Writing Life

Write On Wednesday: Too Little Too Late

NPR featured my book on the air today. The one I was supposed to write. The one that I've had ideas about for years. The one that was tailor made for me.

It was the book I was supposed to write - but didn't. Because I was too busy writing medical reports, or doing press releases for volunteer groups, or going grocery shopping and doing the laundry. Because I was more interested in playing around on Facebook or following links on Twitter than sitting in my writing chair. Because I chose to go out to lunch with friends rather than do research at the library.

It was the book I wanted to write - but didn't. Because I was afraid I wasn't smart enough. Because I was scared people might laugh at me. Because I feared the topic wasn't important enough.

It was the book I should have written - but didn't.

So someone else wrote it.

NPR gave me more than another book to add to my to-be-read list (and read it I will, this book I should have written but didn't). NPR also gave me a serious wake up call. All these writing ideas that keep pestering me are doing so for a reason. They're trying to prod me out of my complacency, stir me from my slovenly slumber, and imploring me to take this writing thing seriously.

It's now or never.

 

How about you? Have you ever gotten a writing wake up call? 

 

 

Write On Wednesday: Take it Easy On Yourself

I love lists. List Making TimeI have an elaborate system of list-making that involves pretty file folders, colored paper, and 4x6 index cards. Each file folder contains a weekly list of action items for different areas of my life: Daily Living, Office Work, Volunteer Work, and (of course) Writing. Every Sunday night I sit down at my dining room table, turn on some quiet mood music, pour myself a glass of wine,  fan out my lists and folders, and plan my week.

When I told one of my friends about this system, her reaction was modified horror. "It makes me crazy to think about being that organized," she said.

Truth is, sometimes it makes me a little crazy too. I have a tendency to panic when I look at my lists on Thursday or Friday and not enough items have been crossed off. Then I move into frantic mode, and everybody better step back.

For the past several months, my Writing List has contained six items: Book reviews, Author Interview questions, blog posts, ideas to propose to my editor at All Things Girl, and The Novel Project. I've  assigned myself a posting schedule for this blog and for contributions to All Things Girl and Medium, thinking I needed the structure of deadlines, even if they are self-imposed and arbitrary.

Having a schedule comforts me, because it gives me the illusion of being In Control.

Americans pride ourselves on productivity, and that very word has been at the top of my Goal List for several months. Be more productive, I admonish myself when I'm making that weekly writing list, chiding myself for essays left unwritten, research left undone. I've been equating getting things done with being happy. Yes, it makes me happy to cross things off the list, but I'm learning that sometimes it's alright -  desirable, even - to ease up on the need to structure and organize and control. It's alright to let soft summer breezes seduce me into the garden, alright to take a morning off and visit the Farmer's Market in town, alright to sprawl out in my lawn chair and read a magazine. The resulting sense of warmth and well-being brings me peace, and that's more liable to make me happy and more creative  than a mad dash through my to-do list.

Especially in summer (when, according to George Gershwin, the living is easy and the cotton is high) it's alright to take it easy on myself.

How about you? Are you taking it easy on yourself this summer or going full steam ahead? Do you think that slowing down and savoring life boosts creativity or is counter-productive?

 

 

Write on Wednesday: Watching and Listening

wow_button1-9-1“I was an only child who was often alone with adults, and, because I was in some ways a timid sort, I became practiced in the art of watching and listening.” Lee Martin  

We’re kindred spirits, Lee Martin and I. An only child who loved quiet pursuits like reading and imaginary games, whose mother was always home with her, whose grandparents also lived in the house, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by loving, caring adults.

They fascinated me. When I first read Martin’s elegant little self-description, an image of myself as an eight year old popped into my head. I spent most of my time at home either in my room, or in the basement of our little ranch house, which had been “finished” complete with a full kitchen. Because the basement kitchen was larger than the one on the tiny first floor, my grandmother –the chief cook and bottle washer in our family in those days – quickly took it over, thus making the basement our family’s main living area. I had my own play area in a far corner, with my Barbie Dream House, a large stand-alone chalkboard for playing school with a menagerie of stuffed animal pupils, and fully loaded bookshelves. Tucked away in this corner, I could engage in my own solitary pursuits but still keep one ear trained to the adult conversation and activity.

This was how I learned that my uncle was struggling with alcoholism, that our neighbor was pregnant with baby number six. This was how I finally pieced together from whispered conversation that one of my cousins had been brutally attacked by a home intruder.  This was where I first gleaned the tensions between my mother and father, how she resented the time he spent with his Masonic Lodge group and was resisting his efforts to join the Eastern Star (the corresponding women’s organization).

Some of this information was troubling, some of it was exciting, but all of it was interesting. Much of it appeared later on in the stories I wrote, first in my childish round handwriting, and later on my brand new electric Smith Corona typewriter.

Those early days of listening and watching heightened not only my interest in, but also my awareness and understanding of people. For a while I considered becoming a psychologist, because I’m fascinated by what makes people tick emotionally, why and how they react as they do.

My mother says I read people like a book, and that seems appropriate. Certainly reading has given me insight into human behavior and emotions. I gravitate toward character –driven books, because they feed that interest in people. My own writing explores my feelings about life in general and my own experiences in particular, because I believe that sharing our life stories helps us understand our own lives while it brings us closer together as human beings.

The art (as Lee Martin refers to it) of watching and listening is vital for a writer. It’s probably why writers historically spend time in café’s and coffee shops. Like me in my basement play area, they scribble away in their quiet corners, one ear attuned to the conversation of those around them. That time becomes a crucial part of their working process and is definitely an art worth practicing for any writer.

