Lidia Yuknavitch's The Chronology of Water

After I finished reading Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water I felt like my heart and brain had been sandblasted. It’s not your ordinary memoir, if there is such thing as an ordinary memoir. It’s raw and sad and real and scary. And she just takes so many risks as a writer in its pages—in not only what she describes, but how she describes it. I don’t know about you, but sometimes after reading such a book I feel that the writer has granted me permission to go deeper, to take more risks in my own writing. To find out more about Lidia and her other books, visit her here. (and turn your speakers on when you do and don't miss the films by her husband Andy Mingo) And since she's both a scholar and never-timid writer, here are some of her thoughts on writing memoir.

Q: Over the years of teaching and editing I’ve met writers who afraid to tell the truths of their lives in a memoir. Typically they say they’re waiting for their parents or other significant people to die. Could you talk about taking risks in writing and how a writer can toss out their concerns about the fallout, and simply write? Maybe my question is how do you write the truth without feeling too vulnerable?

A: Well I bet you’d agree with what I’m going to say…there is no way to write the truth without feeling too vulnerable.  And that is because that space of vulnerability is precisely where writers have to go, you know? 

But at the start of your question is the issue of the people in our lives that our stories may touch.  That is a difficultly.  In my own case, my parents both died.  And the fact is that I would not have written the book had they still been alive.  Particularly my mother.  My mother was in pain all of her life, and this book would have made her sad.  I would not have contributed to increasing her pain – at least not intentionally.  On the other hand, she would also have supported me, she would have told me I was brave.

The other “people” in my book I took different approaches with.  I called or emailed most of them.  I changed the names of a few.  I made at least one “composite.” 

But it’s just a veil we throw up when we say we can’t write stories because of how this or that person will react.  It’s a safety veil.  The reason to lift the veil and move through to your story has almost nothing to do with how the people in your life will react.  You can’t control that.  Ever.  The reason to lift the veil is to step with your full self into your own story. 

If other people find difficulty with your story, hey, they can write their own stories.

But I did list some good strategies:  contact people you are worried about, change names if you must, use a composite if you can skillfully render events without distorting their truth, and this:  trust art.

Q: Along with writing the truth, I noticed that there were lots of places in your story where you chose not to bring the reader along. Some of your story, such as your father’s abuse, is implied, not dramatized. How did you make decisions about what to leave in and what to leave out?

A:  That’s a great question for this particular book.  I have been quite demoralized and pissed off about the narrow options available to writers on certain topics:  incest, abuse, addiction as examples.  And what I mean about the narrow options is that it seems that it is the market, and not the writer or artist – who determines what kinds of stories can be told and HOW they can be told.  Put simply, when publishing houses and agents and editors get to decide there is a certain market tested way of telling a story, it means how it is told is based on how it is sold.

So one of the many formal choices I created for this book (you’ll no doubt notice quite a few formal strategies) was to concentrate on the body as a character, and on the sensory spaces we all enter in times of fear or danger.  In other words, I tried to create word houses or environments where the reader can feel what it’s like to be afraid or humiliated or damaged, without actually hurting the reader with the graphic details of my particular situation.

It’s my hope that this strategy opens up spaces for the reader to plug in their own archetypal experiences and their own individual stories – the river of sadness or pain moves through us all at one time or another.  It’s not important that my story be bigger than anyone else’s.

It’s just important that we understand each other through stories and art.

So I suppose you could say that I trusted art, I trusted storytelling, I trusted language and image and lyric to “carry” the reader’s body close to difficult things.

Q: How do writers find themes that resonate both for the writer and reader?

A:  I’m fairly Jungian when it comes to questions like this – I believe there are resonant archetypal images and emotions and rituals and … “memories” that connect us all even through our otherness. 

But it’s tricky, as your question implies, because all writers are narcissists.  HA! 

So one strategy to think about is to move away from “self” and toward artistic production.  Instead of asking myself, well, what happened to me and how can I tell it so that the reader will feel the weight of its importance, I asked, what is the central metaphor(s) of my life experience?  It was the metaphor of swimming that brought me to a place to tell my story that included the reader.  It was letting go of telling the story of my mind and telling the story of my body that opened up a place for the reader to travel with me.  To de-privatize the selfstory.  To de-mythologize the self. 

We are all born through water.  We are all made of mostly water.  It’s a much more resonant way to tell my story than to focus on me me me me. Or I I I I or the Lidianess of my experiences.  There is an I, there is a me, but there is mostly a big, huge, generative metaphor that is more important than that.That’s why I’ve invented so many metaphor exercises for writers…

Q: In The Chronology of Water you started near the middle of the story with the birth of your stillborn daughter then you moved in and out of time. How does a memoir writer find the best chronology for storytelling?

