Interview at the Press 53 blog

I'm interviewed at the Press 53 blog for the new year. Thank you Christine Norris!

http://press53.tumblr.com/post/39928859763/5-questions-3-facts

The Next Big Thing

Big thanks to the fabulous Ellen Meister for tagging me in this latest writer's meme.

I am so looking forward to reading her forthcoming novel Farewell, Dorothy Parker which has been described as "wickedly funny and surprisingly poignant."





 

And now, on with the questions for me:

What is the working title of your book?

Bones of an Inland Sea


Where did the idea come from for the book?

From the late--and much admired--literary agent Wendy Weil. For years, I've been a fan of the work she represented: Anthony Doerr, Andrea Barrett, Molly Gloss, Rita Mae Brown, Alice Walker, Fannie Flagg, and most recently Heidi Durrow. I sent her my first collection and even though she passed on it, she said she would love to see a linked collection that focused on my marine ecology experiences. (I co-founded a study abroad marine ecology program in Dominica, West Indies, and that was in my bio. She was very observant.) I started working on Bones of an Inland Sea that very same day.


What genre does your book fall under?

I would say it's literary. I'm calling the manuscript a "composite novel" because many of the stories work alone, but they do interweave extensively and are meant to be read and appreciated as a whole. Other works I would also call "composite novels" would be The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. These are all books I greatly admire.


What actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Oh, my. Too complex a question for this non-moviegoer. How about instead I say who I would like to illustrate the cover of my book? I'd love to use a photo collage by Matthew Chase-Daniel. I adore his work. Maybe something like the image below--one that captures the essence of many smaller perspectives combining to make a more complete image of the whole:




What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

(Pardon me, please, but I'm going to use the two-sentence description from my query letter.)


In BONES OF AN INLAND SEA we come to know passionate and restless Leslie Baxter through the secret lives of a host of characters whose paths intersect with hers, over many years, in locales as varied as the Sinai desert, a tsunami-torn reef in Thailand, Bikini Atoll after the atomic testing, and a futurist island utopia run by a dangerous charismatic leader. Written in a bold and inventive array of styles, Akers captures the longing we all feel for family, home, and a connection to something larger than ourselves.
 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I never know how to answer that question. The real answer would have to be given in hours, not days, months, or years. And is that hours spent thinking about plots while washing dishes and showering? Hours spent dreaming of characters while asleep? Or does that only count creation time actually spent at the keyboard? And what of the fact that I wrote three other books while finishing this one? As you can see, any answer I give would be incomplete, but here's the best, most concrete numbers available: I started the first story in 2003 and finished the final one in 2012.


What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

I think the range of characters would be of interest. I have a Vietnam veteran with PTSD who tries to save an aquarium full of fish, an elderly woman with Alzheimer's moving into a nursing home, a female-to-male transsexual meeting his father for the first time, fraternal twins from Puerto Rico whose separate lives take eerily similar turns, a man whose wife is in a persistent vegetative state and has been recently removed from life support, and an overworked menopausal woman struggling to survive the sandwich generation (among others).

Every story revolves around the ocean in some way, too. The settings include a reef in Thailand during the horrific Indonesian tsunami, the Red Sea at the tip of the Sinai peninsula, a plague of deadly box jellies in Dominica's waters, a post-hurricane rescue attempt gone wrong in Florida's Hutchinson Island, and so much more.


And I am hereby tagging T.L. Sherwood to take on The Next Big Thing next week.

Rejections: A view from the other side of the desk

First and foremost, I am a writer. But I have also been Editor-in-chief of the online journal r.kv.r.y. for about a year and a half now. It's been a wonderful, enriching, exhausting, eye-opening experience. So much so, that I thought it might be valuable to share some of what I've learned from my time spent on the other side of the desk.

I took on the challenge of editing the journal for three main reasons. First, I had been published by r.kv.r.y. in the past and I liked their mission (literary work on the theme of recovery) and I respected their founding editor Victoria Pynchon a great deal.She loved her journal but found that she didn't have time anymore to give it the attention she would have liked, so in the summer of 2010 she put out a call on Facebook for someone to take it over. I hate to see good work die out, so I volunteered.

Secondly, I have always wanted to be part of the side of publishing that helps authors get their work out into the world. I didn't want to only be an author clamoring for space herself. I think it's important for writers to give back to the literary community they belong to, and I saw this as an opportunity to do that.

