritz Center.
I'll be moderating a panel that afternoon called "Where to Start and When to Stop: The Art of Judging Your Own Work." Panelists are Danielle Evans, David Taylor, and Mary Kay Zuravleff. Please come by!
The conference will include:
More than a dozen panels, from technology for writers, to research tips for your next book or article, to breaking into magazine writing.
Seventeen literary agents serving on roundtables and panels, meeting one-on-one with conference attendees, and even getting there at the crack of dawn for an Agent Breakfast with YOU (assuming that YOU sign up in time!).
Forty-five speakers and presenters, including plenary speaker, Writer’s Digest Books Editor Chuck Sambuchino; and keynote speaker, Jill McCorkle, novelist and North Carolina State University creative writing MFA professor.
Here, you'll find more information, including a complete list of panels and agents, and info on how to register.
See you there!
June 1, 2010
Tags:
visual artists, creative process
I met Tim Kellner at VCCA in 2008, when he was a visiting Fellow from Germany. He was working on a series of black & white photos as well as some videos. He asked me to pose for him (okay, okay, get your mind out of the gutter--this is ART!), and he subsequently used some of what he worked on at VCCA in exhibits back in Germany and elsewhere. So, I just learned that he has received a big award, the Art Prize of the City of Rostock. The feature photo in the exhibit announcement, shown in the link, is called, "Paula Shoots Me." He combined a photo he shot of me taking a pic of something else with a different photo taken of himself.
Below is another photo Kellner took during that residency. The sign in the background is one I put up on the wall in my studio. I was writing from the point-of-view of a sociopathic killer, and reading the sign now and then helped remind me of the character's mindset. It says, "What if you never had to care?"
May 25, 2010
Tags:
writing, creative process
Are you looking for a great opportunity to refine your novel manuscript? You're in luck: Richard Peabody, the incisive and insightful writing instructor, DC literary rainmaker, editor of Gargoyle Magazine and more...is about to reprise his novel workshop, and if you act quickly, you can get one of the few coveted slots.
I first met Richard when I was a student in a short story class he was teaching at The Writer's Center--back when the Center was located above a lamp store on Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda (the Center now has its own building on Walsh St.). One hallmark of Peabody's editing style that I noticed at the time was his penchant for cutting the first 3-5 pages of almost every story, and proclaiming "This story starts HERE," at which point he would mark a paragraph on page 8.
And the thing about it was, he was right.
For those of you who have a deep-seated fear that you started your story, or your book, in the wrong place, well, you probably did. Point is, Richard Peabody taught me a lot about writing and creative judgment. And little did I know that years later, he would even put one of my stories in an anthology.
Peabody's novel class is one of the few--perhaps the only one I've heard of--in which each student's entire novel gets read and commented on. If you're not sure which way to go with your book, if you're stuck trying to figure out how to fix it, polish it, shape it, or teach it to ride a unicycle--Richard Peabody can help.
Richard says he teaches this class because he's learned from hands-on experience that a complete reading and critique of your novel is absolutely the best way to go. The class meets every two weeks to allow time to complete critiques, and students get handwritten notes from each other and from Richard. Students recommend cuts, improvements, make suggestions, and mark the manuscripts up at will.
For more detailed information, dates, cost, etc., please contact Richard Peabody directly at gargoyle at gargoylemagazine dot com.
(So, Richard, did I start this post in the right place...?)
April 21, 2010
Tags:
random curiosities, creative process
This week we encounter the school holiday known as "Take Your Son or Daughter to Work Day." My son was told that "not much would be happening" at school, if students want to stay home. I'm sure they meant the kids should take the day off in order to do some "experiential learning" with their parents.
I told my son that if he likes, he can come to work with me. Of course, he does not actually want to do this. His concept of coming to work with me will include ten minutes of chatting about what it's like to be a writer, and four hours spent playing Civilization: Beyond the Sword.