A:  Well I don’t know why ANY memoir follows a linear timeline, to be honest…And I say that because I have done such extensive research in biochemistry and neuroscience on the topic of memory.  Memory doesn’t work anything like we wish it did.  Sad, but true. 

It’s narrative that gives memory and experience its “shape.”  I made a very conscious choice to de-emphasize the linear in order to, at least a little bit, emphasize what’s not only true about how memory works, but also what’s true about narrative theory.

Two, I wanted to begin with a birthdeath in order to disturb the notion that birth is the beginning and death is the end, since I no longer believe that either about life or narrative.

Q: What is the most challenging part of writing and how do you face it?

A:  It’s ALL challenging, isn’t it??!!! Why do we do it, Jessica? HA!!  Seriously though, the two biggest challenges for me seem to recur.  The first is simply the challenge to stand up, claim the writing space, and innovate inside of it rather than mimic what’s been inherited.  To say I too, am a writer, and this is what it looks like when I do it and not someone else.

The second great challenge for me is to not get lost inside making art.  There is a HUGE part of me that would simply love to stay inside writing or painting.  To not come out.  To leave the world entirely.  I am more at home inside writing than I am out in the world.  It’s a great deal like being in water is for me—I’m more my self, I’m free, I’m in pure imagination and reflection and generation.

The tougher part for me is being out in the world like people are.  I mean I can do it, but it never feels quite right.  It’s painful and hard for me.  I need LOADS of “recovery” time after being in public.  I think a lot of writers, artists, introverts feel this way.  So I suppose I’m saying my deeper challenges are OUTSIDE of making art.  If I could get away with it, I’d stay in there and pull a few loved ones in with me.  Unfortunately, that’s probably a space of psychosis so it’s good that there are loving people in my life to keep me tethered to the world.

Q: In your memoir there’s a chapter on writing fiction collaboratively in Ken Kesey’s class at the University of Oregon. Besides the lovely aspect that Kesey served as a father figure to you, I’m wondering what he taught you about writing and seeing the world as a writer.

A:  He taught me it was OK to feel more passion about art and nature and animals than I do for most people.  He taught me that the outsider status you need to have as a writer does not require violent alienation.  He taught me that there are many ways to love, and writing is one way.  He taught me that writers go down to difficult places for a culture and bring things back up to it—that we have a vital role to play in culture—and to try not to get sucked into the consumer culture definition of what and who a writer is.  Which is a constant battle, you know…

Q: Can you talk about the role of your critique group in your writing process and life?

A:  YES!! They are the BEST!  HA…you knew I’d say that though, right?  What I had no idea about is how important a writing group like this could be to someone like myself who is at heart an isolate.This … “thing” we do every week is more than just bringing work in and getting feedback.  It’s a way to feel present as a writer and artist.  It’s a way to regather some of the energy you lose every day just trying to keep up with the dizzy whir of your life, not to mention your art.  I think too even though this will sound a little ju ju, it’s a very important secular ritual.  It recurs.  It collects.  It generates.  It receives and gives.  Every.  Single.  Week. 

I love too that we are all very different kinds of writers.  I suspect that our differences are important in terms of the ways we can help each other.  We each “see” slightly differently how to write and why to write and what to write, and we bring all those differences – all of those voices – together.  When you go home, those voices and emotions and ideas are still with you, swimming in your head in a comforting and reinforcing way.  It’s a way to be not alone and alone as a writer.

Q: What’s your best advice for writers in 12 words or less?

A:  If this is what you want, only you can invent its terms of being; write the world of your imagination.

Q: What books are on your nightstand?

A:  It’s more of a giant pile that starts at the floor and teeters upward like a paper tower…and the kinds of books in the pile have almost no identifiable connection…I’m a wicked and voracious reader…

Q: What’s next?

A: Well, I just finished a novel based on the Dora/Freud relationship called Dora: A Head Case that I’ll have to find a way to get into the world, and I’m currently working on a novel based on Joan of Arc.  There’s only ever the next book…

Affiliate
It's raining as if the heavens have broken. Melissa Coleman has written another great blog post at powellsbooks.com and mentioned me in it. Thanks Melissa.  In her post In the Spirit of George Plimpton, she talks about how when she lived in Portland she constantly attended author readings at Powells, her own kind of MFA program. She's described a vital link in the writing life. Sometimes when I talk to groups I mention that if I'd known that a writing life meant signing up for vast amounts of time spent alone in a room, that I'd probably have chosen another career. That's why it's so important to meet other writers, to affiliate, and hang out. We spend many hours in solitude and it helps to know that your friend across town or across the country is also sitting at a computer, working at words.