Lastly, and most importantly, I wanted to understand what it was like to be in charge of reading, evaluating, and selecting work and putting together and publishing a final product. In some perverse way, I felt I needed to understand what it was like not only to give authors the good news, but also to give them rejections. By that time in my career I had received thousands of rejections myself, so I knew what it felt like to receive them. Many of my rejections had made me grumble and grouse about editors and their lofty decisions handed down from on high, but intellectually I knew editors couldn't be so different from me--they were people, many underpaid or volunteers, who were passionate about language, and in it for love rather than money.

Well, guess what? I learned that it's tough to be an editor, mainly (in my case) because I WANT to be open and excited by every single piece of writing I receive. I want to find value in everything that comes across my desk. I believe in nurturing writers and giving them a vehicle for their voices. I wish I had the time and energy to say yes to everyone.

But man alive, is that ever an exhausting position to take. I never fully appreciated the side of editing that meant saying no. As a writer sending out work, I imagined the editor's job to be an easy one. You get to sit and read good work all day long. From those you read, you simply pick your favorites, and voila! What could be more simple and enjoyable than that?

Well, it turns out that a lot of things can be more simple and enjoyable: cooking dinner, cleaning bathrooms, having a tooth filled. Okay, I'm exaggerating, but when you really, really want everything you read to be good...and you simultaneously have only enough space for what averages out to one story a month for the whole year, it gets frustrating. It gets overwhelming...even disheartening. And I know there are people who would respond with some version of, "So quit. Nobody's making you do this. The last thing writers need is a frustrated editor."

But the thing I want to say is that I'm not frustrated with the writing. I may occasionally get cranky about work on a micro-level, but the big picture is, I'm cranky because of the exhaustion that sets in when I am constantly evaluating work and most of it is good, solid work. That was a revelation to me. When you want to love everything, choosing who gets to play and who doesn't takes a heck of a lot of mental energy. It takes a certain amount of ego and it takes a lot out of you. No wonder agents and editors so often talk about "needing to fall in love" with a project. I get it. It's so darned easy to like everything (hello Facebook!), and yet you can't possibly give everything you like the same fair shot or you'd never get anything done.So yes, you have to fall in love.

And by "you," of course I mean "me."

In spite of the frustrations, though, working on the other side of the publishing equation has taught me a lot. And it has helped me...helped me to feel not quite so downtrodden when I get rejections. It has helped me to understand one of the most important (and simple) rules of writing and publishing. That rejection isn't personal.

Or... as I prefer to abbreviate the concept: R.I.P.

It isn't personal. It feels personal, you're sure it's personal, how could be anything BUT personal...but it isn't. The work is simply a widget, and this particular widget didn't fit.

So try again. If it comes back, re-examine your widget and edit as needed. Then try again.

Trust me on this one. Writing is a game of attrition. If you want to succeed, if you want to be published...don't attrish.

Dear Teen Me

My "Dear Teen Me" letter goes live today. Thanks to the moderators for this wonderful, important site.

Dear Teen Me

An author video from 2009

This interview aired on a local TV station in 2009, but most of the discussion revolves around about the process and the art of writing, which are timeless subjects.

A House of Words

A book, I have come to believe, is rather like a house.

For the past six years I have been building a house of words from the ground up. I hammered every nail, placed every stone (at first I thought to write "brick" but the unique shapes of words, their roundness and roughness and varied colors make "stone" the better metaphor), and made every single design decision. Then I asked the advice of several friends and professionals. Their suggestions encouraged me to tear down and rebuild some stuff, rip out a wall or two, add some unusual landscaping and a distinctive path to the front door. These helped make my house better and stronger, more attractive, navigable, and liveable.

Then I found my wonderful agent, and she helped me see that I needed a fresh coat of paint and new carpets in order to give it that final spruce-up that would help it appeal to a certain kind of buyer. After that, we put this book-house on the market and showed it a few times. The buyers we approached were complimentary and appreciative, but still skittish. So we had a few more people look it over and give us ideas. We carefully picked and chose among those ideas and implemented the ones that seemed best.

