One a Day

Something was changing for a long time. It took about a year to understand it, but now I do. People who've been coming here for a long time know that the original focus of this blog was on writing. For a long time I couldn't stop writing and I couldn't stop talking about it. I took classes and workshops and attended retreats and wrote the better part of two bad novels before I stopped to try to figure out what my problem was.

It became obvious over time, but what I found was the more I challenged myself with what I read, the more unhappy I became with what I was writing. A woman I met through blogging and emails came to Denver this summer and we finally met in person. She'd read the first hundred pages of my second attempt and what she told me came as a strange relief. She thought what I'd written was very good, but after getting to know me she had a hard time reconciling what I'd written with who I am. It didn't sound like me.

By that time, I'd stopped writing completely and I focused all my energy on reading. I'm glad I did. The truth is that I don't want to write something I wouldn't want to read and I'm not capable of writing that well. Maybe I never will be.

Over the past few months I've started writing again, but I'm not working on a novel. I have notebooks full of ideas and fragments and pages of gibberish that would make Gertrude Stein chuckle, but it's what I need to do now. In 2009 I all but abandoned poor Eudaemonia. I didn't know what to say.

Now, I think I do -- at least here on this blog.

I've finished twenty-one books since my last post about reading. Catching up won't be easy, but I have a plan. I'll write about one book a day until I'm caught up.

For those of you who are new here, understand that I'm not a book reviewer or literary blogger. I'm not even a college graduate. I'm just someone who likes books. My intent in writing about them is to capture my personal and not always rational opinions about the books. I don't presume to assign literary merit. I put a great deal of thought into what I read, so my going in position is that they're all "good" (as meaningless a word as it is).

Here's the list of books I've read, but not yet talked about. Tomorrow, I'll begin.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Falling Man by Don DeLillo

Library: An Unquiet History by Matthew Battles

Saturday by Ian McEwan

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Night Train by Martin Amis

The Brain Dead Megaphone by George Saunders

Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas
Cathcart and Daniel Klein

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Mark Twain in Hawaii by Grove Day

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

A Gravity's Rainbow Companion: Sources and Contexts for Pynchon's Novel by Steven C.
Weisenburger

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Catholics by Brian Moore

Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Dangerous Laughter: Thirteen Stories by Steven Millhauser

I'd love to hear your thoughts about the relationship between reading and writing and of course -- about the books.

A New Writing Year

Eudaemonia is all about reading and writing and with one year coming to a close and another beginning, I can’t help but look back to where I’ve been over the last year. Was it where I wanted to go?

I think it was.

Reading and writing are so intertwined for me that I can’t talk about one without the other. It was when I read Hoffman’s Hunger that I was hit hardest with the sense that I need to know much more, and not only about the mechanics of writing (although I continue to need that too). The book was written in 1989 by a Dutch author named Leon de Winter. The story takes place at the end of the cold war and drew heavily on the philosophy of Spinoza. I finished reading the book and immediately thought that it's the kind of book I wish I could write, but I can't.

It does not escape me that Hoffman’s Hunger fed a growing hunger in me for a deeper education. All signs this year led me to that conclusion, from my brief frenzied dive into modern economics, political history and American anti-intellectualism to my final December read of Annie Dillard’s Living by Fiction. I can’t disagree with this idea:

"The notion of the novelist as gifted savage dies hard, even in English Departments. (Perhaps it dies hard especially in English departments – for if Faulkner was a wise man of letters like thee and me, why have we not written great novels? Further, department scholars may doubt their own methods, their students, and especially their colleagues so much that they deny that anyone ever connected with that world could produce a novel worth reading.) It breaks our American hearts to learn that Updike was an English major. We wish to forget that Thoreau, like Updike and Mailer, was graduated from Harvard, and that Walt Whitman spent his life in his room studying and rewriting, and that Willa Cather lived among the literati in Greenwich Village, and that Melville left the sea at twenty-five. The will to believe in the fiction writer as Paul Bunyan is shockingly strong; it is emotional, like to will to believe in Bigfoot, the hairy primate who stalks the western hills, or in the Loch Ness Monster. In fact, by the time the media had worked on Hemingway, he was scarcely distinguishable from Bigfoot, or less popular – and Dylan Thomas, that sentimental favorite, was the Loch Ness Monster. The assumption that the fiction writer is any sort of person but one whose formal education actually taught him something is particularly strong in this country; our democratic anti-intellectual tradition and our media cult of personality dovetail on this point and press it home, usually with full cooperation from writers.

In opposition to all this romance, I say that academic literary criticism is very influential: students listen to critics. What student does not read fiction for one course or another? And who is writing fiction these days who has not been to college?"

Lest the writers who may be reading this take offense to such bold myth smashing, just think on it. She’s talking, of course about writers in the class of those she’s mentioned and like Bellow, Roth, Chekov, Borges, Chomsky, Dostoevsky, Ellison, Garcia Marquez, Hamsun, Joyce, Lessing, et al.

Not many writers come close to creating what these people have, and not many want to. The vast majority of readers who are not critics wouldn’t be interested in reading such works if they existed. But despite the small probability of creating what could be art and the even smaller odds that it might be read and appreciated, it’s still a bold, unrealistic and probably delusional aim for some.

It’s been a year now since I first began work on a novel called The Foundling Wheel and as of today, it’s treading water after twenty-four messy chapters and 52,973 words. In the beginning, I thought I’d finish a first draft in six months, and then I thought it would be a year. I haven’t added to it since early October, but I haven’t abandoned it. It’s still very much alive and I intend to finish it.

What’s given me trouble since the beginning is much larger than the story itself, although that’s given me problems too. If you were to ask me some time ago why I was writing it, I couldn’t tell you, nor could I say what I was trying to accomplish in the work, beyond simply telling a story. Sometimes telling a story is enough. For me with this, it’s not.

I can almost answer the question now.

I learned to trust myself much more this year. Oddly, (or at least I think it’s odd) I was not self-conscious about sharing my work with other people when I first began blogging and taking classes, but as time has passed, I’ve grown more confident in my ability to assess what I’m doing and less inclined to ask other people to do it for me. It stands to reason that until I’ve worked out what it is I’m trying to do and precisely how I’m going to do it that there’s no point in asking another person to judge whether or not I’ve succeeded.