And it's vital to see your favorite authors in person at readings or speaking on panels or at conferences. To know that they spend their days and weeks and years honing their craft. Seeing their flesh, their glasses, and stooped posture. Well, I'm guessing at that last one, since writing doesn't necessarily lead to bad posture. But in my experience, it doesn't help much. (With the exception of my writer pal Marian Pierce who also teaches yoga. Her posture has posture.) When you sit in the audience and especially when you ask questions about how they write, the dream is made real. Keep experiencing the reality, the stories behind the stories that get written. If you start listening to authors speak about their lives and work you learn that the difference between published writers and unpublished writers is that we persist more. 

In her post on Tuesday Melissa has written about writing the hard stories that need to be written. She says: If I have any advice about writing personal stories, it's to learn how to write well and then write the scariest thing in your life, and don't stop writing until it's not scary anymore. Then not only will you feel better, but you might have a story that will make others feel less alone, as well.

I meet a lot of writers with a lot of reasons for why they aren't writing, or why they aren't trying to write better, or why they aren't trying to get published. So I loved this post about Melissa writing in a cafe when her twin daughters were small, wearing a base ball cap to hide her tears. What is your hard story? What do you have to say that will make others feel less alone?

Quick Reminder:
There are still openings left in my The Final Edit workshop on Saturday, April 16 in Portland. Also, there is a scholarship available. Contact me. See below for details.
keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

How Publishing Has Changed Since 1984

An article by Peter Osnos in The Atlantic describes the many sea changes in the publishing industry. Worth reading. A look back at an age of old retail and indie bookstores, before computers, celebrity memoirs, and megachains came to dominate the literary world Peter Osnos - Peter Osnos is a journalist turned book editor/publisher. He spent 18 years working at various bureaus for The Washington Post before founding Public Affairs Books.

In April 1984, I arrived at Random House as a senior editor after nearly two decades at the Washington Post. Publishing is now undergoing the most significant transformation in the way books are distributed and read since development of high-speed printing presses and transcontinental rail and highway systems. Looking back at the industry in the 1980s may help to explain how much has changed and what has not.

On my first day at Random House, I encountered the fundamental difference between the news business and the book business. In newsrooms, you got the story, it was printed in the paper, and then you went home. In publishing, you acquired the story, got it written, had it printed, and then—crucially—figured out how it should be sold. Because books have no advertising or subscriptions to provide revenue, the combined mission of obtaining the story and selling it was and is the essence of the art of publishing. For all that today's technology and marketing methods have evolved, the basic task remains the same: to define and find the audience for which the book was written.

"What is it that you contain? The dead. Time. Light patterns of millennia opening in your gut. Every minute, in each of you, a few million potassium atoms succumb to radioactive decay. The energy that powers these tiny atomic events has been locked inside potassium atoms ever since a star-sized bomb exploded nothing into being. Potassium, like uranium and radium, is a long-lived radioactive nuclear waste of the supernova bang that accounts for you.

Your first parent was a star." ~  Jeanette Winterson

"The poet must always, in every instance, have the vibrant word, that by it's trenchancy can so wound my soul that it whimpers. One must know and recognize not merely the direct but the secret power of the word; one must be able to give one's writing unexpected effects. It must have a hectic, anguished vehemence, so that it rushes past like a gust of air, and it must have a latent, roistering tenderness so that it creeps and steals one's mind; it must be able to ring out like a sea-shanty in a tremendous hour, in the time of the tempest, and it must be able to sigh like one who, in a tearful mood, sobs in his inmost heart. There are overtones and undertones in words, and there are lateral tones." ~  Knut Hamsun

etc. for writers

I'm sitting here at my desk as the low-slung cumulus clouds are painted with lavender and silver, changing darker moment by moment as dusk is descending. Over the weekend I stayed at the Hallmark Inn & Resort  in Cannon Beach with a room overlooking Haystack Rock and the constant Pacific. (For those of you new to the blog, it will be the setting for the upcoming Summer in Words Conference June 24-26)We ventured onto the beach trying to spot the now-endangered puffins that nest there, and strolled around town, stopping in the Northwest by Northwest Gallery walking among the works that just about stole our breath away.  ( I also learned that cartoon-looking and oh-so dear puffins mate for life--what a wonder.) On Saturday afternoon as we were walking across the sand, the Pacific rolling away at low tide, I felt that familiar peace descend that happens when I spend time at the coast. It's part setting, part stepping away from projects and day-to-day concerns, part being immersed in the immediacy of bird calls and water. I cannot recommend enough that all writers spend time near moving water.