But here's the thing: anyone who buys this house I've built is still going to want to paint it and change the carpets, even though we just did that. We did it to make it sell, but they will do it again to make it THEIRS. In all likelihood, I will have more changes to make that will come only after we make a sale. So I've come to realize that I need to save a little bit of passion and energy for that time or I'll never get through this crazy, lengthy process. And I also have to be careful not to tack on too many things that other people think might make it a better house.

Just because one potential buyer loves plants and another makes birdhouses as a hobby and another wants to entertain friends and still another likes lots of natural light doesn't mean that the buyer we find will want the house to come with an attached greenhouse and a bar in the basement and a woodworking studio and a whole bunch of skylights. If I start to add all of the different things to my house that could potentially make it appeal to a certain type of buyer, in the end no one will want it because it will have become a crazy hodge-podge.It will end up like The Burrow, Ron Weasley's family home. (No offense, Ron.)



So, anyway, that's the latest writing analogy I employ to help me sleep at night. I am a hard-working author, committed to making this book work, but at some point I have to step back and say DONE. I have to stop tinkering and wait for the buyer (who--surprise!--loves the house and wants to own it in the worst way) to tell me what finishing touches I need to add to make it a perfect fit.

What does success look like to you?

I have a good friend who has recently hit a publishing wall. She's a great writer, with a published book that was nominated for a major award. Her writing inspires me. Now she has a second book out on submission and the process is killing her confidence in the unique way that only the publishing industry can. What she describes feeling is common among writers, even the successful ones. We all simultaneously think we're something really special...and nothing at all. It doesn't make sense, but that seems to be the way of the creative mind.

If you are a writer, here's what I think you need to spend at least a little bit of time thinking about: What does "success" look like to you? I'm talking about in your heart-of-hearts, what does success look like? When you have that warm vision of you as a successful writer, where are you? What are you doing? In my daydream of success, I'm standing at a lectern, reading and answering questions and I have a large audience. So, that's "success" for me, it turns out, and that tells me that I am more interested in reaching people, in having an audience, and connecting with readers. Now for another writer, he might envision success as walking on stage and accepting a big award, or getting an excellent critical review of his work, or making the canon. Another writer might just see success as being able to find the time to write, alone, for long stretches. If you know what success looks like to you subconsciously, you can make changes in your work to push it in that direction.

You have limitations, you say? All writers have limitations, even the great ones. And most creative people are working through the same themes for the bulk of their lives. I just read John Irving's most recent book, and thirty-plus years later he is still rehashing the same themes--absent women, dastardly dogs, death of a child, and oral sex (usually taking place in a car) that goes horribly wrong. Every one of his books seems to have one or more of these issues creep in--but he's JOHN IRVING...and he's a writer with limitations.

When the negative responses start to come in, we can parse them for similarities. Do any of the publisher's responses ring true in terms of specific criticisms? Are there common complaints that can be addressed before the next round of submissions? I'm always amazed by the ways that small adjustments can make a huge difference to readers. (And help the writer to feel proactive instead of reactive.)

Alternatively--and this is a scary question, but bear with me--could it be time for you to give up? Maybe it is time to ask that awful question. Asking is just asking, just admitting to a possibility. Why not give up and see how it feels? No one has to know but you. Just stop caring and tell yourself you are never going to write another fricking word again, ever. Not one. Then see how that feels. Freeing? Good. Go with it. It is guaranteed to take you somewhere. I've given up about five times in my writing career. I do it once every three years or so. I simply swear off the stupid writing. What a relief!! I don't ever have to write again. Thanks be to God. And yet somehow I always come back to it. It's how I process the world, so I can't seem to not write. And when I come back to it after sincerely swearing off the writing, I come back with renewed vigor and fresh eyes because I know I'm doing it by choice. I usually feel less pressure when I come back, because hey, I quit writing, so who cares what my next "thing" looks like?

And my final words of wisdom...chances are good that you are actually closer than you have ever been before. Look behind you at the long road you have already traveled and imagine yourself back there at the start of it all. Wouldn't where you are now look like success to that far away writer? Here is what I told my friend: You have an agent who believes in you. Your work is being sent out and landing on the desks of big NYC editors. It's getting READ!!! CONSIDERED!! It only takes one yes. You've done your part, let the agent do the hard work now. And maybe it's best if you tell her to hold onto the responses for a while. Ask her not to tell you what they are until she has a common complaint that you can address. You don't need to read and obsess over the nuance of every single rejection. Let her do that, let her absorb the blows for a while. She's got more distance. It isn't her baby in the same way it is yours. It sounds like it is self-defeating and counterproductive for you to be kept apprised of the responses as they come in. Plenty of writers tell their agents they don't want to know, they just want to write. You could try that with this next round of subs and see how that works for you.