However, I told him that if he comes to work with me, he will experience "experiential learning," once we figure out what that is. Meaning, I will give him actual work-related duties.
Like what? he wanted to know.
Like, I told him, he can start by taking out the trash.
He did not love that idea. He wondered how it relates to writing a story. I told him that the multiple drafts of the story I'm writing are creating a greater need for recycling.
So then he said he will take out the trash if we can go to the movies after. And I told him that I have to do actual work on Take Your Child to Work Day. That's sort of the point.
And then he asked me the question every writer dreads hearing from their child:
He asked how much I'm getting paid.
I said, I don't know.
Why don't you know? he wondered.
Because I don't know where this story will be published yet, I told him.
Then you're working for nothing? he asked.
Not exactly, I said. Not precisely. I mean, there are things I get paid for, just not necessarily this particular thing. So, I suppose when you consider that I'm not certain, you could say that...
Yes, I'm working for nothing on this particular project, I told him.
So the work you're doing on Take Your Son or Daughter to Work Day is not going to make any money? he asked.
Not necessarily, I said.
His face lit up:
I can get community service hours for going to work with you!
I stared at him sternly, formulating a values-training monologue in my head.
And I said,
Yes.
Yes you can.
February 19, 2010
Tags:
creative process, random curiosities
I've been called for jury duty. They say they expect me to be unbiased. Hahahaha!
Oh, wait; I think they were serious....
Anyway, this has me thinking. The courtroom is a place full of stories. Everyone there presents his own version of the truth. The "winner" can be the one who tells the best story, the story that sounds the most like the truth to the most people.
Does a fiction writer make a good juror? Or will we just "vote" for the best story? Will I be distracted by story flaws, the primary one in this situation, perhaps, being whether I believe this character would behave a particular way in the given situation?
The last time I was called for jury duty, I was sent to a courtroom for a criminal trial, but I was dismissed during voir dire. It was the trial of a young man who was accused of robbing a church, selling drugs, and possessing firearms. He looked, in my opinion, very comfortable in the courtroom, as if he'd been there many, many times before. This was of course not information that was shared with us. Regardless, I was sure he was guilty before anyone said a word. Oddly enough, it was the prosecutor who dismissed me.
But this is what writers do, isn't it? I see someone on the bus, and I make up a story in my head about who she is, where she's going, and why. I guess what she does for a living and what she was like in high school. I guess whether she's married and, if so, how it's going. Am I ever right about any of these speculations? I'll probably never know. But I bet I can write a convincing character sketch. Is there a situation in which I won't have an opinion? Unlikely. Does that make me biased, in the legal sense? I suppose that depends on whether I'm willing to change my mind.
Curious Spouse may have something to say about that...
February 18, 2010
Tags:
books, creative process
In an interview with David Wilk on WritersCast.com, Kermit Moyer discusses his new novel, The Chester Chronicles, which I also talked about here. Wilk points out that the linked stories in Moyer's book are autobiographical, and Moyer explains why he chose not to simply write a memoir:
"I decided the best way to tell the truth about myself was to write fiction." That way, says Moyer, he can truly express an emotion that's real, even if the events built around it are made up.
Wilk adds that it's less important for the reader to know which parts of the story are fiction and which are real than it is for him or her to feel a connection with the character. Wilk says he felt this connection with the narrator of The Chester Chronicles, and he compares the book to A Separate Peace by John Knowles.
You can listen to the complete interview here.
January 25, 2010
Tags:
books, creative process
Virginia Woolf is one of my favorite writers of all time. Notice I didn't say "woman" writers... just "writers." I don't make the distinction, and it annoys me whenever I see it.* As if we aren't all humans writing about humans (or humans writing about dogs). But never mind that, for now. I'm curiously cranky today, it being Monday, and it raining when I wanted to run, and there being no school for the second Monday in a row...etc.
