Irreverent Conferencing

Fellow writer John Yelverton shared this with me. This passage is quoted in The Long Embrace, a biography of Raymond Chandler by Judith Freeman.

Raymond Chandler wrote this in 1950 called "A Couple of Writers."

"...Just a flat emptiness. The emptiness of a writer who can't think of anything to write, and that's a pretty awful painful emptiness, but for some reason it never even approaches tragedy. Jesus, we're the most useless people in the world. There must be a hell of a lot of us, too, all lonely, all empty, all poor, all gritted with small mean worries that have no dignity. All trying like men caught in a bog to get some firm ground under our feet and knowing all the time it doesn't make a damn bit of difference whether we do or not.

We ought to have a convention somewhere, some place like Aspen, Colorado, some place where the air is very clear and sharp and stimulating and we can bounce our little derived intelligences against one another's hard little minds. Maybe for just a little while we'd feel as if we really had talent. All the world's would-be writers, the guys and girls that have education and will and desire and hope and nothing else. They know all there is to know about how it's done, except they can't do it. They've studied hard and imitated the hell out of everybody that ever rang the bell. What a fine bunch of nothing we would be, he thought. We'd hone each other razor sharp. The air would crackle with the snapping of our dreams. But the trouble is, it couldn't last. When the convention is over and we'd have to go back home and sit in front of the damn piece of metal that puts words down on the paper. Yeah, we sit there waiting--like a guy waiting in the death house."

John thinks that Raymond was down when he wrote it.

So now, fifty-eight years later, the lady (me) speaks to the grumpy protagonist in the late Mr. Chandler's story:

Oh, why bother with the pretense of a writer's conference? Especially if we know the crackle and sizzle just won't last? Who needs to be reminded that the lady in front of you submitted a short story to journals 77 times before having anything accepted? Or the girl who spent $60 grand on an MFA can't get a job at a University, nor can she afford to move to NYC and no one wants her manuscript? Do we need to get embroiled in the font controversy and hear that if you submit in Courrier rather than Times, the lackeys below will think you're a neanderthal? Does it really matter whether or not the group you've been assigned to think your trans gender protagonist would be better as a metro sexual male, and do we really need handouts with passages from Wittgenstein and Gardner with no opportunity to discuss what they were saying or acknowledge the crossover between fine arts and writing?

No. I say go on a cruise. Why not a cruise of writers, where the pages are lost below deck, everyone plays drinking games, goes for broke in the casinos and then uses rusty social skills and reacquaints themselves with the concept of "dressing for dinner?"

At least the booze would be decent, we'd know the life stories were bullshit and there'd be time for outrage and fun. That's exactly what I think of the $1500 spent for a conference fee. Better to upgrade and get a balcony view room on a good cruise line, workshop lightly, flirt outrageously with someone you'll never see again, and have a really great time. And there'd be no academia la la la.

And if Josephine Damian and Chumplet Writes came along, at least there'd be a few saucy minxes.

Writer Impossible: Form --When Traditional Becomes New

I was middle aged and tired. And so I did what so many others have done ...I took a creative writing class. It was a break from writing press releases, newsletters, travel stuff. Though one can do this stuff, there is something lacking in it for me. My background --creative seamstress mother, music training, degree in fine arts, creative writing was a great fit. (Oh, lord, does my upbringing have hopeless literate writer all over it?) Sensing this, the teacher, Les, suggested that I take poetry in order to really learn how to craft prose.

Les

They were the hardest classes I've ever taken. All that sculpting, shoving, cutting, carving ...utterly exhausting. Naturally, given my background, I'd play with the form --a poem like Water On Glass that was one long sentence, for instance. It was natural even playing with the shapes text could make on a page (on the blog, it's a bit different), an extension of the feelings I wanted to capture in a scene. Others did it as well, while some kept to a "coffee house" standard and produced strong works that were akin to rants.

So we continued with free verse, refining our imagery, cutting out words to get down to the core of our message. Kristin Herbert -- co-author of "A Fine Excess," was patient. She knew she had to instill in us a sense of fearlessness before she presented traditional poetic form to us. Imagine how vexed I was when I saw this:

Kristin & Kirby Gann's book

A1 (refrain)
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1 (refrain)

a
b
A2 (refrain)

a
b
A1
A2 (refrain)

That of course, is the structure to "Do Not Go Gentle" by Dylan Thomas,
which is one of the greatest villanelles of all time, and resonates with foreboding considering the hard road he took. When I think how many coffee house rants I've heard this (and other forms) come across as fresh and challenging. In a sense, taking something very old and infusing it with contemporary images. The writer, artist and blogger Wind on The Quilting Sword has written a great villanelle, "La Seine."