What interests me most is – everything about human beings. I’m interested in philosophy, sociology, culture, religion and psychology. I’m interested in history and economics and technology. I know a little about a few things, but I want much more.

The subject matter for my blog posts will be much more focused in 2009. My reading choices will be much more intentional. I’m on a quest to educate myself on all of those things that, even if I had gone to college and pursued a liberal education as a girl, would not have had the impact on me then that they will now.

I’ll never be a scholar or an academic or an intellectual and I don’t aspire to any of those things, but I can be a more literate thinker.

Whether it makes me a better writer or not remains to be seen. I think it will.

Raw Clay and Alternate Endings

Writing the first draft of a novel has been challenging, fun, frustrating, exhilarating, depressing and wonderful. Over time I've been able to learn enough to get on the right path and I've accepted that each writer is on her own to figure out what works best for her. Here are some things I've learned that work for me:

1. Books and classes on craft can be a huge help, but only when I take advantage of them at the right time and only if I'm not subconsciously using them to procrastinate. The trick is to close the book, finish the class, stop effing around and get writing.

2. Reading is crucial. I am convinced that 97% of what I know about writing, I've absorbed through a lifetime of reading.

3. Web sites and blogs on writing, books, publishing and literary criticism have taught me a great deal. Starting a blog has introduced me to a writing community and it's helped me to clarify my own thoughts. On the other hand, the internet is the single biggest threat to my writing time, so I've had to tackle my addiction. Sometimes I specify a time limit for web surfing, or I go offline for a specific number of days, or deny myself internet access until I've hit a specific writing goal. All of those methods work, but it's absolutely critical that I establish limits.

4. I have to write every day or I lose rapport with my work. Author Tayari Jones made a comment I loved after she returned from a vacation. She said, "My novel is like a cat. It's mad at me for leaving it alone for a week. Now it refuses to speak to me." I find this is true for me. If I don't keep the novel with me all the time, it gets cold. Daily word count goals don't work for me. If I don't make the number, I feel like I've failed and I'm discouraged. My goal is to write something every day, and I usually end up writing more than I expected. Sometimes I only manage a paragraph and now and then I miss a day. If I'm really stuck, I hammer out a piece of flash fiction that's unrelated to my novel or I jot down notes about the novel and that usually triggers something.

5. To my surprise, writing longhand works for me. I used to write exclusively on my laptop, but this summer I started writing in a notebook and it opened up something different. I still generate quite a bit of new work directly on the keyboard, but often it's after I write a fair amount in longhand and transcribe it. Writing in a notebook allows me complete isolation from the internet. I always have a notebook and pen close by so I tend to write more. I've captured many more ideas since I started doing this because I don't need to get my laptop and open a document when inspiration strikes.

6. I've tried several approaches to writing a novel. I doubt I'll ever be someone who outlines. I've written chapters and edited as I wrote them. It seemed to work pretty well at the time, but in hindsight, it didn't work nearly as well as I thought it did. For the last several months, I've been working the story out as I go along. I am committed to moving forward until I get to the end of the first draft. I thank Tim Hallinan and his Writers' Resources for helping me understand the importance of finishing a complete first draft and giving me a sense of urgency to do it. As many wise writers have said, "you can't revise a blank page".

This is what is working for me now. Next week may be different. I feel like I'm working with wet, raw clay and by the time I get to the end, I'll have something with a recognizable shape. I may have to tear entire chunks off, or move them around, or add some, but I'll have something I can work with. Throughout the process, I've made notes on lots of things I need to change. I confess to rewriting my first chapter once already, but I've resisted further temptation to stop to rewrite and revise before I finish.

The first draft is nearly done, but I'll share something that many of you may find horrifying. I still don't know how it ends. I'm not one of those people who has known from the beginning exactly how the story ends.

Scott and I watched the movie, Married Life on DVD tonight. I always watch DVD special features and sometimes I'll even watch the movie over again with the commentary on, so I can understand why the film makers made certain choices. Married Life had three alternate endings and the film makers screened them to decide which one to use, based on audience response. This is a common practice and it's not surprising that the reason many novel adaptations end differently on film is that test audiences often react negatively to a book's original ending.

I've been struggling a bit because I'm ready to end my story and I haven't yet had that moment of clarity I was hoping to have. I suppose if Hollywood spends the time and money to shoot and edit four separate endings for a movie before they decide which to choose, perhaps I'm not the only writer in the world who is challenged by the end. I've noticed that Amazon reviewers tend to complain about unsatisfying endings more than just about anything else. No doubt, there is a lot of pressure on endings.

The importance of the ending to a novel varies for me as a reader, depending on what kind of story it is. Mysteries and thrillers have got to tie things up at the end or the book is ruined for me. With more general types of fiction, the ending is still important, but less so as the reader isn't usually expecting a "payoff".

What about you? Can you enjoy a book all the way through and then be disappointed by the end? Have you ever been angry at an author because of how a book ended? Do you tolerate a mediocre book, hoping for a payoff at the end? Does genre factor into it for you?

For writers, when do you know the end of your story? Have you rewritten endings that you initially thought would work, but then decided were wrong?

Odds and ends:

Rent it or buy it, but watch Young at Heart. I will watch this anytime I find myself whining about the unfairness of growing older. This documentary is uplifting and touching. I challenge you to make it through without crying at least two or three times and I promise you'll laugh most of the time.

Everybody has probably found Pandora Radio by now, so I wanted to share my Art Tatum Radio. It's something I can write to. Maybe you'll like it.

Writing Resolutions

The Acme Author's Link (a great blog with some great writing tips) has posted Tim Hallinan's ten writing resolutions here.

I highly recommend you hop on over and check them out. I am going to have them tattooed onto my forearms (sort of like that guy from the movie, Memento). Tim's closing words ought to whet your appetite to check out the ten resolutions:

"I could easily list ten more, but ten is the tradition. So I'll add an eleventh in the guise of a closing paragraph. In the first chapter of his new memoir, What I Think About When I Think About Running, the great Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami quotes a marathon runner as saying, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” I need to keep that in mind whenever I write.