But meanwhile, I just wanted to point out a few resources and such for writers. First, Melissa Coleman, mentioned last week in my previous blog because her memoir This Life is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone. is now in print, is blogging at powellsbooks.com this week. Her first entry is about how her book began while she was living in Portland when I met her.She has described taking part of a Dangerous Writing group and her first assignment  in the group: "I went home and wrote as if a pipe had burst."

The article that Jonathon Franzen wrote about his friend David Foster Wallace Farther Away for The New Yorker is available for a short time online at this link.

Agent Jessica Alvarez of Booklinks LLC is seeking manuscripts --women's, erotica, urban fantasy/paranormal, romantic suspense, and single title and category romance submissions.

Oh, and the cozy Cannon Beach Library has a fireplace and is run (as all libraries and bookstores should be) by bespectacled book lovers. In the 'for sale' room was a copy of Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings about how she developed a vast inner life as a child that led to writing. It smells faintly of mold and old places and beach and contains old timey family photos. I opened up a page and found this passage, which struck such a chord of remembrance and knowing so I must add it here: "In those days the dark was dark. And all the dark out here was filled with the soft, near lights of lightning bugs. They were everywhere, flashing on the slow, horizontal move, on the upswings, rising and subsiding in the soundless dark. Lightning bugs signaled and answered back without a stop, from down below all the way to the top of our sycamore tree."

Meanwhile, from my Division of $hameless Commerce: I still have openings in The Final Edit workshop this Saturday (April 16) in Portland. Contact me. Only time I'm teaching it this year.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

From an Editor's Desk: Create a playlist
After two days of sun the rain has returned and below my window the streets are glistening. I've been interviewing authors for about 20 years now and an interview that I have never forgotten was with Dennis Lehane soon after Mystic River was published. Lehane was riding high--his book was on the bestseller list and Clint Eastwood had just bought the film rights to it.

I learned several tips from Lehane during that interview that I've been passing on to my students and clients ever since.  For example, he suggests that writers always pay attention to how quickly other authors get in and out of scenes. Then emulate these methods. Speaking in a Boston accent, and sounding a lot like how I imagined some of his characters, Lehane told me that he writes his stories in longhand during the day, then copies them onto a computer at night. This method gives him a chance to access his creativity during that rough draft and then also lightly edit when transposing it onto his computer. Thus his first draft ends up being fairly polished.
And Lehane also creates a playlist for the books he's working on. Music affects your mood and you sometimes need to be energized, sometimes soothed by what you're listening to. Of course there are hundreds of moods inspired by music. Because your stories need a variety of moods, tones,and pacing, listening to music can help you achieve more variety.  I tried to find a copy of the Lehane interview and cannot locate it for now. I'll keep looking for it because I was trying to remember the bands he listened to. However, I recall that one band was The Clash.
Keep writing, keep listening, have heart

Just for fun: A love story
If you need a smile today, check out this story about a novelist who proposed to his girlfriend in the acknowlegment page of his novel. 
After variously thanking his publisher, his friends, his bosses and his local coffee shop "for letting me occupy a table and nurse one of your brilliant coffees for almost the entire rewriting process", Currie finally moved onto his girlfriend, Leesa Wockner. "If it's possible to fall more in love with someone every day, then that's what I do," the Brisbane-based author wrote.

"To my favourite, to the reason I live my life, Leesa Wockner, who, if she reads this, I hope will agree to marry me, despite the number of commas in this sentence."
Keep writing, keep dreaming, stay romantic

From an Editor's Desk: Choices
All fiction and memoir begins with an inciting incident--some event that starts the story and sets your character off balance and pushes him or her into some kind of action or reaction. From this first event readers want to witness characters or real people making morally significant choices. Now, this doesn't mean he or she needs to always choose between right and wrong, but rather that the choice is a conscious one and has repercussions for the rest of the story. In fact, especially in short stories, there needs to be some consequences, especially unanticipated consequences from this first choice.

Whenever possible, as the story progresses, place your characters on the horns of a moral dilemma. Moral dilemmas are emotionally involving and fraught with conflict. An example most of us are familiar with is in William Styon's Sophie's Choice. When Sophie and her son and daughter are hauled to a Nazi death camp there is chaos and horror when they first arrive. Sounds of guards shouting, dogs snarling, as the people are being sorted. Sophie must choose which of her children to surrender to the sorting process and gives up her daughter. Both her children ultimately die in the camp, but only death frees Sophie from her lifelong guilt over choosing her daughter for the death furnace.