In the essay, "A Sketch of the Past," Woolf considers the problem of writing about what she calls "non-being" as opposed to "being":
Often when I have been writing one of my so-called novels I have been baffled by...how to describe what I call..."non-being." Every day includes much more non-being than being....A great part of every day is not lived consciously. One walks, eats, sees things, deals with what has to be done; the broken vacuum cleaner; ordering dinner; writing orders to Mabel; washing; cooking dinner; bookbinding. When it is a bad day the proportion of non-being is much larger.
Although I'm grateful not to have "bookbinding" as one of my concerns, I wonder what Virginia Woolf would have done with the internet and social media to contend with. Probably she would've left them alone. If time spent on Twitter is not "non-being," I don't know what is.
Woolf has her (well-documented) moments of severe self-doubt: "The real novelist can somehow convey both sorts of being...I have never been able to do both." She names Jane Austen as a fine example of one who can. But in my opinion one of the qualities that defines Woolf is that she writes primarily about these crystallizing moments and leaves the rest to others. Yet she didn't see herself as a "real" novelist. And I don't think she only meant that in the stylistic sense.
I've always thought I had the opposite problem: How to eliminate the "non-being" and cut to what's most critical, what's most deeply felt in a piece of work. Sometimes it means I cut ten pages and keep one. For the sake of verisimilitude, maybe we include both kinds of moments. But by its inclusion, each one becomes meaningful, doesn't it? If it's not, we take it out, right? Or if we don't, we should. So, do we create these moments of "being" by giving them weight?
It leads me to wonder, though, how much "being" can one person handle? Isn't it potentially overwhelming to be hyper-aware? Still, we could all probably do a little more of it. So, in honor of Woolf's birthday, I'm going to try for a day more of "being" than of "non-being," both in work and outside of it.
I'll keep you posted...
on Facebook...and Twitter...
*If only it were so simple, saying "writer" vs. "woman writer" and making it so... This leaves aside what also annoys me--the small number of writers who happen to be women who get nominated for and win awards... And yet, see the Book Critics Circle Award nominees--we are guardedly pleased.
January 19, 2010
Tags:
art, creative process
The talented artist, and friend, Craig Cahoon, has artwork on display right now at The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery on U St. in DC, as part of a show called Traces. The show is a tribute to the memory of Jutta Phillipi Eigen, a longtime DC resident, composer, pianist, and physician who died of cancer in 2002. Traces includes work by artists Elise Wiarda (the curator), Daniel Brush, Renee Butler, Yvonne Pickering Carter, Joan Danziger, Sam Gilliam, Kitty Klaidman, Dale Loy, and Jean Meisel.
Craig is pictured below with Nebel 1, 2009, which he completed at the VCCA, with assistance from the Cafritz Foundation.
A photograph like this really isn't an adequate way to view this work. The paintings have a luminescent quality that's visually arresting in person.
All the art is for sale. The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery is a nonprofit gallery associated wtih the Smith Farm Center, an organization that provides therapeutic residential retreats for cancer patients.
The Gallery is open Wed-Friday 11-5, Sat, 11-3, and by appointment, 202.483.8600, and is located at 1632 U Street NW. The show runs through Jan. 30.
December 27, 2009
Tags:
creative process, art
For the next ten days or so, my friend Tim Guthrie, the mixed-media artist, will post phases of his work on his blog, ArtsyFartsyTim, for your viewing pleasure.
As the mixed-media name implies, Tim covers a lot of ground, both personal and universal, including video, shrines, portraits, and large-scale projects that have a political edge, like mapping of nuclear test sites. The project he's posting on his blog now is from a series of portraits called "Extraordinary Rendition." It's been up for a few days, so you may need to scroll down to see the first few stages.
Here's a shot of Tim with one of the finished drawings in the series, appearing at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha last year. So you can see the scale.
See the rest at ArtsyFartsyTim.
And don't forget to try the nifty Baconize function! Especially useful if you missed breakfast.