What that means to me is that there are going to be times when writing hurts: when the words won't come, when the story seems to end in a blind alley, when your characters all turn into people so awful that you would come back from the dead just to prevent them from attending your funeral. All of that is inevitable. What's optional is internalizing that, handing it to the writing demons so they can make me doubt my idea, my characters, my talent. The trick to writing (for me, at least) is the same as the trick for running: keep going anyway. The pain may be there, but I can run (or write) through it as long as I don't turn it into suffering.
And get the next word on the page, which is all that really matters."

Tim Hallinan
www.timothyhallinan.com

I find I'm constantly reassessing what I need to focus on and work harder at, but my writing process is still evolving dramatically. What about you? Do you often set new resolutions or goals for yourself? What are some of yours?

Negative Space

What happened to me when I decided to banish myself from the internet: I WROTE MORE.

The rules I set for myself were pretty draconian. I initially set a five day prohibition on posting and commenting on blogs, but I didn’t stop there. No YouTube, podcasts, IM/Chat, LibraryThing, Goodreads, Shelfari, Facebook: the whole Pandora’s Box of internet delights.

I was moderately successful, but I did cheat a little. I commented on a couple of blog posts. I peeked at Google Reader and I read and responded to email. I Twittered.

When I first heard about Twitter I resisted for quite a while. I couldn’t see the point, but I will concede that posting under 140 characters a few times a day was my methadone. It kept me from feeling completely unplugged and it made me want to check in and post that I’d done something useful – like maybe that I’d gotten some writing or reading done.

To help with the unholy temptations, I made some physical accommodations. I put my laptop on my desk and left it there. I kept my notebook and pen within arms reach at all times. Normally, I leave my laptop on the bedside table at night, drag the laptop into the living room when we’re watching a movie and sometimes I bring it into the kitchen or out onto the deck.

Here’s what I found out: no matter how lightweight the web browsing activity is, it is taking up headspace at the time I’m engaged. When I stay away from all distraction and keep my WIP at the forefront of my brain, it tends to stay with me. Even when I’m working, I can keep my WIP somewhere near conscious thought and much to my surprise, I found that I could take short breaks during the work day to jot down ideas and even do some actual writing. The notebook has actually become a replacement addiction for the internet and I now write a little just before I settle in to read at bedtime and I typically write a little as soon as I wake up. I also write down all kinds of random ideas and even bits and pieces of flash fiction. I didn’t do that before.

This morning when I woke up, the electricity was out in my house. I checked all the breakers and wandered around in a caffeine deprived state for a little while and finally saw a neighbor outside who told me that it was out all over our subdivision. She woke up at 4:30 this morning, presumably when it went out and the electric company recording said they hoped to have it back on by 11:30. The electricity was out all day long and didn’t come back until after 7 P.M. Freaky! But, I wrote more, finished one book and got halfway through another (which I read aloud to Scott – kind of fun in an 1840’s way).

I enjoy writing blog posts and reading and commenting on other blogs far too much to quit entirely, but I also feel a whole lot better about engaging with my work and making progress on my WIP than I do about web surfing for most of the day.

I used to think that I needed to schedule time to write and I’d get frustrated when I couldn’t find that time. When I did, it was always a struggle to get back into the current of the WIP. I now know that I can stay in the current as long as I’m not constantly filling that negative headspace with other things.

We could use more days without electricity.

Time After Time

For every pitfall I think I’ve successfully sidestepped when it comes to shaping and structuring a novel, I encounter new and unexpected challenges. I consider this a good sign because at least I’ve gotten better at recognizing them as they materialize, which was not always the case. Someday, maybe I’ll figure these things out before I even start, but – baby steps.

My WIP started out in the present time, shifted to an earlier point in time and my initial intention was to bring the story back to the present time for resolution. I then realized I would need to also include a third period of time and I would have to shift between periods a fair amount.

It was serendipity that a week ago I happened to read America America, by Ethan Canin. It begins in the present day and alternates between the present and roughly 1971 and then to another past time period around 1975. Ethan Canin managed to shift between the time periods seamlessly. He didn’t even wait for new chapters in order to do it. There are chapters that have scenes in them from two and sometimes three time periods, but it works.

Up until now I’ve been writing my WIP in the order in which a reader would read it. I’ve been shifting between the past and present at the points where it seems to make sense to me now. I’ve heard that another author who wrote a book with multiple time lines actually wrote the storyline for each time period and then meshed them together afterward. This approach makes a lot of sense to me, since it allows each time period to retain its own pacing and the characters can retain the voices appropriate to the time. This also makes sense in that it would allow a more objective view of each time period in order to decide what to keep, cut and where to shift from one time period to the next. It seems a little radical, but I’m thinking about giving it a try. Writing the story as I have been, in the order that I think I’ll end up with feels more natural, but something tells me it may not allow for as much creativity.

I’d like to find some more novels to read that use multiple time lines. Thanks to my out of control book buying habit, I think I have at least two. I think (but am not certain) that Divisadero, by Michael Ondaatje uses multiple time lines and I know People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks has them.

So, my friends, I am looking for any reading recommendations you may have for books that alternate between different time periods. Chances are I may have one or two more on my TBR stack already.

I’m also looking for thoughts and ideas on the approach to writing this kind of structure.

Has anyone structured a story like this?

I suspect many people would recommend keeping time periods in their own separate chapters – although Ethan Canin managed to shift within chapters – yes, I know. I’m no Ethan Canin and just because he managed to do it does not mean that I can.

Or can I?

Thoughts and ideas?

Show, but How Much?

It’s an ongoing joke in my family that in the figurative paintings that Scott has done where he’s used me as his model, my face is always turned away from the viewer. At the point that it becomes a painting, it is no longer me or the model in the photograph; it becomes something new. People sometimes ask him why his figures are posed in that way. It’s really very simple. A painting that reveals a model’s face doesn’t have nearly the mystery and doesn’t leave nearly as much to the viewer’s imagination. Time and again I’ve been at art shows or read email queries about paintings Scott has done and a viewer has remarked that he has to have the painting because it is the essence of his wife or girlfriend. A figure posed with her face

turned away can be anyone.

The same holds true for Scott’s landscapes. He rarely titles them after the actual places he’s painted. Frequently, people are certain that these are places they know – they are someplace that’s familiar. Most of the time, people who are sure they know where the painting is are completely wrong, but he’s learned not to dissuade them from whatever they see. The painting is what the viewer thinks it is.