Tsunami Books

I'm going to be at Tsunami Books in Eugene tonight for the Willamette Writers meeting along with Melissa Hart and Adam O'Connor Rodriguez. We're talking about getting published and more. Come join us. 7 p.m.

Into the Woods

Some days it feels a lot like what I do is like midwifery--helping words come into the world. Of course in my case, it's stories, not babies. I want to alert you to a beautiful excerpt from Melissa Coleman's This Life Is in Your Hands. She's a former student and client and I'm so happy for her success. I'll be interviewing here in June since she's going to be speaking at Powells in Portland on June 6. The excerpt of her memoir is in the current issue of O Magazine and you can find it online here. 
And you can find more of her upcoming appearances here.
And here are the opening paragraphs:
We must have asked our neighbor Helen to read our hands that day. Her own hands were the color of onion skins, darkened with liver spots, and ever in motion. Writing, digging, picking, chopping. Opening kitchen cabinets painted with Dutch children in bright embroidered dresses and pointed shoes. Taking out wooden bowls and handing them to my mother, Sue, to put on the patio for lunch. As Mama whooshed out the screen door with hair flowing and baby Heidi on her back, the kitchen breathed chopped parsley and vegetable soup simmered on the stove. The light glowed through the kitchen windows onto the crooked pine floors of the old farmhouse where I stood waiting.

It was a charmed summer, that summer of 1975, even more so because we didn't know how peaceful it was in comparison with the one that would follow.

"Ring the lunch bell for Scott-o," Helen called out the window to Mama. She liked to add an o to everyone's name. Eli-o, Suz-o, kiddos for the kids, Puss-o the cat. We were the closest she had to children.

As the bell chimed, Helen took my small hand and turned it upward in hers. The kitchen was warm, but her skin cool and leathery. Mama returned with Heidi as I stood long-hair-braided and 6-years-brave, holding my breath. We knew about Helen that when she didn't have something interesting to say, she'd change the subject. She smoothed my palm with her thumbs and looked down at it, her cropped granite hair holding the dusty smell of old books.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

The Final Edit Workshop

April 16

Location: Room 128, Pacific Northwest College of Art,

1241 NW Johnson, Portland, OR

Times: 10:00-5:00

Cost: $75

First comes the blank page and how to fill it, then comes the written page and how to fix it. Most often it is while revising that the real writing is accomplished. This workshop offers suggestions on how to be your own editor, with a special focus on readying a memoir or fiction manuscript for submission.

We’ll cover the three stages of revision: First Revision: Looking at the big picture and analyzing the overall coherence, structure, pacing, theme, and plausibility. This is where you determine if you’ve written mostly in scenes, if the scenes are needed, and if they’re in the correct order. Second revision: The aim of a second pass-through is to make the story seamless and to fine tune individual scenes and the ending and to track character development and arc. Final Revision: This is where you think like a copy editor and correct language, style, dialogue, and hone in on details. This draft is also for making certain that there is enough tension throughout.  Additional topics include: pacing, middles, reversals, and plot points. We’ll discuss what editors notice and reject in manuscripts. Generous handouts will be provided including checklists for revision. The workshop will be geared to the specific needs of the group, so participants are encouraged to submit questions beforehand and bring along the first pages of a novel or memoir and synopsis for feedback from the group. Additional topics include:

Are there holes in the plot?

How to spot viewpoint shifts.

Making certain the story’s themes are woven into the whole.

How and why to kill your darlings.

How and when to weave in backstory.

Balancing subplots with main storyline.

Line editing for passive voice, imprecise language and purple prose.

Tips for writing a synopsis

"I feel that you take from your life experiences, but to make it fiction, you take it to a deeper level. You transform the mundane disappointments or the joys to make it true storytelling. You have to go much farther. You have to be a kind of spy and listen carefully." ~Elizabeth Brundage

How to Create a Platform

Folks, here's a great article by Christina Katz about creating a platform for fiction writers. That's right. Fiction writers. These days you need to bake your platform while you write your novels and short stories. I'm serious as a heart attack here. And Christina is a gal to pay attention to when it comes to platform-building.

Quick Take:
When telling stories, in all their many forms, remember that the story broadens our sympathy for a variety of characters by revealing how they're thinking, feeling, facing changes, acting and reacting  in their world. As you go through your days pay attention to the expressions on faces around you. If you could not hear the person's words, what does his or her face reveal?  Notice too posture and body language--so revealing, yet so difficult to express in words. Posture communicates--look closely, take notes, spy always.