I have yet to write a villanelle. Someday, I will. As for form, when I find myself getting comfortable as I plough through the final rewrite of my novel, I start to think --what can I do to make this fresh? To get rid of the drag? Inevitably, it means that I have to cut, move and reshaping to breathe a new perspective into it. And sometimes, it means digging around a bit and looking at what others have done and starting anew and pushing the form.

Writer Impossible appears on this blog on Wednesdays (or Thursdays), and will be warehoused over its own blog when I get the chance.

Writer Impossible: Revealed

Bodega Bay, CA

As the writer crafts a story, a good portion of his experience is poured into it. From setting to characters, they come from places he's been, people he's met. But as he writes, increasingly he becomes uncomfortable and is confronted with the age old question: how much of myself do I reveal?

For what the writer inevitably finds out is that the more he writes, the more he finds out about himself, his life, how he feels.

This isn't always an easy situation. What will people say, what will his parents think --it doesn't matter that he is over fifty. Will anyone identify themselves, his friends, his children?

A few years ago in a workshop, a former child actress --of whom I'd never heard of and was unrecognizable even to me, wrote a story with a hateful father, a weak protagonist, predictable men, and lots of smoking. Smoking in cars, smoking in bars, the smoke serving as a substitute for diversity of thought. At 300 pages, the writer worried if her work would upset too many people.

"Like who?" someone asked, after reading yet another very long scene that takes place in a car (this is Southern California, where most thought happens behind the wheel).
"My father," she said.
Yet because of her feelings, the father character was the strongest in her story. By comparison, her protagonist was flat, unsympathetic, was in fact, too weak to carry the book without the help of a cigarette, a glare and a car. Perhaps her bigger need was to ask "what is my character feeling beyond I-hate-him?" And to do this, she needed to ask herself the same.
Self discovery at 75 miles per hour. Flesh those characters out. Take them beyond the reality of the inspiration behind the people you know. This is fiction, so free yourself up and give them a soul.

Perhaps the most wry and best summation was written by Guggenheim and NEA award winning writer Thomas Farber in his hauntingly subtle twenty year old book about writing, "Compared to What? On Writing And The Writer's Life:"

"Am I in your book?" she asked.
"No kiddo, no," he replied. "Not unless you want to be."

"Compared to What?" is out of print, available used. However, some of the contents have been rolled into A Lover's Quarrel, On Writing & The Writing Life, reissued by Ellsberg Books, available through Amazon.

His latest book, A Lover's Question, Selected Stories ,published by Ellsberg Books, available through Amazon.
" ...quietly devastating. The people in these stories stay with you, and in fact you begin to run into them everywhere you go. --Rolling Stone

Writer Impossible: Distractions

7:30 p.m. The writer sits at his desk after a long day at a company where he works 40 hours a week, in hopes that someday he will be able to quit just to write. So he's limited to time stolen after dinner. Tonight, he's determined to finish the short story for a lit mag.

But there's a rattling coming from the kitchen --a noisy fridge. So he goes to give it a kick, opens it and starts to rearrange bottles before stumbling onto a cold beer. He drinks the beer, and goes back to the computer to start in on the final draft of the story, when the cat begins to mew. The cat wants to be fed, and paces around the writer's legs. The writer picks up the cat, but not before getting swiped across the face. A direct hit, one claw across the cheek. He dumps the cat in the kitchen, goes into the bathroom and washes the cut, then comes back out to find the cat demanding to be fed. He opens a can of cat food, feeds the petulant beast, and staggers back to his computer. But now, he notices it's time to watch TV. Jack Bauer is going to save the valley from nuclear annihilation (again). So he watches his show and by the time it's done, his brain is onto other things. He cleans the kitchen, puts clothes into the dryer, and gets ready for bed. He feels hollow, wondering why he never gets anything done.

My friend Frank Schaeffer told me that he wakes up in the wee hours of the morning --4:30 a.m. when the house is quiet and he can just write. He likes the darkness outside and his lamp on his study as he plots out the next chapter (Frank has averaged a book a year). It's a ritual he started when his kids were young, and now that they're grown and away, he continues because it's become a routine.