In fiction, we delight in reading about places we know, but I think we may be even more caught up in a story when the place is fictional, but very familiar.

One of the writers interviewed in the movie Stone Reader noted that reading is not a passive activity. A book needs a reader's imagination to really bring it to life.

I was thinking about a resistance on my part to write detailed descriptions of characters faces and physical characteristics – I like to focus on a few things that provide enough information to let the reader assume what he will. One or two pieces of information about place also suit me as a reader, but not description so specific that I can’t participate in building the story too. Tell me about a ceramic poodle and a petrified dish of ribbon candy in an old lady’s parlor and I can imagine the rest. Tell me about gangly teenage girl who constantly pushes her limp, shapeless hair behind her ears and I get the picture. Show me an old man leaning over his cane with milky blue eyes staring out from beneath caterpillar eyebrows and I’m with you.

Movie adaptations fall prey to viewer disappointment many times because the screenwriter and/or director stray too far from strong imagery we’ve been given by an author. I absolutely loved The Shipping News and the movie adaptation was quite good, but with one distracting flaw: Kevin Spacey was far too attractive. Annie Proulx’s Quoyle was clearly a pitifully unattractive man.

The study of fiction and the development of my own style over the last several months have given me a much greater sense of confidence about the type of fiction I’m striving to write and clear confirmation that there are many people who share my taste and many who do not.

How much description do you like to be given when you read a book? Would you prefer to read very detailed descriptions that provide very specific images of characters and place, or do you prefer to have most of it left to your imagination? What authors are you drawn to when it comes to their ability to “show” you their story?

My Biggest Inspiration

I was given an incredible gift a couple of weeks ago. Scott handed me a box, wrapped beautifully in colorful paper. It wasn’t my birthday or any special occasion, but Scott has always been impulsive about gifts, which is one of the things I love about him. I had no idea what might be inside.

Anyone with dreams and pursuits in the arts, and I know that’s pretty much everyone who ever reads or comments here knows that it comes with such a mixed bag of feelings: hope, despair, optimism, pessimism, loneliness, isolation, small victories, major self-doubt and for many years, I didn’t jump into my dream of writing fully. There were lots of reasons.

Since I’ve committed to this path, the biggest single strength I have outside of myself is Scott and the support that he gives me. Writing is so intensely personal and private that I don't share it with very many people; wouldn't be sharing it with a critique group now if Scott had not encouraged me to go to a retreat and sign up for a workshop. Since he’s an artist and has been for many years, there is no emotion I’ve felt that he’s not familiar with. I never realized how important having someone to support my dreams and my work would be to me, but it is.

This was what was in the box and it hangs on the wall in front of my desk. If I were to someday win the Pulitzer, it wouldn't mean more than this does. His love and support allow me to follow my dream in a way I've never been able to consider in previous chapters of my life and after so many years of false starts and blind alleys, I'm so grateful to have found someone who is following his dream and wants to see me follow mine. The way he's led his life is an inspiration to me and his encouragement means everything.

How important is the support of your spouse, lover, friends, and/or relatives to your journey?

The Light is Changing

The light is changing, do you see it? The temperatures are still warm, but it’s getting cooler little by little. The first of the yellow mums have started to bloom in my yard. It’s that “back to school” feeling that has sent many of us back to some kind of work routine that signals the end of lazy summer days.

Monday night I started an eight week novel writing workshop and the timing is perfect. The week long retreat got me started on the right foot and lately when I sit down the write, I’ve managed that magical balance where I can turn off my editor and let it flow, knowing that every few chapters I can go back and make edits, and tweak and fiddle. There are ten of us in the workshop and over the course of the eight, two hour sessions we’ll alternate discussions on craft, books and shaping the novel with critiquing. We’ll have the opportunity to get two 10-12 page excerpts critiqued by our instructor and we’ll submit one excerpt to the group for critique.

I’m a pretty disciplined person anyway, but there are few things that get me to buckle down, focus and produce like a deadline, and now I have one every week for a while.

Scott was mildly amused when he walked into the kitchen yesterday and found me with my laptop, chunks of manuscript with my red inked edits all over them, a dictionary, thesaurus, E.B. White’s Elements of Style and the Chicago Manual of Style spread out all over the island counter. It’s an odd feeling to try to ready pieces of a partial first draft for review and critique. I wonder what the expectation will be as to the state of completeness of this stuff. I’m 11,536 words and 53 double spaced, 12 pt., Courier New pages into a first draft – to be exact -- so I vacillate around about how much I should tinker and add, how much I should clean up, how much I should focus on these three submissions alone and how much, if anything, I should be doing to add to the story over these next eight weeks. Some of the students are farther along in their stories than I am, but just as many are not as far along. I guess what we submit for critique and those nine submissions I get to critique will be in a variety of states.

It will be interesting and I’m looking forward to it. This will be the very first time I have the chance to be involved in a critique group and I’m incredibly grateful that it is structured and the instructor will be providing her critiques too.

This very specific incentive made me wonder about how other writers motivate themselves and set goals. The processes people follow seem to be as varied as each person. Do you make yourself sit down for a set period of time? Set a word count goal for the day, or the week? Set goals for revising a number of pages? If you have a full time job, other than writing, when do you manage to get most of your writing done? Is writing easier/harder in the fall and winter, than in the spring and summer? How about goals for your work? Do you have a goal set for when you want to finish your project and look for an agent (if you don’t already have one)? Is it a very specific “by the end of 2007” or is it something vague, like before my 40^th, 50^th, 60^th birthday? What keeps you going?

Tapping the Unconscious

There is often a fixation on word count, craft and the mechanics of writing for those attempting the longer forms of fiction. I can get completely wrapped up in these aspects, and they’re very important. But the real motivation to write comes from our creative natures, our desire to tell a story in a way that only we can and by the liberating joy that we find during those times when we are writing almost automatically and letting the words flow from a place we can’t access when we think too hard about it.