Quick Take:
Remember that for many of us our goals as writers is to wake up the world.

10 Can't Miss Fantasy and Science Fiction Books
Chosen by the folks at the Kirkus Review.  I cannot wait for the new George R.R. Martin. It's been years George....
A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin

George R.R. Martin recently announced that finally, he’s nearly done writing the oft-postponed A Dance With Dragons, book five in A Song of Ice and Fire, a massive, multi-stranded and marvelously cynical epic chronicling the battle for the Iron Throne of Westeros. Given that the book incorporates story threads cut from the previous volume when it grew too huge, readers will be especially happy to hear from characters that they haven’t heard from since book three, particularly Tyrion, the much-maligned dwarf falsely accused of murdering his royal nephew and who actually did kill his monstrous father during his escape from the dungeon, and Daenerys, a pretender to the throne of Westeros who’s set up shop on a distant island, where her dragons and former slave subjects are becoming dangerously restive. As the months tick down to July (with the assistance of a countdown clock on the author’s site), anticipation will only increase, particularly after HBO’s adaptation of book one, A Game of Thrones, debuts in April. (Bantam, July)

The Sound of Water

There is blue laced in the sky today. A relief after yesterday with low clouds and the constant plink plink plink of rain. Everything is dazzling wet here with jonquils and daffodils sprouting in patches all over town and magnolias now joining the wet spring finery.

As writers we need a place outside our office, away from our laptop that restores us. I've always tried to live around water--a lake, a creek, an ocean. Some of the lakes were giants, white capped in thunderstorms, then amazingly frozen over in winter. Some were creeks running through northern prairies or rivers coming down off mountain ranges. When I was a girl in the summer most days were spent alongside rivers and creeks. Whole days of sun and water and rocks.

I'm in love the with Pacific and the rivers that run through the Northwest. So noisy and tumbling and pressing on this time of year. On Sunday I visited the eastern fork of the Lewis River in Washington. The Lewis and Clark expedition passed through the region in 1805 and commented on the water color--turquoise and the abundance of falls.When I first moved to this area I followed different segments of the Lewis into deep woods and climbed up to waterfalls, breathing in the wet, misty air. But I hadn't visited it in years, because I've followed other rivers since then.The Lewis begins on Mt. Adams and eventually joins the Columbia, which joins the Pacific at a dangerous stretch of water,  passing through forests and small towns and farm land. In spring the many falls that punctuate the Lewis are bellicose with abundance and you feel dizzy at the noisy flow.  Some days it seems so important that water pushes away your thoughts, that the sound of it takes up a lot of space inside you so inspiration is stirred or a deep quiet happens within. Some days it seems important to return to where you belong.

Where do you go for restoration? Inspiration? Where do you belong? Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

In honor of National Poetry Month:
"Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred." ~  May Sarton


“I loved them (the muses) in the way that one loves at any age, if it’s real at all. Obsessively, painfully, with wild exaltation, with guilt, with conflict. I wrote poems to and about them. I put them into novels, disguised, of course. I brooded upon why they were as they were, so often maddening. I wrote them ridiculous letters. I lived with their faces. I knew their every gesture by heart. I stalked them like wild animals. I studied them as if they were maps of the world and, in a way, I suppose they were. Love opens the doors into everything as far as I can see, including, and perhaps, most of all, the door into one’s own, secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.” - May Sarton, from MRS. STEVENS HEARS THE MERMAIDS SINGING.

"I think the deeper you go into the personal, the more universal you are. I mean, if you can go deep enough and if it’s no longer a sort of ‘look at me, I’m in pain’ poem. And, of course, the image is what does it; the image is key. When you’ve got the metaphor, you’ve got it...I also think that you choose to be a novelist but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and it’s a tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have to say is important enough...I would like all my work, in the end, to be transparent. Something that’s transparent can be very deep, like a well.”

My understanding of what poetry can, must, and will do always do for us: it complicate us, it doesn't always "soothe." Jorie Graham

From an Editor's Desk:

Take risks. With what you must say, how you say it, with characters, verbs, the secrets and longings you dare not express. Writing isn't a safe pursuit. It's a place you can return to again and again and even find solace. But from the powerful routine of a writing practice and your love of words and storytelling, step outside your comfort zone. Now I know that comfort zone is a cliche, but the best writing doesn't come from a writer typing away about pretty things. Write about the outskirts of polite society, the doomed, the damned, haunted among us. Explore what haunts you, memories you cannot leave behind. Keep asking yourself hard questions as you write. Do I dare say this? Do I dare tell the truth? 