December 20, 2009
Tags:
creative process, books
I have on my shelf one of my favorite childhood books about snow, The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. This was my brother's book. I know it was his because, on the inside cover, there's an inscription from one of his teachers: "Happy reading, Mrs. George, 1978." This copy of the book is from 1962. The price on the cover is listed as 75 cents. It seems that Mrs. George was kind enough to give my brother her own copy of the book.
And I stole it.
I'm not sure when, or why (except that this was one of my duties as the persecuting older sibling), but that's what I did. And anyway, that's another story.
The Snowy Day begins:
One winter morning, Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.
My favorite part of the story is where the boy puts a snowball in his pocket "for tomorrow." Then he goes into his house and forgets about it. Meanwhile, he reflects on the day and stores his memories of all his snowy adventures much more effectively than the snowball. When he looks for the snowball later, of course, it's gone.
I was working on a new chapter of my book the day before it snowed here. When I started it, I had no idea where it was going or how it would fit in with the rest of the story. In fact, I'm not sure I know yet where the rest of the story is going. But the weatherman was saying it was going to snow a lot, and I had to stop working and go home without figuring it all out. Although I like to stop work for the day with a question unanswered, a place to get started the next time, stopping at that point was more than a little frustrating.
But I had no choice, so I shut down the computer and put the chapter away, and while I shoveled the driveway the next day, twice, and pulled the sled up the hill, and baked the cookies, and made the hot chocolate, I thought and thought and thought about it. I played out the events of the draft chapter in my mind, daydreaming about the various directions things could take.
In The Snowy Day, Peter dreams that while he's asleep the sun comes out and melts all the snow. But when he wakes up the next day, the snow is really still there, and he goes out to play in it. But even if the sun had melted the snow away, the adventures he had would stay with him.
When I woke up this morning, and shoveled the driveway again, all I could think about at first was how much my back hurt, and how sore my muscles were, and how all I wanted to do was get in a tub of hot water with bath salts and maybe watch something from Netflix. While I was imagining what that would feel like, when I had almost completely stopped thinking about my book, I had an idea for a place to go with my chapter, for a way that it can fit into the story, and for a way of approaching the book as a whole. Even if the sun melts the snow tomorrow (which I hope it will!), the idea will stay with me.
But just to make sure, I didn't try to hold it in my head where it could melt away like a snowball in a coat pocket.
I wrote it down.
November 23, 2009
Tags:
creative process, books
Friday night, Stephen Elliott read from his new memoir, The Adderall Diaries, at Teaism in Washington, DC, for an appreciative audience that included a number of other writers and artists. He talked at length about the process of writing memoir, and one point that really struck me was when he warned that if you're going to write about something real, you can't go halfway. It doesn't work. The reader will always know when you're faking it or pulling back from a tough subject.
So here's a note to all my relatives: It's too late! I know everything.
Below, some pics from the event. Unfortunately, the weird light on the wall threw off my flash, which may explain the demon eyes...
 
 
This was a great way for readers to get quality time with an author, minus the barrier of the bookstore gatekeepers. (No offense intended to the bookstore gatekeepers, of course.) Someone suggested we do a series of these events. I'd be up for that.
Here, also, is a link to Leslie Pietrzyk's Work in Progress blog, in which she describes Stephen Elliott's talk at Teaism, specifically his advice to writers about how to do the delicate work of letting people know they're characters in your book, among other pertinent issues.
And, here's a link to MoCoScene, a blog by journalist Karen Watkins who was newly exposed to Stephen Elliott's work through this event and had an intense response to it. I love the idea of bringing a talented writer's work to the attention of new people; it's very gratifying when that happens.
November 4, 2009
Tags:
colony, creative process
I wish I were able to take better photos. (I also wish I could get some of the photos to appear in a position other than flush left...)
I haven't done justice to the work of these artists, but at least I can give an idea of what their projects are like. One of the great things about being at VCCA is the opportunity to be inspired by the work of such diverse talents.