And in the end, maybe the truest sign of success is simply being able to write and not worry about how it is (or will be) received. Maybe we all need to remember that the real joy is in the writing.

It's All About the Writing

Before I began writing full time, I was a production potter. I strove to create beautiful work that was also functional. For me, beauty and function have never been separate ideals. A pitcher that is easy to lift and pours a smooth stream of liquid without dripping is beautiful for how it becomes an extension of the hand, an aid to human intent and ability. Beauty, likewise, has its own unique function: to make us happy, to carry us beyond the mundane details of our daily lives, to engage our souls and help them briefly soar.

During my days as an MFA student studying creative writing, a beloved instructor gave me the following advice: "It's all about the writing." Focus on the writing, she said, and the rest will follow. She's a brilliant writer and a kind and generous soul, so I believed her. But I now believe that I took those words of hers too literally, as in, ONLY the writing is important. In today's publishing climate, this is not the case--if, in fact, it ever was.

I'm not only referring to the fact that agents and publishers want to know if you have 1) a "platform" (i.e. some claim to fame beyond the writing, preferably still related to the writing) from which they can help you to launch your writing, 2) if you have a blog, 3) how many Facebook friends you have, and 4) how many Twitter followers.

No, I think what I'm talking about is the fact that readers crave beautiful writing, yes, but they also want good, solid characterization, they want a functional story. And why shouldn't they? I want those things in my reading, too. Writing beautiful descriptive passages has never been a problem for me. I've got that pretty much nailed. But it isn't enough to keep a story hanging together. It isn't enough to fully transport the reader.

I'm a stubborn person. I know this about myself. For those of you who follow such things, I'm a Taurus, so yeah, bullheaded and all that. But I can be taught. I can learn. And what I have learned from my novel currently out on submission is that it is "beautifully written," and that I am a "wonderful writer"...and yet... somehow it isn't fully capturing the reader. It doesn't quite deliver that fictive world that readers want to inhabit for 200 pages.

Until now.

I've spent weeks revising with this in mind, that it isn't only about the writing. It is also about the character and what he/she wants more than anything in the world. It's about the experiences in life that brought her to this critical crossroads and inform the choices she makes, good or bad, from here on out. And it's about how she is changed, and by extension how the readers is changed, before the final page is turned.

I feel like I get it now. I finally, finally understand. And so I'm taking all that beautiful writing and making it just a little bit more functional. A little less likely to drip when poured. I can hardly wait to send it out and see.

Never Give Up

Cliff Garstang has a great post about keeping hope alive as a writer: Don't Give Up! Truly, mental fortitude in the writing business is as important as the writing itself, especially in the beginning. As Fred Leebron counseled us during our MFA program, "Writing is a game of attrition. Don't attrish."

I'm very pleased to announce that I have not attrished, and any plans for attrishment that were being hatched have been ferreted out and squashed. The writing is going well on all fronts. I only wish I had more hours in the day.

A bit of excellent news arrived in my inbox yesterday. I won the League of American Pen Women Mary Mackey Short Story Prize for my story Viewing Medusa. This story is part of the novel-in-stories that I'm working on, so that's doubly heartening. Also, that story has been sent out to over 100 magazines and journals without ever getting picked up (yes, I'm stubborn). It is also the story that helped secure me a Bread Loaf waitership and an SLS scholarship in a contest judged by Margaret Atwood. It's served me well, but no magazine has seen fit to publish it. Am I alone in finding that odd? Well, until one finally does, I guess I'll just keep using it to apply for as many good opportunities as I can. :)

The (dreaded) Author Photo

Most of the readers I know, love to look at an author's photo. Most of the writers I know hate the idea of their picture being attached to their words. In that regard, I'm no exception. I mean, I write words, for heaven's sake--I'm not an actress. What does it matter what I look like? My writing should tell you everything you need to know about me. Please, keep my looks out of the equation.