Routine. That hated word. Yet without it we are left at the mercy of a world of distractions --from cats, to thinking we should be doing something else. Admittedly, art isn't practical, it doesn't pay the bills (for most of us) and there are always more pressing things that can be done. So it's easy to think other things are more important.

But what the writer didn't understand that what the story needs in order to be finished is something only he can do. No one else, because the story is a product of his experiences and imagination.

When I write and hit "the zone," I'm enjoying the practice of putting words onto a page that help me feel lighter and more alive. It's a chance to look deeper, to learn to discern what moves me, or doesn't. Often I find my initial perceptions were wrong, and I come to a different and gentler conclusion. I make choices over words and phrases, I'll play with contrasting images. What I experience is the joy of giving myself over to the process so that one day the end results --in this case words, will move others.

So go ahead. Leave the kitchen a bit dirty. Kick the kids off the computer. Unplug the phone. Don't fret over the laundry. Remember that Jack Bauer can be seen on reruns or DVD and that he will never ever learn a foreign language because he just uses a gun. Get up early and enjoy the morning hours. Even if it's for an hour a day, you've got to write. Distractions be damned. Life is full of them.

After all, only you can write your story. And there's nothing more important that seeing writing as a chance to deepen yourself so that you can grow and give.

Writer Impossible: Addicted To Workshops

Workshop Writer 1: The writer has been taking ten-week workshops for years. He has enjoyed the weekly inspiration, finds it necessary to continue writing, loves the camaraderie of other writers, and yet, the writer has not finished his novel, in fact, still stumbles with the style, and has yet to figure out how the novel ends. When he takes a few weeks off, he quits writing, but claims that the 3 week boar hunting trip he took in Texas served as great material to be inserted somewhere in his book.

Workshop Writer 2: This writer has a 1000 page novel and has been working on it steadily for about 7 years. It is written in multiple perspectives, has a storyline that goes beyond War and Peace. He attends conferences regularly, jetting off to Squaw Valley, Maui and driving anywhere within a six hour radius. Sometimes he hears the same speakers. Often he signs up for the additional workshops and takes the same teacher. His pitch is quick and efficient because he has been pitching the same three chapters for seven years. He can say "Your protagonist does not have that... je ne sais quois," hand your paper back, while blowing smoke from a Gitane.

Workshop Writer 3: This writer takes workshops paid via credit card, a home equity loan, or by a spouse or much younger girlfriend who has it on a promise that when they finish the book, the writer will sell it, get a 7-figure advance, and they'll be swimming in money. Despite his arrears, he too finds it difficult to finish his book. He struggles with money and has mentioned that maybe a rich relative will die and leave him a bundle so that he can live the life of Henry Miller in Big Sur, with a new wife or new much younger girlfriend.

Workshop Writer 4: Works all day, takes an occasional workshop at night. Works on his novel sporadically, as time or inspiration permits. Has to miss some meeting because, well, life is busy. When he doesn't go to the workshop, he doesn't write. And even when in the workshop, he'll often dash off the week's pages in one sitting in an afternoon, or worse --egads! at work. When he passes them out to his peers for critique, he apologizes profusely for the quality, saying he didn't have time, dashed them out at work --as if no one else is as busy or even busier.

Yet any one of these could make it someday. Life's a crap shoot that way, innit it?

When I decided to take the jump into fiction (and long after I'd gotten my baccalaureate in fine arts), I decided to enroll in classes at the university extension writers' program. I found the experience invaluable. So I took them for years, passing through workshops on short story, literature, poetry and novel writing. It was my education, more to the point, it was where my skills were honed. But as would be expected, eventually the same things were being repeated. This wasn't a bad thing, rather it was an indication that I'd learned everything from them. It was time to write on my own. This wasn't as hard as others might think. It's how most writers write. By themselves, with the feedback of just a few other writers. In fact, I found it liberating to finally move away from the university stuff, and work on many projects, really stretching myself. I've managed to keep track of friends by helping form a group, The Writerly Pause.