Tanja Softic
Becky Slemmons
Miriam Morsel Nathan
Julia Bloom
Sara Klar
November 2, 2009
Tags:
creative process
From an artist's studio at VCCA:
"Move your a**. Your mind will follow."
Words to live by.
October 29, 2009
Tags:
colony, creative process, shoes
Boot'vil is a well-kept secret. Even though this is my third residency at VCCA, it's the first I'd heard of the go-to place for cowboy boots and hats in nearby Ruckersville, Va. I'm still trying to figure out what the apostrophe is for, but the boot selection was so impressive, I'm willing to let it go.
Ever since squeezing my big feet into my grandmother's old buckskin Dingos, and suffering in silence because I liked them so much, I've had my heart set on a pair of my own genuine boots that fit properly. Well, it only took me thirty years to get them.
The proprietor said, "These'll be good for riding." And I said, "Sure thing." I didn't have the heart to tell her I ride English saddle.
I tried a few pairs, but the consensus among shoppers and employees was that these were The Ones. They're made by Lucchese, but Boot'vil stocks Tony Lama, too.
When I asked about protecting the boots from damage, she said, "You're not going to wear these in the barn, are you?"
I said, "No, I promise I won't." But I sure as heck'll wear them on Bethesda Avenue.
October 26, 2009
Tags:
colony, creative process
Sculpture by David Garratt, artist-in-residence at VCCA, is on exhibit at the Babcock Gallery at Sweet Briar College through December 6.
David sculpts the clay by hand, using no molds and no preliminary sketches. In doing so, he captures "fleeting moments" and imagines the inner lives of his subjects.
October 23, 2009
Tags:
colony, creative process
 Craig Cahoon, visual artist
 Mary McDonnell,
visual artist
 Heiner Riepl, visual artist and director, Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus
 Mu-Xuan Lin, composer
 Reinhard Michl, visual artist
October 20, 2009
Tags:
colony, creative process
This past Saturday evening, we helped celebrate the 20th anniversary of a fellowship program between the VCCA in Amherst, VA, and the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, located in the Bavarian village of Schwandorf. During the past 20 years, one hundred artists have traveled back and forth between the two colonies, inspiring exhibitions, translations, concerts, events and other creative collaborations.*
On Oct. 17, 2009, the VCCA marked the occasion with art and music created by the exchange artists. The event included a retrospective art exhibition and a concert of music for piano by Bavarian composer Jens Barnieck.
The VCCA's international exchange program with seven artists' communities abroad is the oldest and largest of its kind in the country.
This event helped to emphasize not just the value of international collaboration, but also the expansive creative value of a community made up not solely of writers, composers, or visual artists, but of artists from all of these disciplines. I can personally attest, for instance, that Mr. Barnieck is not only an impressive musician; he is also a formidable player of ex libris (a card game), and fooled almost all of us on the last line of a Daphne du Maurier novel. The director of the Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus, Heiner Reipl, a painter, spent part of an evening discussing Petrarch's sonnets with a few of us fiction writers. For my part, I was able to add value to the cultural exchange by introducing our German guests to American Twizzlers. I'm afraid they were not particularly impressed.
I've included the Petrarch sonnet we were discussing, which Mr. Reipl interpreted as an order to writers to write of their experiences, and to do so out of love of writing. I'm just about the worst at interpreting poetry, and I can't remember the last time I read Petrarch, but if the translation is true (and I'm no judge of that, either) the speaker in the poem also appears to be urging the reader/writer to write specifically about his experiences with love. The question is, does one interpret the order to write, as supplied by "love" in the first line of the sonnet, as a love of writing, or as love, in general, saying "write about what you've seen of me." I'd be curious to hear from someone who knows the answer! (My apologies for the lack of accents in the first line, which I've included in Italian.)