Except I admit that I look at author photos, too. It's not necessarily the first thing I do as a reader, but I usually do it before I commit to buying the book, and then again (sometimes many times) while reading--the number of glances largely related to how I feel about what I'm reading. When I first read Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone in the 1990s, I kept returning to the author photo. I had so much trouble believing it had been written by a man. I looked and looked at his face, wondering, was he transgendered? Was he some sort of super-sensitive male creature? What makes this author tick?

Reading my first Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers, I was intrigued by his author photo, too, especially his splendiforous hair, which I know has nothing to do with what he writes, but his photo and the subject he wrote about felt oddly mismatched for me. Revisiting the author photo was evidence of my continued incredulity: "This guy wrote this?" (I've since reconciled the author image and the book's content.)

If a book is funny, you want to flip to the back and see a photo of someone who looks like there's an amusing anecdote just waiting to fall from her lips (calling Erma Bombeck!). If it's a book about science, you want to see the scholarly author ready to expound on her topic of expertise. For One Life to Give, the non-fiction book I co-authored, with its inspirational/educational focus, we chose author photos that showed us looking trustworthy and understanding.


As an author, I think it's difficult to know when it's time to update the(dreaded) author photo. I've been to plenty of readings where the author in question is a good twenty years older than his or her most recent official author photo. While I understand the impulse to present your best, youngest self, that older picture isn't really a picture of you anymore. So I've decided that every ten years is a good benchmark to shoot for. And this fall, when I still had a smidge of my summer tan and backpacker's fitness left, I decided it was time. I bought tooth whitener. I got a really good haircut. I bought two new shirts. I actually got excited about getting my picture taken, convinced that I could be happy with the results. (Apparently I had forgotten how seldom I see of a photograph of myself that I actually like.)

Oddly enough, I found that my previous author photo often caused readers to exclaim, "Oh, you look so much younger in person!" when they met me, which I found very strange. How often does that happen to an author?? And what was wrong with that photo? Was it the pose that made me look older? The outfit I was wearing? The use of a black-and-white image? What? Whatever it was, I knew that I wanted my updated author photo to go in the other direction this time.

So I tried for a look that might be labeled "hip" if it weren't for, you know, the fact that it's a photo of a writer. (Apologies to all my hip writer friends out there, but surely you know you are in the minority.) I was pretty sure I wanted my photo taken outside. I write a lot about the natural world, and I am far more comfortable outdoors than I am cooped up inside. I thought I wanted a photo with my fins, which led to an option that I decided was fun, but not really author photo material.

Then we shot some in color, against a rustic doorway, but they felt too smiley. What I had in mind was a photo that would depict me as serious but approachable, intelligent but fun. I understand that's a lot to ask of one image, but we kept trying. We even gave the studio shots a whirl in both black and white and color, using different backgrounds, wearing different clothes, striking different poses, looking in different directions. The photographer was very patient. In the end, I decided to go with the leather jacket image that I have made the "face" of this blog. Although I will happily take a publicist's advice when we get to that stage.I'm looking forward to it. :)

Margaret Atwood at the r.kv.r.y. blog

I am a huge, slavering fan of Margaret Atwood's work. I first read The Handmaid's Tale in 1985, and it took the top of my head off. Thereafter, I read everything of hers I could get my hands on. The Double Voice, the poem she graciously permitted us to print in this issue, became a standout poem for me in those early years when I was grappling with what it meant to be a woman, and a creative woman at that.

I grew up spending a lot of time in the wilderness. Our first house in the Blue Ridge Mountains was located down a one-lane dirt road in a holler, a mile away from our nearest neighbor, with two creek crossings (no bridge--we just drove right through). In the winter, we kept our vehicles at the top of the hill and first walked up there to drive to town, then brought our groceries back down by toboggan, usually once a month. (We bought a lot of powdered milk and pinto beans.) I'm sure it was a difficult existence, especially for the adults, but it was a magical time for me. I've read that Margaret Atwood spent many months in the Canadian wilderness as a child, and I can't help but wonder if some of my affinity for her work is related to the similarities of our early experiences, although back then Canada seemed like a world away from Check, Virginia.

Our first winter in that house was the winter of 1976, an especially snow-heavy winter all over the east coast. I missed school the entire month of January because of the excessive snow. I also remember watching the news after the freak snowstorm in Buffalo that year that left people climbing out of their second-story windows to get out of their houses. I distinctly remember thinking, "Who in their right mind would ever live in such a place??" And here I am now, going on 11 years in Suchaplace, NY. A southern girl at heart, I now live so far north that parts of Canada are actually south of me. Oh, irony.