There were two sessions at the recent retreat I attended that were led by Denver’s Poet Laureate, Chris Ransick that I did not attend and wish I had. Chris Ransick, MA, MA won a Colorado Book Award for poetry in 2003 for his first book, Never Summer. His collection of short stories, A Return to Emptiness, won the 2005 Colorado Author’s League Fiction Award and was a finalist for the 2005 Colorado Book Award in Fiction. His most recent book, Lost Songs & Last Chances, was published in 2006. Chris holds masters degrees in English/Creative Writing and Journalism.

Chris led the book discussion on The Wild Braid, by Stanley Kunitz, and I got a glimpse of what I was missing out on in his workshops.

Stanley Kunitz received the 1995 National Book Award in Poetry for Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected. Five years later, The Collected Poems, combining both early and later work, was published. Kunitz received nearly every honor bestowed upon a poet in this country, including the Pulitzer and Bollingen Prizes, a National Medal of the Arts from President Clinton in 1993, and the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 1998. He served as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (and again when the post was called US Poet Laureate). He was State Poet of New York and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Stanley Kunitz died on May 14, 2006 at the age of one hundred.

Throughout his life Stanley Kunitz created poetry and tended gardens. The Wild Braid is the distillation of conversations that took place between 2002 and 2004. His essays and poems explore personal recollections, the creative process, and the harmony of the life cycle.

Anyone with a deep connection with nature, with gardening and with the written word cannot help but be deeply touched by this book. Chris Ransick is such a person. He has been gardening all of his life and opened our discussion with a short essay on his experiences with the organic vegetable garden he has lovingly nurtured at his Denver home for over fifteen years. Chris has a weblog I visit every day called WordGarden that brings together his reflections on gardening and the writing life.

Much of what we discussed about The Wild Braid and about writing in general was the connection we have between nature, the subconscious and the creative process of writing. Chris finds a deep connection between working his hands in the soil, nurturing the plants, weeding, feeding and harvesting the bounty of his garden and the creative process. I thought about how many of my writing friends have mentioned gardening. Most of the writers I know tend gardens. I in my own humble way, have limited experience with the modest perennial garden planted in front of my house that I was delighted to see really did come back this spring and with the brilliant annuals I planted this summer that I tend to closely, deadheading them, examining them for signs of insect infestation, monitoring them for signs of over or under watering. There is a distinct connection between working in a garden and freeing the unconscious to access thoughts and ideas that don’t occur to us when we’re focused and concentrating.

Chris asked us about physical activities that stimulate the creative process for all of us. Walking alone is certainly a common way to unleash the unconscious and it works for me and certainly I’ve read about other writers who walk regularly as part of a writing routine. I mentioned painting – not paintings, but interior walls – I’ve done a lot of it over the course of many moves and find that I enjoy the quiet and the repetitive motion. Physical activity provides more oxygen to the brain and this stimulates our thought process. Those physical activities that have us moving, but require little direct focus stimulate all kinds of ideas, especially when we’re out in nature. Henry David Thoreau wrote an entire fifty page essay called Walking.

Poetry scares me, although it intrigues me at the same time. I’ve never studied it and have read some, always feeling as though I’m not seeing it all, but there is a very direct correlation between a poem and the poet’s unconscious creative energy. As I read more if it, I can feel that primal, creative element at work. In working on, studying and discussing writing as it relates to the novel, we’re often pulled quite a distance from that unconscious, creative energy; that process that surely was the reason all of us who are driven to put pen to paper began to do so in the first place. We’re often so practical about the construction that I wonder if we aren’t revising out some of the original, unconscious creative work that drove us to write in the first place.

I’ve been reading Lost Songs & Last Chances and the poems draw me in and show me the elements left of a story, when every piece not needed is stripped out and what’s left is the pearl that evokes the visceral, “I get it” response. I don’t know if that’s what poetry is supposed to do, but that’s what it does for me.

Reading poetry makes me think that maybe each novel has a poem hidden inside it; that there is a dense reduction each story simmers down to that leaves the reader with the rush of images and sensations that came from within the writer and that was the fertilization and conception of our story.

Do you consciously place yourself in surroundings that open you up to ideas, creativity and inspiration? Where do you find it? How do you summon it? Does poetry inform your fiction writing?

Retreat Reflections

One of the great things about growing older is the ability to recognize a profound or significant moment or event while it’s happening. I arrived at Shadowcliff Lodge in Grand Lake, Colorado for the Lighthouse Writers Getaway and until the final workshop finished on Saturday, I was in a world unlike any other I’d ever experienced.

The location was idyllic. I arrived shortly after three o’clock last Monday and since dinner and the welcoming reception weren’t until six, I took advantage of the free time to sit on the deck overlooking the river so I could relax with a book. The roar of the water rushing by was punctuated by the sound of birds. Soon, thunderheads gathered over the lake and I could hear distant booming and see the grey trails of rain pouring from the clouds over the water. No road sounds. No dogs barking. No sirens. No click of a compressor signaling the impending blast of an AC unit.

I’d been nervous about attending the retreat. People began trickling in and we all exchanged the same questions. What are you writing? Where do you live? Have you been on retreats with Lighthouse before? In all, there were twenty four of us signed up and assigned to live on two floors of a three story wooden lodge. There were seven Lighthouse instructors. That first night after dinner, we all gathered together and the faculty members read to us from pieces they’d published or were working on. They were amazing. One read from his fourth novel, another from a short story work in progress, an essay, poems; they were all published authors.

My new roommate Sarah and I sat in the day room on the third floor of the Cliffside Lodge and talked until midnight. It was the beginning of a week long slumber party.

That night when I looked up at the sky, it was a deep, black expanse, illuminated by brilliant white, fiery stars that I can’t remember seeing in the same way since the summers of my childhood.

The following morning I went to my first workshop. This kicked off four days packed with writing exercises and discussions about books and writing that far exceeded anything I could have ever anticipated. I attended nine workshops and four book discussions and every single one of them was interesting, sparked my creativity and taught me a great deal. Every one. I'd never gone to a writing workshop before. A writer from Boulder told me that the sessions we were attending were every bit as good as those she attended in her MFA program.