Plugola

I met Jane Friedman years ago at a writing conference. She was attending my workshop called Between the Lines and came up to me and handed me her card. Which was cool because I had already scheduled a meeting with her and wanted to pitch some ideas for Writer's Digest Books. She told me she'd like to read a book based on my lecture, so I have her to thank for my writing Between the Lines. I'm proud of that book and I've come to realize that Jane is always one step ahead of everyone and has one of the keenest eyes and brains around. Which is why so many of us pay attention to what she says about the publishing industry. Which is why I'm suggesting you might want to check out her new e-book The Future of Publishing: Enigma Variations You can find it here.

Why I Love Books

Fun list for book lovers over at Algonquin Books blog 

including this one:  Practicality. Book-loving isn’t just fun and games; not all head-in-the-clouds mumbo jumbo, no. Here are 9 Cool Things to Do With Old Books. Make shelves or a wreath or a clock or a lamp shade. I keep my turntable propped up on two stacks of books and an old window pane … but that’s more a “poor” thing than a “cool” thing.

From an Editor's Desk:If your story contains a victim, particularly a murder victim for those of you writing suspense, make sure that we care about the victim. Faceless victims or massive body counts don't involve the reader. A typical mystery involves unraveling the victim's past and associations. Through this process, he or she becomes known, and we are sucked into the story because of empathy and curiosity. Through this process the protagonist also comes to care.

April!

Already. Still dark this morning, but I hear the sun is paying a visit here today. I've been cleaning up my flower beds a bit at a time and yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my desk writing my column for Willamette Writers while outdoors came the grind and chop of lawnmowers. One after the other, as neighbors pulled into their driveways after work,like an answering chorus. 

Reminders: It's National Poetry month. So read, devour, savor poetry this month noticing the craft and your emotions as you read. Ask yourself how the poet accomplished what he or she accomplished with words and images.  And April 14th is  poem in your pocket day.

You can now register for Summer in Words. Registration forms and schedule are at the blog and more updates will be rolling in. Besides the fabulous line up of instructors, it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

The Writer magazine is sponsoring a short -story contest. Prizes are worthwhile, including publication in the magazine. The details are here. 

 

Writing Prompt
If you wrote a letter to your younger self, especially at a vulnerable age (8? 13?) when you needed mentoring or guidance, what would that letter say?

Is it not astounding that one can love so deeply characters who are composites, portraits, or born of the thin air, especially when one has never seen or touched them, and they exist only in an imprint of curiously bent lines? ~Mark Helprin

Author Sell Thyself

You don't need me to tell you that the publishing world is in an upheaval. Salon.com book critic Laura Miller has written a must-read article Author Sell Thyself. It begins: Last week, the book world saw a particularly symmetrical bit of revolving door ballet as Amanda Hocking -- who famously became a millionaire by selling a series of paranormal romance novels as self-published e-books -- signed a contract with an old-fashioned publishing house, while the bestselling thriller author Barry Eisler walked away from a similar deal, preferring to self-publish his next book. Did I mention it was the same publisher (St. Martin's Press) in both cases? Like I said: symmetrical.

And here is the link to the NY Times piece about Amanda Hocking's book deal with St. Martins.

Why I Write

Lately I've been trying (or perhaps struggling is the precise word--why did I never study web building?) to build a web site for my Summer in Words conference. So I haven't written a lot this week and I'm finding myself a bit adrift without my writing routine. People sometimes ask me why I don't write fiction or why I don't write the story of my life or why I don't write children's books. I'm writing books for writers at this time in my career because it's a way to reach people. And I'm sort of a nerd who likes to figure out how stories and language works and how it all intersects with the human brain.

And I write because I receive emails like this one: 
I'm so happy I found your blog today.

I bought Between the Lines about five years ago, and it has done more to advance my novelcraft than any of the dozens of writing books I have acquired over the years.

Looking forward to your posts and further enlightenment.

One of my YA novels, November Knight, will available in paperback this summer, and I credit your teachings for helping me craft a multi-layered story that lives and breathes not only in the words, but in the subtleties and whisperings of the spaces between the lines.