Petrarch's Sonnet XCIII
Piu volte Amor m'avea gia detto:--Scrivi
Love had already often told me: --Write,
Write what you saw in clear letters of gold,
How my disciples' color I make white
And in one moment warm with life and cold.
There was a time when in yourself you felt
My strength, and were a sample of my choirs;
Then you were flattered by other desires,
But I overtook you when you rebelled.
And if the eyes where I showed you my spell
And where I used to settle and to fly
When I shattered the hardness of your soul,
Return to me the bow that conquers all,
Perhaps your face will not always be dry;
for I feed on your tears, you know it well.--
translated by Anna Maria Armi
[*Note: Part of the description of this event was reprinted from the VCCA blog.]
October 12, 2009
Tags:
vcca, creative process, writing
"It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table." Johannes Brahms said that.
Soon, I'm off to a colony, where I plan to make progress on a novel and finish off a story or two. I hope I succeed in leaving out the "superfluous notes." But when one is in the midst, it can be hard to tell.
I'll be blogging, tweeting, status-updating, and the rest (but not too often!), from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA), where I've been accepted for my third fellowship (yay!).
According to the program notes for the National Symphony performance the other night, Brahms also said, "I am rather lazy, but once begun I never cool down over a work until it is perfected, unassailable."
"Unassailable" is hard to enforce. And "perfected" is subjective. "Perfected" in this case is both in the eye of the artist, and, if it leads to "unassailable," in the eye of the observer. When do these ever agree on what constitutes perfection? And the idea of it can change. What writer, having once seen her work as satisfactory (forget perfect), doesn't read it again years later with pangs of regret (oh, is it just me??)? Who doesn't want to comb a project over and over obsessively until it's nearly bald from the attention? Leaving well enough alone may be as much a challenge. When is it well enough, after all? Only when the superfluous notes are shed, and those that are left ring true.
I think I should leave the music metaphors alone.
And what if you as the artist fill both roles--the perfectionist and the assailant? Which of course, many of us do.
Then you're really stuck, aren't you?
July 30, 2009
Tags:
writing, creative process
What do you do with leftover story ideas? You know, the ones you've either tried in good faith and discarded, or kept around for ages but never had a strong enough urge to pursue?
In my son's school lunchroom, there's a table where kids can put any food that comes in their lunches that they don't want. The idea is that another kid might really want those tater tots, and if it's on the Table of Unwanted Foods, other kids can help themselves. Usually, the table is full of whole oranges. (In their great wisdom, the folks who plan school lunch menus decided that a whole orange is an accessible and desirable fruit. But anyone who has an 8-year-old child knows what happens when you give him a whole orange, and it has nothing to do with eating.) Every now and then, however, tater tots, bags of chips, or even an untouched cookie will appear on the table for the lucky kid who's there first to grab it.
What if we did something like that with our discarded story ideas? Don't throw them out; someone else might be able to use them. I know, writing is a very personal thing, and the writer needs to find a connection with a story in order to make it work. But who's to say that you won't make a connection with something that's languishing on the Table of Discarded Ideas?
Just today, a friend suggested that an entertaining novel could be written based on misinformation found in Wikipedia, and I said, the novel should be written as a collection of Wikipedia entries. In fact, it should be an e-book with clickable links, hypertext, etc. I thought about it for another minute or two. What an intriguing idea, if it hasn't already been done! I began to imagine the various angles to approach it, the different stories that might work well in that format, and the idea seemed very appealing. Until it occurred to me that this was a great story idea I would probably never write, or I'd spend the first 50 pages being jazzed about it and then realize that it just wasn't my thing. So then I thought, well, someone should write it...
Along those same lines, I had an idea a while back for a poem constructed entirely of Facebook status updates. I started collecting provocative and irreverent updates with the idea of using them in this poem. Finally, I read through what I'd collected and said to myself, You know what? You are not a poet, and this is not going to work!
So, there you go; I've put two ideas on the table. Please help yourself while they're still warm.