The first student readings were on Wednesday night. I really did not want to do it and initially was sure I would not. I’d never read my work in public; had rarely let anyone read it at all. Anxiety mounted after I was added to the batting order. I’d be reader eight of thirteen. It was difficult for me to understand why this struck such a primitive terror in me. I’m in sales. I stand up routinely in front of groups of people and speak all the time, sometimes to hostile audiences and my palms don’t even sweat. Of course – I didn’t build the product I’m pitching, so I don’t have an emotional investment in it. If my audience isn’t in love with what I'm selling, it doesn’t hurt my feelings. Wednesday after dinner, the nervousness really kicked in. I remembered that the beta blockers I take every day to prevent migraines are supposed to help with performance anxiety, so I washed one down with a beer before we all gathered for the readings. When my turn came, I apologized in advance for reading too fast – I knew I’d never be able to slow it down to the cadence I’d been hearing – and I did it. I didn’t look up while I was reading, as the more relaxed, experienced readers did, but as I got going, they laughed when I came to a section that I thought was a little amusing and I settled down. When I finished, they clapped – I think I even heard a whoop. I don't know who the whoop came from, whether it was for the work or just because that person knew how nervous I was. It doesn't matter. I crossed a plateau.

I have to say something about the people I spent six days with. There were over thirty of us in a constant state of togetherness and every person was interesting, bright, supportive and generous. Never in my life have I been in such a large group where I literally enjoyed the company of every person. We got to know each other pretty well in such a short time. The age range was from twenty-something to eighty. People came from all over Colorado and our backgrounds represented every possible type of lifestyle and personality. A love of words and writing were our bond.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the solitude and the isolation I’ve experienced in the often lonely vocation of writing. Friends in cyber space have provided the kind of support that led me to seek out Lighthouse Writers Workshop. I can scarcely describe the joy I feel in finding other writers in the Denver area with whom I’ve made real connections. For many months now, I’ve felt somewhat like a person with a third eye, arm or leg – just a little out of place when I'm with others. I got to Grand Lake and found it filled with people just like me and it feels good.

Before I left for the retreat, I believed the experience would signify a turning point and it did. It truly changed my life.

What experiences have you had that marked a milestone for you in your writing?

Online Dating and Blogging Weren't What I Expected

Not so very long ago, I would have been sheepish about admitting to participating in online dating or blogging, but things have changed and both are now integral parts of our culture. Neither experience turned out to be what I expected it to be.

In 2003, recently divorced, over forty and working from home, I decided that online dating was the most practical way for me to meet someone new. If I could find books, shoes and music online, why not a companion?

Writing up my profile and a description of who I was looking for would be easy. I’d just wait and the right candidates would surface. The first profile I posted turned out to be more of a description of my interests than a profile of who I was. I knew a lot about the type of man I didn’t want to meet, but I had no clear idea what I did want. I was sure I wasn’t interested in looking for a long term relationship. I wanted to meet someone for friendship and casual dating.

I posted the first profile and I was contacted by people I had no interest in and who, if they met me would have no interest in me either. Obviously I was doing something terribly wrong. With each email I received, I went back and tweaked my profile to be more specific about my likes and my dislikes. I was forced to reexamine myself and try to describe myself as honestly and accurately as possible. I agonized over this.

The available men over forty that I encountered at the time seemed to have a very difficult time honestly describing themselves. Most didn’t appear to be intentionally deceptive, but they seemed to describe the person they wished they were, not the person they really were. Had I done the same? I tweaked my profile some more. I became ruthless when scanning emails and profiles, but hey, I was looking for someone to start a relationship with so there was no point wasting anyone’s time.

Preparing to go on a date felt like getting ready for the firing squad. I was prepared to be disappointed and my expectations were met. I figured out pretty quickly that I hated the idea of casual dating and that I really was looking for a long term, committed relationship. I tweaked my profile some more.

I went on four first dates before I met Scott. He was a much more experienced online dater than I was and he’d been single for a much longer time. I saved the profiles we’d both posted from that time and I recently reread them both. We’d succeeded in writing something that was true and we found what we wanted.

Starting a Blog and finding those Blogs that I visit regularly was a somewhat similar process.

When I originally started to blog, it was because I’d decided to make a commitment to pursue fiction writing. I looked at the decision within the context of my desire to change my life and to transition away from the day job that pays the bills to find a way to pursue what I’m most passionate about. I thought about all of the people who have made major life changes to pursue their dreams and I wanted to connect with them. I soon realized that as much as I thought the transition was what I needed to explore, that wasn’t it at all.

The idea of blogging about writing was one I dismissed out of hand. I didn’t have anything to say about it. But the more I read and commented on other blogs, the more I understood that blogging about the experience of developing as a writer is what I needed to communicate on my own site. It took a while for me to find the blogs that I check every day. I return to them time and time again because I find meaning that I can relate to because there are people somewhere creating those blogs that I connect with in some way, all the way across cyberspace. Some blogs are written by published authors, some are people still working to get there, some are people who love books, or art and some are people who just have interesting things to say.

Thinking through and expressing my fears, questions and incremental accomplishments means I have to check in with myself regularly and reflect a lot. The wonderful conversational format of the blog allows me to share ideas with a wide variety of other people who are all somewhere on the continuum that I’m on in reading, writing and just life in general.

I regularly ask myself whether I can really afford the time it takes to blog and so far, the answer continues to be yes. It’s an investment, but the experience and the shared community have given me far more than it has cost.

My online dating and my blogging experiences ended up being far different than I what I expected, primarily because I went into them thinking I wanted one thing and I came to understand that what I wanted was something different.

Have you gone through the online dating experience? Do you blog today for the same reasons you did when you started blogging? Has blogging enriched your life?

Note: Our fabulous cyber friend Larramie from Seize a Daisy tagged me with a meme. If you are curious, my answers are in the post below.

Getting to Know You

The germ of the new novel began a few weeks back and characters began to materialize. Unlike many of my previous characters, who evolved away from people I sort of knew, these people are virtual strangers.

The story idea emerged first. I saw my two lead characters, an adult brother and sister and I saw the beginning of the story and the course of action that takes them through to the end. I hear dialog and the gist of some of the conversations they’ll have. As human beings, they have struggles and issues with relationships, career, family and with their ideas about life and where they’re going – I’m all over these issues. I think about them all the time. But she was a child prodigy and a talented musician who attended Juilliard. He was extremely bright, graduated from high school early and attended a prestigious university to study chemistry and to conduct groundbreaking research. I don’t know anything about how a person would come to follow either of these paths and that is – cool.

