Good morning, dear readers. No, not that F word. This blog isn't about censorship, but rather failure. Facing failure. Oh, great, you're thinking. What an upbeat topic for a summer day. So Ron has written about the h word, humiliation. And all of us throughout the semester have discussed various versions of the C word - crazy, man. All writers are crazy - at times. And all of us have to face failure. I've been mulling about failure because I've been wanting to post about the end of my brother's Everest journey. It turns out that he got two GI infections up there, lost twenty pounds and in the end had to come home and didn't get to make a summit attempt. Since he had a web site/blog that was promoting four charities, his journey was quite public. I've run into people since that seem surprised. He didn't make it? Well, no. People actually die up there, so we're all relieved he made the smart decision to return home safely. You didn't get your novel published? Haven't you been working on for a long time?
Last night on Teri Gross' radio show featuring song writers, someone quoted that Ira Gershwin wrote in isolation because of the "exclusivity of failure." Chew on that for awhile. Some of our failed writings and goals in life are personal and private. And some are not. Soon after my brother returned, he was scheduled to give a talk at his university's alumni weekend. Great, he says to me and my husband. I get to go give my loser speech. I could just picture my brother standing in front of all these guys, holding up his fingers in front of his face in an "L."
John, I said, I think these guys would much rather hear about how one person faced failure when not reaching a goal, then hear about how a successful businessman also climbs the world's tallest mountains, leaving overweight audience members feeling even more like slugs. I know. Easy for me to say. But as hard as it is, I do know after all these years, that I learn more from failure, than success. Maybe just because there is more of it.
Dang. I'm sorry to fall into cliche here, but it is the journey. When I published my novel Free Radical a few years ago, I hate to admit it, but deep down I really thought it might be a hit because I'd worked so many years on it. But the first review from Kirkus was not good. The following ones were quite decent and, though no award winner, the novel ended up doing well. But that first review devastated me for a few days. It's not like I haven't had plenty of reviews all over the spectrum, but for me novel reviews are tougher to take. It's like for a NF book - oh, well, they don't like my subject. And a picture book - the illustrations don't really work.
A supportive writer friend sent me a Rumi quote to buck me up. I wish I had saved it. But it was about the journey, I'm sure. Eventually I recovered and returned to the keyboard.
Earlier in the spring I posted about how Icelanders consider failure the compost for later success. Go throw some vegetable scraps on the pile.
Got any of your own F stories to share?
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
So....Bright....The...Daylight....
I feel like I'm at the end of a movie, where there's a bunch of people standing in the sunlight just in front of the entrance of some cave. They've been there for hours, days, weeks, waiting to see if the person who went in--young, foolhardy, heart full with some crazy mission--might possibly come out. And they've just given up hope, they're shaking their heads and beginning to disperse. And then there's a rumble of something, a shift in the air, and the person bursts through the earth--older, wiser, and covered in some crap-like substance--into the joyous awaiting day.
I finished my revision. It's been a month of me sucking down Diet Dr. Pepper and Powerade, eating microwave popcorn, and twitching. I've come out from under the earth to discover that there's a world with sky. Except there's no one waiting at the other side of the cave for me, other than annoyed people to whom I owe emails and phone calls, the guy who does collections for our sewer water bill, the cats, who still think I should be working on my lecture, and my editor, waiting to give me more revisions. And instead of caked on crap-like substance, I'm covered in microwave popcorn goo, self-hatred, and an excess of adverbs.
I wrote the first draft this way, too--in some crazy fever dream. It was fun, at the time. This was less fun. And I have to wonder if there are people out there who can just write steadily--instead of working in these insane bursts, they just sit down and do their work every day and manage to pay their sewer bill at the same time.
Which, actually, I should probably go do right now.
I finished my revision. It's been a month of me sucking down Diet Dr. Pepper and Powerade, eating microwave popcorn, and twitching. I've come out from under the earth to discover that there's a world with sky. Except there's no one waiting at the other side of the cave for me, other than annoyed people to whom I owe emails and phone calls, the guy who does collections for our sewer water bill, the cats, who still think I should be working on my lecture, and my editor, waiting to give me more revisions. And instead of caked on crap-like substance, I'm covered in microwave popcorn goo, self-hatred, and an excess of adverbs.