Lesson learned: If you're taking workshops, do a reality check. Workshops are expensive ($500 for a ten week course, not including parking, gasoline, food, supplies and your time), so the pay off has to be not only to be in gaining the strength to do it everyday, but also improving and becoming a deeper writer. Make sure that it's not the taking of workshops that makes you identify yourself as a writer, but the reward of steadily working on your own --doing it everyday, learning, improving and finishing a piece.

"You stole my idea!"

A few weeks ago, a group of writers sat at a table mulling over ideas. Writer X was starting a new book and was trying to explain its premise. Everyone listened raptly, and when the writer asked what they thought, it was like Queen Isabella's armada crossing the Atlantic, a flotilla of ideas set forth. It was one of those moments where the room was filled with inspiration. Creativity was flowing and they had fun.

A few days later, Writer X sends out a synopsis. And she gets back a terse reply from Writer Z.
"I meant this as an idea for my novel. You can't use it," writes Writer Z.
Writer X demurred. "Of course I won't. I'm really sorry. I thought the water fountain and trailer park was out there for anyone to use."
"Use it, and you're stealing my novel!" writes Writer Z.

Read the rest here:
"You stole my idea!"

The Critique

Feedback can be difficult to both give and receive. Finding a response to a piece of work --be it in stone, on canvas, crafted from wood or words on a page is a juggle between what I think the writer is trying to say and how it's coming across. Is it clear? Do I understand? Is this the right word? Does it wander? Is it spot-on? How can I help the writer forge the words so the meaning is deftly put forth?

I'm careful when someone hands me their work. I know all too well their hidden feelings of dread as they hand their manuscript to me. It's something like this:

Writer: "Do these jeans make my butt look big?"
Critic: "Yeah, so big and so wide you could land a 757 on it."

I was introduced to the critique when I was an art student in college. After a long night's work, everyone would come into the studio and put a drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramic up for review. Then we'd go piece by piece, talking about what we liked, what worked, how something could be a bit better. It was always with a bit of dread when you saw the progression.

5...4...3....oh shit, mine's coming up ....2.... crap...
mine's next.... and finally 1 ...okay, can we get this over with?

Lessons learned: You can learn from other people.
Since you have to work with them, learn to give constructive criticism. There's no reason to thoroughly trash someone.

In formal writing workshops, most of the feedback is civilized. But there is always someone desperate to show that they're so much smarter --they've read more, written more. Their tirade ends up giving license to others to do the same, often to the point where all the writers are repeating clichés. Even the term "brutally honest" can be a laughable cliché.

I don't know why writers felt so much freer with lip service than in art classes..... perhaps it's because in the studio arts, the students spend a lot of time working in the same room at the same time. Everyone sees the struggle. But writers work in seclusion. And often they come bearing every shred of the same self doubt we all have, only the words that pour out (or worse, what they've written for posterity on your pages) manage to combine banality and snarkiness.

And so it was after going through workshop after workshop, that I developed a thick hide and put my ego aside. In class, it was easy. But when it came to giving them twenty pages to take home for a week and mark up, it was harder. This is what can happen.

Every shred of self doubt comes bubbling to the surface.
Night 1 --After killing a forest of trees with rewrites and reprints, you give your work out. It will be turned back to you in a week.
Nights 2 - 3 --you compensate by eating chocolate. You try not look at the clerk when you go back to buy your fourth bar.
Night 4 --you go to yoga, but when you emerge, you're sure readers will hate it.
Night 5 --you look up airfares on Travelocity. Destination: it doesn't matter.
Night 6 -- you loathe every person in the class. You are sure they never brush their teeth, that they have body odor and drive shitty cars. If they don't, then they deserve all three.
Night 7 --Tonight, you will get your papers back. You think about getting sick --Dengue fever, but no, it's not possible. So you glide in, you smile, and everyone hands them back to you. They say nothing. For the rest of the evening you are sure you were an utter failure.

Later.... and I do recommend waiting .....you go through their feedback.
Some is utter garbage. It's pointless, mean, and sarcastic... you learn to put those aside. And then there are those that never give you your work back. Those are the ones who are either indifferent or lazy, and not worth worrying about on your part.

But then there are those precious reviewers with the insight that helps you learn. They take you to task, but they point out things that you didn't see. They help you understand how to make your work stronger. They come through with examples, literary references, even. They ask you questions. They're the ones you want to listen to, they understand the struggle.

After reading, you put aside your cup of coffee. You turn off your phones, your modem and you flip on the computer to write again.