I thought through what kind of a family would produce siblings like these two, what kind of home life they might have, where they’d live, what the father would do for a living and the questions kept coming. I knew my violinist would turn away from music and choose another life and I knew why. I’ve grown up around musicians and artists and I have a much easier time feeling like I understand that part of her. Juilliard is another matter.

How can I understand the scientist and figure out what would cause a gifted person on a trajectory toward greatness to turn away from that path? I don’t know any scientists, but I have a romantic notion that there is a parallel to be drawn between great scientific minds and great artists, writers and musicians. I researched the achievements that have come from the university I plan to send him to in my story. I read about a famous scientist who’s been doing work since the 70s that has great potential philosophical implications and it struck a chord with me. I make connections between this science and some of the very largest questions these two are dealing with, each in his or her separate way. I barely understand the basic scientific concepts of this particular scientist's research, but I ordered a book written in layman’s terms – maybe I can gain a very high level understanding of what’s being done and fictionalize it to make it part of my character’s back story.

What’s the academic and career path to become a scientist? I want what I write to make sense and to sound genuine. I stumble onto a chemist’s blog and I’m delighted to find that he’s just a normal guy with a job I don’t know anything about. I find a whole bunch of chemist’s blogs. Now I feel guilty that I’ve stereotyped chemists – each is as different in his or her way as writers and painters are.

I chose three chemists who sounded approachable (and funny) and I emailed them to ask if they’d be willing to answer some of my questions about the scientific community. Much to my delight, all three responded that they would. So far, I’ve been gaining great insights into a world I previously knew nothing about. Our exchanges are a mix of the practical and the personal.

Next, I’ll find some Juilliard students and alumni to see what I can learn about their worlds. I need to explore some more classical string quartet pieces, so I have an excuse to buy some Bartok to add to my collection.

In the meantime, the details of my characters are taking more shape and the structure of my story is solidifying. A notebook is filling up.

Last weekend, I started to write the first chapter and I stopped. It’s not time yet. My work to find what I need to make these people genuine is not finished. My work in fleshing out who their parents are is not finished. I may use very little of the information I’m gathering now in the actual story, but I need it in order to know and understand them. I need it to begin their story.

I can already tell that the writing of this story will flow much differently than it did for my last. I can feel a much more defined plan taking shape; I can see the utility of outlining and detailed notes and character sketches -- maybe I'll even use the index cards I bought a year ago.

Ironically, despite the fact that these characters are materializing entirely from my imagination, they seem to be much more vivid to me already than the characters I wrote about in my first manuscript -- and they were inspired by real people.

How important has research been to your writing? What methods did you use to conduct it? How important is it for you to think through your characters’ backgrounds, even if it may not appear in your story? How much preparation did you do prior to starting your last novel and typing in “Chapter 1”?

Quitting, or Knowing When to Move On?

Close to three months ago when I made the decision to write in a committed and purposeful way, more specifically, to write a novel, I found many great blogs about writing and I began reading them religiously. Writers posting about successes, frustrations, struggles and advice have been an incredible source of support and inspiration to me. Early on I read quite a few literary agent blogs too, hanging on to each piece of advice and each anecdote. The literary bloggers helped to round out my efforts to read more and better fiction.

Books have been a huge contributor to my growth. At first, I devoured nothing but books on writing. Novels, short story collections and even some poetry made up the rest of my reading. New works, old works, there are so many I’ve read and so many more that continue to pull me in.

Through it all I was posting nearly every day. Writing the posts has been a learning experience in and of itself. Many times, I had crises of confidence and each time I received wise counsel from those of you who commented.

It’s time to assess where I am, what I’ve learned and where I need to go from here. I’ve learned that everybody has different ways and different challenges when it comes to being able to fit writing into real life. My job requires more of me at some times than others. Summertime is one of the times the job demands more so rather than feeling frustrated at the limited time I’ve had to write recently, I just accept it. I’ve learned that I’m not a seat of the pants writer and that working on my manuscript every day isn’t productive for me if I’ve come to a place where I’m not sure of what to do next or if I don't have the energy or the focus to put into it. I’ve learned that in addition to my job and my writing, my relationships need equal time too. When I neglect my partner, my family or my friends because I’m too busy working and writing, the writing suffers because my life is out of balance. I’ve learned that no matter what else I’m doing, I’m always thinking about my writing and that means I’m still working on my writing. Details come to me and blank spots fill in while I’m doing laundry, checking the mail, sitting on a conference call or having dinner. I’ve learned that for me, reading great fiction on an ongoing basis is just as important as writing is.

In just two weeks, I’ll be attending my first writers’ retreat. Mentally preparing for that experience has brought me to terms with some issues I’ve been struggling with about my manuscript. Despite the year and a half off and on that I’ve spent working on this story, I find that it isn't the unique and compelling novel I first thought it might be. Tonight it stands at just over 35,000 words and 142 pages. I printed out the first chapter, which has been revised many times and although I’m pretty happy with the writing, I’m not excited about where it’s going anymore. I unintentionally filled my first manuscript with many elements drawn from people and situations far too close to real life and it’s become a problem.

A couple of weeks ago an idea for another story came to me. The new story and characters are entirely fictional. Unlike my first manuscript, I know the entire story from beginning to end (for the most part) and there are some concrete internal struggles for the two main characters that I have very clear ideas about.

I initially resisted the idea of setting my first manuscript aside. I didn’t want to quit and thought by not writing through to the end, I’d be quitting. I don’t believe that anymore. I think there is some good writing that I can return to at some point and perhaps reshape into a better novel. I think that trying to push myself to finish a tale that no longer inspires me is not a good use of my time. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted time writing what I have. To the contrary, I feel like it’s been an incredible learning experience, but I don’t think it makes sense to take it any further right now.

Many of you have mentioned having first and second manuscripts that didn’t go on to be published, although some were submitted to agents and even editors. How many of you abandoned a novel prior to finishing, whether you are published or unpublished? What made you decide it was time to start over? Did you struggle with your decision to set the unfinished draft aside?

The Discipline to Just Think

Reading posts and comments from other writers so I can compare and contrast process is an invaluable experience for me. There seem to be as many methods out there as there are writers.