Cheers,

  Michael J. Pollack

  http://michaelpollack.com

Keep writing, keep studying craft, have heart

From an Editor's Desk:

French historian and novelist Andre Malraux           said, "What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets."
Which leads me to ask: what secrets are your characters keeping hidden from prying eyes? What secrets will be revealed in your memoir? Your short story? Secrets incite curiosity and suspense; reveal so many hidden chambers in the human heart. Although we live in an age of compulsive exposure and tell-all gossip amid a 24-hour news cycle, many  people shroud their secret shames and obsessions and fears and desires within. When you write fiction, know the mysteries within  your characters. When you plot, figure out just how much you can expose and who  these confessions will be revealed to.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Quote of the day:
"In my work there is no drum, there is no song, but the mask is the result of a transformation that occurred in my studio." Willie Cole

Where to Dump a Corpse and other Tips

The sun  just peeked out. I mean it. After raining most of the weekend. Which is why I attended two plays--and am still sort of basking in the images and brilliance I saw on the stage this weekend (Futura and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). For those of you who are writing mysteries and thrillers and face that pesky task of disposing of corpses and such here's a helpful interview with best-selling thriller author Chelsea Cain at Northwest Book Lovers.

Here's a tidbit from that interview:Your writers group is replete with big wigs in the literary world. What’s some of the best advice you’ve gotten from your cohorts? They are all so smart and full of zingers. Chuck Palahniuk is great with objects. He taught me to use objects more and better. Archie’s pillbox in the earlier books, for instance. It’s such great shorthand for what’s going on in his head. How Archie interacts with and thinks about that pillbox ends up being way more revealing than anything he says. And Chuck taught me to go back to The Object at least three times in a chapter. “Don’t lose your objects,” he always says. This is a Dangerous Writer-ism, something Chuck picked up from his old mentor Tom Spanbauer and his Dangerous Writing workshop. Suzy Vitello taught me to take time to reveal a character’s emotional landscape. Don’t wallow in it. But take half a paragraph and unpack (“unpack” – that’s another Dangerous Writer-ism) the goods. Let the reader inside. I’m not talking about exposition. No telling. Just going internal and showing what a character has at stake emotionally. Lidia Yuknavitch teaches me words. She can use words like no one I’ve ever met. Monica Drake taught me to take time with dialog. Her gift for dialog and her sense of timing are amazing. Mary Wysong taught me the power of the smallest gesture. Describing how a character hunches his shoulders or holds a coffee cup can speak volumes. Erin Leonard taught me to embrace absurdity. Cheryl Strayed is incredible at creating small profound moments, and she is such a hard worker and so productive. They all make me feel like an underachiever.

E-book dust up

The future of e-books in the publishing world is fast evolving. If you're in the process of signing any kind of publishing contract, it's vital to nail down your electronic rights. Here's a case in point: The Catherine Cookson estate is about to offer her books as cut priced e-books, bypassing her publishers. 

From an Editor's Desk:

In your fiction climax don't portray your antagonist or villain screwing up in order for the protagonist to triumph. In the best stories the protagonist somehow outfoxes the antagonist--with more desire, will, desperation, motivation, etc. to win.

From an Editor's Desk:

Create an early-morning routine that stamps the day with a reminder that you're a writer. Upon rising read a poem, jot down your dreams, write a poem. Dip into the river of language first thing so you can linger there all day.

It's the sort of wet morning where a person, well, at least this person, just doesn't want to creep out of bed. Wet and gray out there in Portlandia and I'm already speculating if I can get a nap in later. But the show must go on for now and I wanted to post this lovely quote by Jeanette Winterson--the source of so many observations that strike me as wise. Who seems to understand the enduring importance of storytelling. Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

"There it is; the light across the water. Your story. Mine. His. It has to be seen to be believed. And it has to be heard. In the endless babble of narrative, in spite of the daily noise, the story waits to be heard.
 
Some people say that the best stories have no words. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case always the wrong size to fit in the template called language." ~ Jeanette Winterson

It's Flannery O'Connor's birthday

Alice Elliott Dark writes:

Flannery O' Connor thought you couldn't separate a story from its meaning—that it was indescribable except in its own words. At first, I didn't get it. That claim was more readily apparent in music and painting—but couldn't stories be described, their themes extrapolated?

Yet I sensed there was truth in her declaration, and I eventually understood—by reading her stories. You can't really convey what happens to a reader who gives herself over to O' Connor. You can list the events in a story—they're eventful—but those bare bones don't begin to express the complex sensations, effects, and theological revelation that shake you and make you laugh when you're in them. She believes in God, and she is able to show what He is (to her) in His work. I've read her stories lots of times; she's converted me to stories as an art form, unable to be pulled apart.

Alice Elliott Dark was a National Book Awards judge in 2002. Source: National Book Awards

From an Editor's Desk:

The best scenes always multi-task: push the story forward or reverse direction; create change; reveal characters & motivations; reverberate thematically

Summer in Words update

Registration for Summer in Words is opening on April 1

Dates: June 24-26

Location: Hallmark Resort, Cannon Beach, Oregon

Tip: Reserve your room before May 24th to receive the group discount price