How about you? Where do you practice the art of listening and watching?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Write On Wednesday: Leaf Gathering

fall-leaves-on-the-groundIn my sophomore biology class we were assigned the task of collecting 40 different varieties of leaves, identifying them as to to type and genus, organizing them, preserving them, and arranging them in a collection suitable for display. It was the perfect way for this slightly science-phobic student to embark on the study of biology, because leaf-collecting was always one of my favorite past-times. It was tradition for me to wander the neighborhood each fall, paper grocery bag in hand, looking for the reds, the sharpest golds, the warmest orange. I would come home with my bounty and lay it out on my bedroom floor in a kaleidocscopr of color. I could spend a long time shifting the leaves around into various patterns, looking at  them from different angles, sometimes trying to draw them in a sketch book and color them in with crayon or colored pencil. I admit that the specifics of our class assignment stole some of the enjoyment from the task. It was difficult to find 40 different varieties of leaves, even in Michigan where there are a lot of trees. I enlisted out of state family members who sent me leaves from palm trees, smoky ash. When I finally met my quota, I had to figure out how to arrange the in some sort of logical order, and then how to display and preserve them so they would remain viable for display during our school's open house two weeks later.

With painstaking effort, I carefully encased each leaf in wax paper, created a typewritten label with all the identifying information, mounted each leaf onto (coordinating) colored paper, and fitted each page into a three-ring binder. I don't recall the grade I received, but I do recall a heady sense of pride at having successfully completed a project like this one - something that was very different from the language arts and musical projects I usually attacked with confidence and creativity

For a few weeks now, I've had a new writing project wandering around inside my brain. As I think about it and ponder the characters and situations involved in it, I feel a bit like that leaf-gathering girl - the one who wandered the neighborhood with a paper sack and picked up whichever brightly colored leaf struck her fancy, giving little thought to type or size or classification. I'm having fun looking at all the pieces of my kaleidoscope, twisting them and turning them into endless striking combinations.

Writers do that, don't we? We wander through life picking up bits and pieces of ideas and imagery. All of  life is like a huge forest in the midst of autumn, filled with a banquet of brightly colored ideas splayed out for the taking like a vibrant carpet beneath our feet. That's certainly the fun part for me, the way I can pass endless hours of time - re-reading my favorite authors, writing down sentences that move me, inspire me.

At some point, though, we have to become the scientist, and put it all together in a way that makes sense.

Scary.

But worth it.

Write on Wednesday: Relishing the Research

wow_button1-9-1During my schooldays, my most favorite assignment was to write a report. The subject matter was of  no consequence, and the longer the page requirement the better. But the best part about report writing was the research.

In those days, research meant going to the library - the internet wasn't even a glimmer in Al Gore's eye (unless he was a very precocious teenager and I sincerely doubt that.) Yes, although I loved the writing part of the assignment, the going-to-the-library, looking-stuff-up in books and magazines was the penultimate treat.

Nowadays I read a lot of historical fiction, and I've become a fan of biographical fiction - fictional treatments of historical figures. The best of these books bring real people to life in a fascinating way, and as I read them, I marvel at the way the authors take what must be months of research and bring it to life through imagined situations and dialogue.

That is some research, I think, after finishing books like  Hemingway's Girl, The Aviator's Wife, and A Good Hard Look. It's clear that the authors must relish research as much as I once did, but the enormous amount required to complete a novel project of that nature is daunting to say the least.

I started wondering how they went about it. So I did some research.

Ericka Robuck (Hemingway's Girl) was inspired to write her novel by a visit to Hemingway's home in Key West, Florida.  "I spend about 4 months researching my subject without writing a word," Robuck wrote, "and then ideally I start writing without allowing myself to get side-tracked. I visited the house and Key West several times for setting research, and read numerous biographies and all of Hemingway’s work, and spent time at the JFK Museum in Boston at the Hemingway Archive. Ninety percent of his photographs, journals, letters, and manuscripts are there, and provide an excellent resource for getting to know and understand Hemingway."  (Robuck's new bio-fic novel, Call Me Zelda, about Zelda Fitzgerald, releases in May.)

Melanie Benjamin (The Aviator's Wife) confesses that she does her  research in a very "unscientific" way. "I look at a life, I read enough about it to give me a good solid foundation. Then I pick and choose the details that will make a compelling novel - knowing that I will be leaving out, or not fully exploring, many of the stories that make up a remarkable life. I allow myself to ask the what ifs. I look at a life, even one that's as documented as Anne's (Morrow Lindbergh) and I see the hidden corners, the locked closets; I wonder what she didn't tell us. I never take anything on face value; I'm always seeing things that others don't, even in the most mundane, every day objects.  I have learned that too much research can stifle my creativity, so it's always a balance for me; I need to learn the basic facts, get a sense of the time and place, but if I lose myself too much in the research I find I can't imagine the things I need to, in order to write a compelling novel with fascinating characters. My imagination is my greatest strength as a novelist - not my ability to research! For me, I don't spend too much time worrying about physical details; it's the emotional journey that fascinates me."

Ann Napolitano's novel, A Good Hard Look, features writer Flannery O'Connor as a main character among a cast of other strong characters. Napolitano admits she was "fearful that I would portray her (O'Connor) inaccurately. To conquer that fear, I read everything I could get my hands on. I re-read Flannery's stories, her essays and two novels; I read the one existing biography on her, and several critical essays about her work; I flew to Atlanta, rented a car and drove to Milledgeville. I visited Andalusia, her farm (which is now a museum) and walked all over town. I was only there for about thirty hours, but that visit was crucial. Milledgeville had to be real to me, so I could make it real for the reader. Sitting on Flannery's front porch, and smelling the air there - I don't think I could have re-created her world without spending that time in her space."

I don't know whether I have what it takes to complete the kind of research necessary to write an entire book of historical fiction, but it was fun reading about how the professionals do it.

How about you? Do you enjoy research? Do you employ much research in your writing?