One subject we haven’t touched much on is how the actual story comes into being. I don’t recall at all how the germ of my work in progress came to me. I can recall roughly when it happened and that I sat down and started writing immediately, but not much more than that. Since that time, I’ve learned a great deal more about process and how I should be turning this idea into a novel. The story has also changed significantly.

Saturday I had plans to do some writing and some reading. I recently bought the entire thirteen volume collection of Chekov’s short stories and I’ve been working my way through volume one. I’m also reading Augusta Locke by William Haywood Henderson, one of the Lighthouse Writers Workshop instructors who will be at the retreat I’m attending next month. And I picked up The Children’s Hospital by Chris Adrian, based on an intriguing review by Scott Esposito that I read at The Quarterly Conversation.

But first, I needed to unload the dishwasher. Then I needed to eat and I like to read the paper when I eat. After reading the paper I figured I’d take a look at another book that I have sitting in my stack for later. Woody Allen on Woody Allen, In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman is a series of interviews with the writer and director, organized by film. Several hours later, I was still reading the book and by the time I sat down to write, it was Saturday night.

The fascinating thing to me about Woody Allen is that he is a writer first, and an extremely disciplined one. Throughout this series of interviews, it became apparent that each script that he writes is developed almost entirely in his head before he begins the mechanical process of writing.

From the book:

“You told me earlier that on Tuesday you will start work on your new script. How do you proceed? Do you sit every day between certain hours, like office hours, and work?”

“Yeah, I get up early, because I naturally get up early. And I come down here and I have breakfast. Then usually I work by myself. Once in a while it’s a collaboration, but usually not. And I go into the backroom or this room (Woody’s living room) and I start to think. I walk up and down and I walk up and down the outside terrace. I take a walk around the block. I go upstairs and take a shower. I come back down and think. And I think and think. Then just by the sweat of the brow, eventually something comes.”

He goes on to describe the actual writing as the joyous part because by then, he’s got everything worked out. I thought that if I had spent a fair amount of time just thinking and working my story out in my head before beginning to write, how much simpler things would be and it occurred to me that surely other writers probably do proceed that way. Making time to do nothing but focus on the story is easier said than done. Perhaps the physical act of writing feels more productive, but in the end, it’s possible we spend as much, if not more time fixing things we didn’t think through as we would have spent had we thought things out more thoroughly up front.

Finding time to think about anything without multi-tasking or losing focus is tough. For example, while finding the URLs to create links to the references in this post, I also found out that Placido Domingo, general director of the Los Angeles Opera just announced that Woody Allen will make his operatic directorial debut with the opening event of the Los Angeles Opera's 2008-2009 season. This has nothing to do with how he writes, but for crying out loud, is there anything he won't try?

I tend to be quite a bit like Ellen Degeneres when it comes to being able to focus for an extended period on one thing. I’m thinking about why it would make more sense for the husband character to be an attorney and not a doctor or an investment banker and I’m wondering where the word attorney came from. Attorney starts with the letters “Att” and I wonder how AT&T being the sole service provider for the iPhone is going to impact their stock prices, and I wonder why they call it chicken stock or vegetable stock because after all…

You get the picture. I’m not always six degrees from a straight jacket and a good anti-psychotic, but nearly.

How much thinking and working through your story do you do before putting pen to paper or before beginning to type? Does the story develop as you’re writing it, or do you have much of it worked out in advance and refine and add detail as you go? As you write more and more stories, do you find you know more in advance what’s going to happen?

Who Are These People?

I was having an interesting email exchange with a blogging friend about how much our own experiences inform our fiction and we touched on the subject of memoir. Coincidentally, I’m reading The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, also a memoir. Just a few minutes ago, I was checking in on Kristen Nelson’s blog, Pub Rants and memoirs were the subject of posts for three days running.

The subject got me thinking about how much of ourselves and the people we know creeps into our fiction. Writing my manuscript has been an iterative process. About eighteen months ago, a hypothetical situation occurred to me. The incident was something that could potentially happen to any business traveler and that person would have to choose one of two actions – both with devastating repercussions. Having never previously attempted a novel, I started to build the story. At the beginning, the main character was modeled almost entirely after me by default. I didn’t intend to make her me, but because I was juggling all the challenges of plotting, pacing, structure, etc. it was easiest to start with someone I completely understand. Some of the characters I developed aren’t based on anyone I know at all. Others are based almost entirely on real people. Not coincidentally, the characters with the most dialogue are the ones based on people I know. I suppose it makes writing dialogue for them easier because I can hear what they’d say and how they’d say it. Through ongoing revision, I’ve continued to make changes and evolve most of the characters a good distance away from their real world inspirations. I’ve moved them to new locations, changed their back stories, added and subtracted spouses and children, reinvented how they know the main character and taken them further into the realm of fiction. But although my main character is involved with people who aren’t real and is doing things I’ve never done, it’s taking me much longer to separate her from me and give her a completely unique persona.

When it comes to place, I’ve stuck with locales I know a lot about. At one time, a large part of the story took place in a city I’ve spent time in, but am not intimately familiar with and I recently cut that entire section and began rewriting it. It seemed too overwhelming to introduce one more unknown into the equation. Familiar people and places are easier to deal with while I’m being challenged with so many other issues.

I’m self-diagnosing my ongoing experience as a natural tendency of the beginning novelist and I anticipate that as I develop more skill, it will be easier to create characters completely out of thin air and to take the time to research other locations to represent them genuinely. I suspect that as I continue writing and revising, the story will come more into its own and the characters will mature into independent beings, their genesis unrecognizable to anyone but me.

Many well known authors write characters who are thinly veiled versions of themselves. John Updike and Philip Roth come immediately to mind. Quite a few writers admit to basing certain characters on people they’ve been close to in their lives.

The origin of fictional characters has me fascinated and I am hoping to hear from those of you who write. How much of your main character is you? How far away from you can you really get with your main character? Does your ability to create leading characters who are not like you at all develop over time? Where does the inspiration for your characters come from? Are they based on people you know? Are they a conglomeration of more than one person? Do you invent them in their entirety? How has this process changed for you if you've written more than one novel?

I'm hoping, as always to learn a lot from you.