I wrote the first draft this way, too--in some crazy fever dream. It was fun, at the time. This was less fun. And I have to wonder if there are people out there who can just write steadily--instead of working in these insane bursts, they just sit down and do their work every day and manage to pay their sewer bill at the same time.
Which, actually, I should probably go do right now.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Mapping a Story
I’ve returned from the road trip. Our daughter is in her new apartment and I’ve now seen Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell (albeit the latter through a window because I would not stand in a two-block long line in 90 degree temperatures), and—perhaps most amazing—an Ikea that was nearly deserted on a Saturday.
The cat was an exemplary traveler, except for one harrowing moment in a motel parking lot in Carlisle, PA when he escaped and cowered under the car. Maybe he knew before we did that we’d be eating sushi that night and would not be bringing leftovers back to him, and so he wanted to create a brief flurry of trouble.
I packed a couple of books but for the most part my reading was restricted to a road atlas. This was no hardship as I love maps. Maps are terrific writing catalysts. One of my standard exercises is matching place names and then conjuring biographies for the resulting person. Imagining life stories for Virgil Drydan, Tully Preble, and Amber Spafford kept me occupied as we drove north through New York, and I kept my cool during a very long and slow Ontario-US border crossing by thinking about Varna Kippen, Florence Bothwell and Forest Kerwood.
This sort of playing around might not generate the material that revisiting humiliation and thinking about the antagonists in your life will, but the result will be useful all the same. So open an atlas and have some fun.
MQ
The cat was an exemplary traveler, except for one harrowing moment in a motel parking lot in Carlisle, PA when he escaped and cowered under the car. Maybe he knew before we did that we’d be eating sushi that night and would not be bringing leftovers back to him, and so he wanted to create a brief flurry of trouble.
I packed a couple of books but for the most part my reading was restricted to a road atlas. This was no hardship as I love maps. Maps are terrific writing catalysts. One of my standard exercises is matching place names and then conjuring biographies for the resulting person. Imagining life stories for Virgil Drydan, Tully Preble, and Amber Spafford kept me occupied as we drove north through New York, and I kept my cool during a very long and slow Ontario-US border crossing by thinking about Varna Kippen, Florence Bothwell and Forest Kerwood.
This sort of playing around might not generate the material that revisiting humiliation and thinking about the antagonists in your life will, but the result will be useful all the same. So open an atlas and have some fun.
MQ
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
The Antagonist Never Changes?
So we all know that every story needs a protagonist. And that usually the protagonist has a breakdown that leads to a breakthrough, whether a fictional character or a person who really lived. As the protagonists in our own lives, this often holds true.
Every story needs an antagonist. We learned that in high school English. But sometimes the antagonist is a shadowy character, not fully formed. And that lack of development could be the reason one’s story isn’t as rich as it could be.
* Screenwriter Raymond Singer, who presented at the Hamline program in July 2008, believes that the antagonist has what the protagonist wants. I have processed this idea with several of my stories and often this holds true, but not always.
* Martha Alderson states in her blockbuster plot program that ¾ of the way through the story the antagonist still prevails. But by the end of the climax, the protagonist does.
* Darcy Pattison writes in her book Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise, a workbook used at her novel revision retreats, that a story is best served when the antagonist is a fully fleshed out character, not just a character’s inner demons. She suggests that the antagonist and protagonist should meet face to face at the climax and that only then can the protagonist prevail.
* Novelist Janet Fitch says that the antagonist never changes, as opposed to the protagonist who must change by the end of the story. This idea has resonated with me deeply, but I do believe that in many stories the change in the protagonist helps create one in the antagonist. Civil rights’ activitists in the 1960’s, bravely sitting at a lunch counter or riding a bus, forced a change in their racist antagonists by their actions.
Do any of these suggestions about antagonists resonate for you? What antagonist in your own life can give you insights for your story’s antagonist?