Anyway, this was meant to be a post about Margaret Atwood and her amazing work. I've heard her speak several times, once in Buffalo, once in Toronto for her clever, theatrical, and environmentally consciencious launch of Year of the Flood. For intellectual stimulation and wry wit, she never disappoints. In 2012, at the annual AWP conference in Chicago, she will be keynote speaker--a Do Not Miss event.

Here is a video link of her brilliant talk at a tech conference in which she discusses The Publishing Pie (featuring her own hand-drawn slides). I highly recommend this discussion of the role of authors in the changing publishing landscape. In response to popular demand, she made several of the slides into t-shirts, including the Dead Author t-shirt pictured below, that you can purchase at Cafe Press. Clearly she's an author not afraid to embrace new technology, and that alone would be enough of a reason for me to admire her.
 
 
And here is a fun video from one of my favorite shows, The Rick Mercer Report, in which she answers the question Poet first? Or novelist first? Surprise answer? Goalie!

My Blanket Apology

I am counting down. I have given myself a timetable and my end date is September 15th. One week to go.

This is the date I have told myself I must be done. I've completed nine other revisions on this novel, but this last one is a biggie. New title, new ending, new character names, new motivations, more sex, and another death. I am almost there. But I still have one week to go. So...

No matter how much I love you, don't expect to hear from me. Unless you have the same number as the Hong Kong Buffet takeout place, I'm not likely to ring you up.

On the other hand, I may contact you if you know anything about boats or sharks or the Windward Isles or what it means to be a Belonger. Or even if your area of expertise is 70s punk or panic attacks or Mormonism or stalking.

If you call me, I am not likely to answer. If I do answer, expect me to sound confused, distant, and disoriented for the first five minutes of our conversation. (No, I have not been drinking...unless it's after ten pm and I'm writing a sex scene.) When you have been diving in very deep waters, it takes time to resurface, unless, of course, you don't mind if your head explodes.

If you email me and my answer is shorter and more to the point than my usual emails, understand: brevity is where I live. For the next week, I won't use two words where one will do.

If I seem testy, don't take it personally. It is only because I am spending my days looking for any spark of conflict and then cupping it in my hands and blowing on it.

To my friend who has recently had a baby, I'm sorry I haven't called. I've been up at night walking the floors with my own colicky manuscript.

To my neighbor, whose son just left for college, I'm thinking of you, I really am.

To my former sister-in-law who just lost her beloved uncle, I love you and I'm sorry for your pain.

To my children, my mother-in-law, my co-author, my best friend, my editors at the journal, my book club, my sisters, my mother, my poor neglected husband, my cat, my garden, and my yoga mat, I'm sorry I love you all. Please just allow me one more week of being here but being absent. Just seven more days, I promise.

Interview with Dylan Landis

At the r.kv.r.y. blog.

Here's an excerpt:

MA: I've read that you feel one of your themes to be "the redemptive power of art." I love that. It makes so much sense to me, but I'm wondering if you could extrapolate on that for our readers.

DL: I'll say this inadequately, as neither a scholar nor an artist. I'm an ex-newspaper reporter who spent thirteen years getting her first book of fiction out.

Art requires so much discipline, and receptivity; and in return it connects you with humanity, and transcends what is mundane about humanity, too. This may sound crazy, but striving for all of that makes me feel forgiven, like I have a right to be here after all. Just the act of reading and writing, or answering your questions and looking up what Chekhov said about being cold, bonds me with other souls who care about story, books, language, a higher purpose. I need that. And I need to write about people who don't yet realize what it means to be touched by that.

Of course I may be producing absolute dreck while rereading Faulkner or Toni Morrison. But as long as I show up, I'm plugging into something larger and more vibrant than anything else I could probably manage to do.

So I wish that for my characters. I see art—and science too; think of Andrea Barrett's work—as a driving force for some of them, or as a real lack in their lives. Remember that art can be provocative, and artists troubled. The possibilities in fiction are intense.

Interview!

Kelly Spitzer kicked off her Writer Profile Project with Yours Truly. And you can read the interview here. Thanks Kelly!