June 25, 2009
Tags:
creative process, writing
The latest Authors Guild Bulletin contains seemingly contradictory statements about the creative process by two well-known writers.
Ian McEwan, author of Atonement and Amsterdam, insists that "one thing that's missing from the discussion of literature in the academy is the pleasure principle. Not only the pleasure of the reader but also of the writer. Writing is a self-pleasuring act."
I'll leave that alone for a moment in order to quote Roald Dahl, from the same issue of the Bulletin:
"It happens to be a fact that nearly every fiction writer in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope, and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom."
So, which is it?
Mr. McEwan appears to take a great deal more pleasure in his work than most writers I know do in theirs. If this is the case, I'm eager to learn more about his process. But I can't help wondering if both Mr. McEwan's self-pleasure and Mr. Dahl's absolute freedom could be illusions brought on by the whisky...
March 20, 2009
Tags:
writing, creative process
See these helpful tools for working on a novel-in-progress from writer/blogging maven C.M. Mayo. I especially like number 8, using a corkboard to post sections of your work. When I was at VCCA my whole wall was a corkboard, and at one point, I had a hundred pages up there. It was a great way to see how everything flowed and what needed to move where.
While you're at it, scroll down the same page and check out Mayo's previous posts on books on craft and creating, and cures for writer's block.
Going down the ten tools list, I can figure out what I have and what I still need. Let's see, I've got paper clips, tabbed folders, post-its, manuscript box... So I'm done, right?
Wait, you mean now I have to WRITE something?
March 11, 2009
Tags:
creative process
Some of you may have heard me wax rhapsodic about the amazingly huge and ugly blue corduroy recliner that was in my studio at VCCA. I spent many productive hours in the cozy chair, editing and reading my revisions. I did not, however, take naps in the chair. I swear. Not once. Ever.
Anyway, I really missed having a chair like that in my home office. As luck would have it, for my birthday, my husband decided/was persuaded that I should get a recliner for my office. I'm sure he thought I'd choose something a little more aesthetically appealing. But, for whatever reason, the most comfortable chair I found in the Lazy-Boy showroom was covered not in stylish leather, but in...blue corduroy. (Was there ever a doubt?)
I'll post a photo when it arrives. I think I'd only be more excited if we were getting a dog.
February 4, 2009
Tags:
creative process
"The two hardest things about writing are starting and not stopping."
from Stewart O'Nan, quoted this morning by Garrison Keillor
December 1, 2008
Tags:
baking for writers, creative process
Writing took a back seat to other creative outlets last week as Curiouswriter did holiday preparations, featuring the dreaded pie crust production which, this year became the Pie Crust Debacle. Okay, maybe it wasn't as bad as all that, but I've been making the pie crust for a few years now, and it's just (more…)
June 24, 2008
Tags:
creative process
Four women writers went to the movies last night and saw Sex and the City. (What, you think we only go to readings?)
In the scene where Carrie sits down at the computer and stares at the screen where she has typed
Love.
and she pauses and then adds an ellipsis:
Love...
pauses again, then backspaces out the ellipsis:
Love.
Why were we the only ones who laughed...?
(more…)
June 6, 2008
Tags:
creative process
On Writer's Almanac this morning, Garrison Keillor quoted Thomas Mann:
"A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
May 28, 2008
Tags:
baking for writers, contests, frogs and crickets, creative process
In pursuit of the creative spark, some of you clean, some of you organize, and some, ahem, plagiarize. But one artist confided that when he wants to look at the world through a new lens, he changes his shoes...to the wrong feet.
(more…)
April 30, 2008
Tags:
baking for writers, bread, contests, creative process
What do you do to jump-start the creative process when you're stalled on a project, unable to focus, or otherwise stuck? I bake (I think I've made that clear). And maybe I spend too much time trying to find font colors that work with lavender. (hint: stay away from orange)
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