Every story needs an antagonist. We learned that in high school English. But sometimes the antagonist is a shadowy character, not fully formed. And that lack of development could be the reason one’s story isn’t as rich as it could be.
* Screenwriter Raymond Singer, who presented at the Hamline program in July 2008, believes that the antagonist has what the protagonist wants. I have processed this idea with several of my stories and often this holds true, but not always.
* Martha Alderson states in her blockbuster plot program that ¾ of the way through the story the antagonist still prevails. But by the end of the climax, the protagonist does.
* Darcy Pattison writes in her book Novel Metamorphosis: Uncommon Ways to Revise, a workbook used at her novel revision retreats, that a story is best served when the antagonist is a fully fleshed out character, not just a character’s inner demons. She suggests that the antagonist and protagonist should meet face to face at the climax and that only then can the protagonist prevail.
* Novelist Janet Fitch says that the antagonist never changes, as opposed to the protagonist who must change by the end of the story. This idea has resonated with me deeply, but I do believe that in many stories the change in the protagonist helps create one in the antagonist. Civil rights’ activitists in the 1960’s, bravely sitting at a lunch counter or riding a bus, forced a change in their racist antagonists by their actions.
Do any of these suggestions about antagonists resonate for you? What antagonist in your own life can give you insights for your story’s antagonist?
Hey, Humiliation! Thanks a Lot!
Czeslaw Milosz suggests that there is only one big theme for beginning writers, and that is humiliation. He says, " . . . open the treasury of your unrevealed and unconfessed, even to yourselves, experiences. These are the moments when you were, in one way or another, humiliated. Remember only those instants sticking in you like thorns, start harrowing them, and describe them in detail."
I'm not a beginning writer and/but there are things that, in a way, I've never gotten over. These turn up in disguise in my work and propel, sometimes, the whole enterprise. I was about ten and on vacation with my parents at Lake of the Ozarks. (Now Branson, MO.) I was skinny and self-conscious, like a lot of kids. Walking to the dock one day wearing a stupid swim suit with fish on it, some older girls laughed. Maybe not even at me, but that perceived humiliation is Ben's in STONER & SPAZ. Lucky me, huh?
Why be humiliated about humiliation? Why be embarrassed about those experiences. Revisit them. Have them over for drinks and chips. Tell them you've got some work for them to do, but first a nice dinner with lots of white wine!
RK
Monday, June 21, 2010
Weathering It
Hey, is this thing on?
Sorry to have been so quiet. My mind is full of revisions, the upcoming Hamline residency, and thinking about the new iPhone. For me, the process of writing a lecture for residency takes six weeks. The first five weeks are devoted to worrying about it, the last to actual work. It's a very time consuming process.
Lisa's post about summer writing hit home for me. Now, I don't garden. That involves lots of bending over, and I get wiggy with abrupt postural changes--plus once I found a toy snake in the backyard, and that's far too close to a real snake for comfort. I don't have a dog to walk, just three neurotic cats who sit in sunbeams and look at me like I should be working on my lecture. The outside does not beckon to me, because it's oddly not air conditioned out there.
But the weather's all wrong. My book is a contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen." It was going to be called The Snow Queen, until my helpful editor suggested otherwise. (The helpfulness did not extend to suggesting a new title. I might have to use one of Ron's cast-offs.) As may be apparent, there's a lot of snow in it.
I wrote the book in a wintery haze in January and February--it snows emphatically in Cleveland during these months, an exclamation point on the season--and when I needed to see the particular way snow behaved, I could just look out the window. In the first half I am to do a better job capturing what it feels like to live in a Minnesota winter, the different ways the snow expresses itself, the way the air feels. And I have no idea. I can't relate. Winter feels so far away right now, even further than the iPhone shipping date. I'm left to close my eyes and try to remember my feet crunching in the snow as a kid, dragging a sled down the sidewalk. But then I just start getting anxious for my lecture for winter residency.