Lessons from NaNoWriMo

For the second time (first was in 2004) I participated in National Novel Writing Month--or NaNoWriMo as those in the know refer to it. The goal is to write a novel in a month--50,000 words minimum. A lot of novices particpate in NaNoWriMo and many writers with higher literary aspirations look down their noses at NaNoWriMo, but just like anything, it is what you make of it.

I used it as a motivating tool and found it really helpful. I tend to write really slowly and sweat every word, and I recognize that it isn't always the best way to write. Certainly not the way to get to a deeper level in my writing. I'm not even sure why I write so slowly on a normal day. Fear? Perfectionist tendencies? Avoidance? All of the above?

For me, NaNoWriMo becomes like the exercises we did in art school to force us to loosen up: things like drawing from the shoulder and not the wrist, doing 30-second gesture drawings, and blind contour drawings (drawing without looking at the paper). Both of the last two exercises encourage really focusing on the object you want to portray, but not examining (or criticizing) your results until you are finished.

When I write FORWARD ONLY during NaNoWriMo--without looking back--it's like doing a blind contour drawing. I'll eventually take a look at it and go, "yikes!" but I will also recognize that I have learned something very valuable in the process--that "seeing" your subject is at least as important as portraying it--and I will find a surprising beauty in some aspects of what I have drawn.

So, 30 days and 50,000 words later, I have five new short stories (no, I didn't write a novel, but again, it's how you use NaNoWriMo that's most important--how you make it work for you) and a new recklessness to my writing that takes me to more surprising and exciting places. Yes, I have a lot to go back and edit and tinker with, but you can't make a finished sculpture without a whole mess of clay.

Learning to critique

This spring I'm teaching a critiquing class. The group meets once a week and we read and discuss work brought in by participants. I bring a timer to keep us on track and to ensure that discussion time is divided fairly. I also offer a writing prompt, week-to-week in case they need ideas to keep them writing. It's been a great class and has made me think a lot about the writing and workshopping process.

Learning to critique the creative work of others is a really valuable life lesson, especially if you are pursuing a creative life yourself. We learn a great deal from having our work critiqued and also from critiquing the work of others.

Here are some of the basic "rules" I have my students follow:

For the reader:

· Do not explain your work. Do not give us “background information” before you read it to us. Let the work speak for itself. The words on the page must do the work--once it is in print, you will not have the opportunity to “set it up” for your readers. After comments you can explain if you feel compelled to do so.

· Understand that a critique of your work is not a critique of you. Because we look at your work and find suggestions for improvement does not mean that you are a bad writer. Most work needs tweaking. Above all, remember that a critique is not personal. You are not being judged. You are not passing or failing. You are workshopping.

· Remember that this is your work. Ultimately it will have only your name on it. As such, it should say what you want it to say. DO NOT take every suggestion offered. This will result in a mish-mash of ideas and styles. I tell my students to think of a critique session as a buffet. Sample everything, yes, but only take seconds of whatever food appeals to you.

For the critiquer:

· Be positive. It is not easy to put creative work before a group. Find something that you like and comment on that before finding fault.

· Offer suggestions for improvement. Phrases such as “have you considered…” and “what if you tried…” go a long way toward making the critiquee receptive to your ideas.

· Do not be afraid to speak up if you disagree with what another critiquer says. You can do this politely, but it is important for the person who is being critiqued to know that what that person says is not agreed to across the board. There is no problem with having a different opinion. We are all writing different things in different styles. There is bound to be some disagreement. It is up to the writer to sort it out, and up to you to speak up if you disagree.

· Honor the author's intent. The best critiquer takes time to analyze what the author is trying to accomplish and frames his or her suggestions accordingly. Be careful not to impose your own personal writing tastes on the critiquee, especially if they run contrary to the writer's vision for his or her piece. [Even experienced workshop leaders have trouble remembering to do this.]


The most useful--and difficult--thing I've learned in more than twenty years of workshopping (ten-plus years in the fine arts and ten years in writing) is how to sort through comments. If a particular reader doesn't get anything of what I'm trying to say and would change virtually everything about my writing, that reader is NOT a good reader for my work. I then take to heart very little of what that particular reader says--he or she simply is not the reader I'm aiming for.

Conversely, if a reader likes every single thing about my piece and wants no changes whatsoever, that person may be a good reader for my ego, but not so good for helping me make the work the best it can be. I appreciate the strokes, but also, get very little that is constructive from the critique.

If, however, a reader responds positively to some things (particularly the things that I, too, like) and has suggestions for changes/adjustments that ring true as I read them, then that person IS a good reader for me and I listen to almost everything that person has to say.

The worst thing we can do to our writing voice is take to heart everything that everyone says and try to make everyone happy.

A few words about forgiveness and culpability

And I'm speaking of the Viswanathan publishing scandal, which I am finding especially troubling.

I know she did wrong, no question. But can't we (meaning the people in the business of publishing) examine this a little more closely? Can't we take a minute to wonder if maybe we bear some responsibility for this happening in the first place?

Consider:

1) Ms Viswanathan was 17 years old when a big publisher dangled that $500,000 advance (and some probability of fame) in front of her.

2) In an interview (prior to the scandal) she said she didn't even want to be a writer, she had no plans to pursue it as a career. (Anyone else see a red flag?)

3) The book was bought on the basis of a few chapters. A few chapters!

4) Suddenly, sale complete, she found herself faced with finishing the whole book...this for a young woman who has never written a novel before.

Having written two novels myself, I can testify that about halfway through the process, fear, despair, and a certainty that it will never, ever get finished sets in. Even when I know I've made it to the end of a book once before, and that I can, I still panic, and I'm 40 years old, with an MFA under my belt and no big contract contingent upon my finishing the manuscript.

Did no one involved in this sale think that this was a possibility? Did no one pause to wonder if they were doing the right thing giving a huge advance to an unpublished author who is also only 17 years old?? Was there such a rush to get a piece of The Next Big Thing that they all lost their heads and put a huge load of pressure on a high school student? Sure sounds like it to me.

She can't even go into a bar and order a drink. She's a kid. A kid who screwed up royally, but I challenge you to show me a kid who doesn't have at least one major screw up during his or her teen years.

Did Viswanathan exploit the business, lie and steal? Yes, she did. She panicked and she plagiarized. By all means cancel her book, take it off the shelves, make her pay back her advance.

But an equally valid question is, Did the corporate publishing machine exploit her as a pretty young ambitious female with a foreign name?

I think perhaps they did.

Drought, flood, drought, flood

I sent work out during all of 2005 and got nothing in return for my efforts. No love, no ink, no shred of interest, and rejection after rejection after rejection. A year's worth of it. Hard to imagine going a year with next to nothing in the way of positive strokes, but it's the writer's life I'm afraid. Needless to say, I was getting bummed and wondering if I should just quit trying to get published in journals. The whole lit journal publishing racket leaves SO MUCH to be desired.

Then, on Saturday, I opened my email to a lovely acceptance from Xavier Review for the short story that is essentially the first chapter of my novel. This acceptance was especially sweet because Xavier Review publishes work about the southern US and Caribbean, and wants work that explores racial themes. Perfect fit! Yay, life is good.

Then, the mail arrived. In the stack was a letter from Primavera accepting another story of mine that was first submitted in 2004! (In 2005 they requested a revision to the ending, which I did, and they have now agreed to publish it in 2007. A long way off, one might think, but in this crazy publishing business I've learned that it really isn't so far away.) This is another excellent fit, as Primavera is a journal that showcases work by and about women and the story is about two very different women who come together and the assumptions that each makes about the other. The editors were wonderful and really considered and discussed the work before deciding to publish it.

My faith in the system has been restored. Although, in a perfect world, I would have preferred to space my acceptances out just a bit more--two in one day may be more excitement than this poor fragile writer can handle, and it mostly left me shaking my head in disbelief. But I've decided to stockpile the excited feelings--store them away so that I will have a stash of fortitude to get me through the possibility of another long acceptanceless year.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

My college roommate had a serious David Bowie obsession. Today I've been thinking of his song "Changes." Turn and face the strange, ch-ch-changes.

Facing change is essential if we are to grow and strengthen in our art. That song, Changes, marked a pivotal time in Bowie's career, and became the first song of his to make the charts. He was discovering and embracing the things that made his art unique and it brought him critical and popular acclaim.

I'm currently experiencing a small writing crisis...no biggie, and nothing that needs sympathy even, since I've learned by now to be patient; that these periods of doubt and struggle always precede a great growth spurt in my writing and an evolution of my "voice." I'm looking forward to that. A pivotal time. Time to embrace the changes.