Sorry to have been so quiet. My mind is full of revisions, the upcoming Hamline residency, and thinking about the new iPhone. For me, the process of writing a lecture for residency takes six weeks. The first five weeks are devoted to worrying about it, the last to actual work. It's a very time consuming process.
Lisa's post about summer writing hit home for me. Now, I don't garden. That involves lots of bending over, and I get wiggy with abrupt postural changes--plus once I found a toy snake in the backyard, and that's far too close to a real snake for comfort. I don't have a dog to walk, just three neurotic cats who sit in sunbeams and look at me like I should be working on my lecture. The outside does not beckon to me, because it's oddly not air conditioned out there.
But the weather's all wrong. My book is a contemporary retelling of "The Snow Queen." It was going to be called The Snow Queen, until my helpful editor suggested otherwise. (The helpfulness did not extend to suggesting a new title. I might have to use one of Ron's cast-offs.) As may be apparent, there's a lot of snow in it.
I wrote the book in a wintery haze in January and February--it snows emphatically in Cleveland during these months, an exclamation point on the season--and when I needed to see the particular way snow behaved, I could just look out the window. In the first half I am to do a better job capturing what it feels like to live in a Minnesota winter, the different ways the snow expresses itself, the way the air feels. And I have no idea. I can't relate. Winter feels so far away right now, even further than the iPhone shipping date. I'm left to close my eyes and try to remember my feet crunching in the snow as a kid, dragging a sled down the sidewalk. But then I just start getting anxious for my lecture for winter residency.
Friday, June 18, 2010
SUMMER WRITING
It is summer in Maine and I have grand plans to get through another revision of my novel. But with summer, comes a whole slew of distractions.
There is, of course the garden. I am not a gardener like some of my esteemed Hamline colleagues, and sad to say I have neglected my tiny plot for the past two years, so that means it needs extra attention now.
Then, there are the sun-dappled mornings when walk my dog on the beach for, oh, at least an hour while we romp and chase seagulls and watch the fishing boats set out. When I get back home the sun is in the perfect spot to sit outside in my new Adarondack chair, which is perfect for napping while drinking my second cup of coffee. Or for reading, which counts as work, right?
Finally I go inside to begin my writing day. The windows are open and the along with the sweet breeze, the incessant sound of construction—hammers, table saws, jack hammers, weed wackers, bad radio—blows in. After all, summer in the north coincides with construction season. I close the windows but still the jackhammer pounds through, breaking all chance of concentration. Better to hop on my bike and go somewhere else to work, like a café or the park. I have to stop at the bookstore where I linger for hours chatting with the owners. That’s kind of like work, isn’t it? By that time the café is only good for more coffee.By the time I get home I am exhausted. There is a momentary lull in construction so I must get a nap in pronto!
It is evening already and the dog is looking at me longingly—the beach is open to dogs again so we have to go. There we run into friends, so lingering til sunset is a must. After all, it is summer in Maine and these days are precious. There’s no guarantee it will be sunny or warm tomorrow. And if it’s not, I will work, I promise. Oh, but wait there is all that company. Every summer weekend is booked with out-of-towners. Boston friends can be here in two hours, and they have a canoe and are going out on the Androscoggin River rain or no—so I have to join them.
Give me a frigid, blowing blizzard and I’ll write an entire draft in a week! Summer, discipline goes right out the window. Good thing it only lasts less a few weeks. But then, there is that brilliant New England autumn…. Sigh.
There is, of course the garden. I am not a gardener like some of my esteemed Hamline colleagues, and sad to say I have neglected my tiny plot for the past two years, so that means it needs extra attention now.
Then, there are the sun-dappled mornings when walk my dog on the beach for, oh, at least an hour while we romp and chase seagulls and watch the fishing boats set out. When I get back home the sun is in the perfect spot to sit outside in my new Adarondack chair, which is perfect for napping while drinking my second cup of coffee. Or for reading, which counts as work, right?
Finally I go inside to begin my writing day. The windows are open and the along with the sweet breeze, the incessant sound of construction—hammers, table saws, jack hammers, weed wackers, bad radio—blows in. After all, summer in the north coincides with construction season. I close the windows but still the jackhammer pounds through, breaking all chance of concentration. Better to hop on my bike and go somewhere else to work, like a café or the park. I have to stop at the bookstore where I linger for hours chatting with the owners. That’s kind of like work, isn’t it? By that time the café is only good for more coffee.By the time I get home I am exhausted. There is a momentary lull in construction so I must get a nap in pronto!
It is evening already and the dog is looking at me longingly—the beach is open to dogs again so we have to go. There we run into friends, so lingering til sunset is a must. After all, it is summer in Maine and these days are precious. There’s no guarantee it will be sunny or warm tomorrow. And if it’s not, I will work, I promise. Oh, but wait there is all that company. Every summer weekend is booked with out-of-towners. Boston friends can be here in two hours, and they have a canoe and are going out on the Androscoggin River rain or no—so I have to join them.
Give me a frigid, blowing blizzard and I’ll write an entire draft in a week! Summer, discipline goes right out the window. Good thing it only lasts less a few weeks. But then, there is that brilliant New England autumn…. Sigh.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
You Have to be This Tall to Ride
"If stories were amusement park rides, some readers would want to ride the Tower of Terror time after time, while others want to ride only the train that toodles past the duck pond and gives passengers a chance to look around."
The quote is from a guy named Bruce Holland Rogers; he writes/writes about Flash Fiction, my new best friend. It, not Bruce. Whom I don't know.
I tend to write the duck-pond story; I like my passengers to see the pretty sentences I've written and that now decorate the margins of the water. But sometimes I like to read the Tower of Terror tales -- fast, cheap and out of control.
As a writing hint, I like the quote quite a bit: which ride is your story?
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Residency Speakers - Check Them Out
Pretty soon a gaggle of writers will be meeting up at Hamline University for the July residency. Ten stimulating days of workshops, faculty and graduate presentations and readings, and visiting guests. Yahoo. For full list of residency events and to learn more about the Hamline master of fine arts in writing for children and young adults, click here.
Check out this interview with visiting literary agent Sean McCarthy!
Visiting New York Public Librarian Elizabeth (Betsy) Bird can be heard on this podcast.
CRM
Check out this interview with visiting literary agent Sean McCarthy!
Visiting New York Public Librarian Elizabeth (Betsy) Bird can be heard on this podcast.
CRM
On the Road Again
Claire’s home from her road trip, a working trip. I head off on my own road trip tomorrow, but work is not the reason I’m disappearing for a week. I’ll be helping one of my daughters move to the east coast. 2 days in the car, then a few in my daughter’s new city, then back in the car and home again. The first part of the trip I’ll be traveling with a cat. Usually, time in the car is creative time as I let the mind wander and play. Here’s hoping the cat is a daydreamer too and will kick back and enjoy the ride, and I can let the imagination run full throttle when I’m not behind the wheel
I’ve been rereading Freud on writers and daydreaming. His essay is always a good reminder of how important it is for a writer to play, even if it means you have to work at playing. Kelly Easton has lectured at Hamline on incorporating chaos into your writing, and many of the other faculty members have shared their own methods of nurturing spontaneity while writing. Imagination needs attention. Use it or lose it.
So, I’ll be passing the time on the various turnpikes daydreaming, letting the imagination play. In case Franklin the cat is a complainer, I’ll be prepared to copy cat Lisa’s method for getting through a stressful situation and bring a notebook and do some actual writing. Probably, in that case, stories about vampire cats.
MQ
I’ve been rereading Freud on writers and daydreaming. His essay is always a good reminder of how important it is for a writer to play, even if it means you have to work at playing. Kelly Easton has lectured at Hamline on incorporating chaos into your writing, and many of the other faculty members have shared their own methods of nurturing spontaneity while writing. Imagination needs attention. Use it or lose it.
So, I’ll be passing the time on the various turnpikes daydreaming, letting the imagination play. In case Franklin the cat is a complainer, I’ll be prepared to copy cat Lisa’s method for getting through a stressful situation and bring a notebook and do some actual writing. Probably, in that case, stories about vampire cats.
MQ
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