This morning, as I was reading the “Take Note” section of the June 2008 issue of The Writer, I found a short report that reminded me of a conversation I had with another writer several years ago.  We had decided to answer the question “What makes a writer?” in a free-writing exercise.  My friend challenged me with the comment: Is it the finished story or novel or essay or poem or the act of writing that makes a writer?

We both kneaded and pulled and pounded the questions in our free-writing without really coming to any conclusion.  I realize now that it is both the finished product and the act of writing plus much more that makes a writer.  The short report in the magazine this morning listed “effective traits, techniques and strategies of writers who find the time to write.”  It could also have been called a list of traits, techniques and strategies that make a writer a writer. 

The one thing that all the items on the list have in common is a specific mindset or attitude or belief about being a writer and then behaving accordingly.  So, if one must write, then write.  Think positively about success.  Treat it as a job, developing a schedule, goals, an action plan, and having a specific writing space, whether it is an office downtown or a room in the basement.  And then the actual writing process, deflecting one’s inner critic or creating a diversion for it, and tapping into the subconscious for ideas and inspiration.  To that last, I’d add reading, reading, reading.  Living life provides the raw material for the stories writers tell.  Be prepared for frustration as well as joy, and understand that rejection, like mistakes, is an opportunity for learning, and learn to ignore the comments about writing being a nice hobby.  Oh, and be prepared to work hard. 

But isn’t it true that in our society a writer isn’t really a writer until he or she has published and earned money from it?  And what is the definition of success for a writer?  Is it publication, blockbuster sales, or finishing each novel or story or poem?  Or is each a successful step in the process of creation?

I know one thing for certain: height does not make the writer….

In the March 2008 issue of my favorite writer’s magazine, The Writer, two writers “slugged” it out in a point/counterpoint article regarding the question: Does reading while writing help or hurt your work?  The concern expressed in this article: reading another writer’s work might influence one’s thinking and writing in a negative way, i.e. diminishing one’s original voice, style, etc.  Or inspire.

A good question and interesting concern.  I tend to not have the time to read novels or short stories when I’m working on my fiction.  Writing consumes my time as well as research and the business side of writing activities.  And I fall terribly behind in all my other reading such as news magazines, writing magazines, literary journals, etc.  So, my problem is not that other novels might hurt my writing but that I miss reading novels and crave them.  I have five piles almost 2-feet high each of books that I would like to read now but it’ll probably be “someday” before I get to them.

Now that I’m on a “leave of absence” from work on the novel in order to deal with life stuff (frustrating that these things seem to take much longer than originally expected) I’d thought maybe I could catch up with my fiction reading.  So far, that hasn’t happened.  I haven’t even been able to catch up with my magazine and literary journal reading.  This would be the time that I’d read novels and short stories, though. 

I’m not certain that reading fiction while I’m writing hurts my writing.  I tend to think it helps.  I know that when I’m reading fiction at any time, I’m aware of the writer’s voice, style, dialogue, suspense creation, etc.  I learn  from other writers and enjoy seeing how they deal with the challenges of story-telling.  I think it’s also accurate to say they inspire me to write.  Do I wish I could write like someone who’s particularly brilliant?  Of course.  That’s normal and human.  But aren’t each of us brilliant at what we do each in our own way?   

Ideally, I’d read novels and short stories the hour before sleep every night.  Right now, I’m falling asleep before I read very far.  I used to set aside time every afternoon to read.  Now I’m thinking of doing that again.  After all, reading is an essential part of being a writer.   

Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, over at the Inside the Classics blog, has written again (”Preparation Throes” Tuesday, April 22, 2008) about preparing a music score for conducting in a performance, this time breaking out the tricky rhythms and the big mixed-meter section in the middle of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  I love reading her posts on this subject because she is so clear and descriptive.  I always have Evan in mind so I love learning from a conductor about how conductors work.  Thanks, Sarah.

In Perceval, Evan travels to Amsterdam to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra during their American Music Festival.  On his all-American program, he’s included Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  While writing the initial drafts, I listened to this music over and over, even though I already knew it quite well.  But I didn’t search out a score to use as reference.  I wasn’t interested in focusing on the technical aspects of conducting.  First I wrote Evan conducting this piece in concert and suffering a memory lapse in the middle of it — right where the meters get all mixed.  That version remained through several more drafts until I realized that for narrative purposes it wouldn’t work that way.  Then I decided that he’d have the psychological fugue moment at the end of the previous piece on the program, Barber’s Adagio for Strings.  And that clicked for the narrative.  So, I ended up showing/writing Evan conducting the Barber instead of the Copland.  

When I write/show Evan working on the podium, I am mindful of narrative purpose: how does this scene move the story forward or reveal character?  So, it is less about the conducting than about Evan.  I spend a lot of time listening to the music he’ll conduct, but much less time reading the score.  It is my challenge to describe in general Evan’s conducting but create the illusion that it is specific regarding his gestures, thoughts, etc.  The purpose for Evan on the podium is always: how does this reveal Evan as a person?  Not necessarily his stick technique or if he missed that cue for the flute.

Score study and preparation consumes hours of Evan’s time.  Again, writing about it needs to serve narrative purpose, so I approach these scenes much as I have the concert or rehearsal scenes.  The difference is that I do use scores as references so that I can write Evan thinking about the challenges of specific sections of music, making notes on the score, etc.  In Perceval, the score that he’s working on through most of the story is Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.  Since I am not a conductor, I sought out a conductor to help me identify passages in the score that might concern Evan.  Then I used the Mahler to also reflect back through music what Evan was experiencing in his life through Evan’s reading and understanding of the score.  Hard work for him.  Hard work for me, too.

Why spend so much time and space on Evan’s conducting?  Early in the novel, he thinks about the podium as his home and music as his heart, his motivation for living.  It is all he has in the world.  Showing that is important to his character and its development, and how he behaves in other situations in the story.     

As an addition to my previous post about characters and language, watching actors at work inspires me and provokes me to think about how important detail is when creating a character.

Over the weekend I finally saw the movie There Will Be Blood.  Daniel Day Lewis played the main character, Daniel Plainview, an “oilman” who wants to make enough money so he can live someplace away from people.  Day Lewis uses everything at his disposal to create Plainview — his body, gestures, manner of speaking, his silences also, the way he walks and runs.  Plainview is a man who walks with his shoulders hunched in self-protection, closed, his legs bowed and with a slight limp from a broken leg at the beginning of the movie.  There is also a slinking quality to his walk and movements.  His expression however is one of confidence, knowing, being in control.  I love seeing the incongruities, and master actors most often bring them out in subtle ways, as Day Lewis does.

The really impressive aspect of Day Lewis’ Plainview however is the voice and manner of speaking.  Not even close to Day Lewis’ actual voice — there’s only one moment in the entire movie when he sounds like himself and that’s when he shouts at one point.  Otherwise, the voice conveys in its raspy rhythms a smooth operator and a hint of unpleasantness, danger, threat. 

I don’t know if any of this detail was on the page in the script or evolved from Day Lewis and/or discussions with the director/writer.  But for me as a writer, it is a reminder of the use of detail to create a fully-dimensional character on the page, someone the reader can easily imagine.  Real people are a conglomeration of detail in movement, appearance, speech and behavior and fictional characters need to be also.  Which doesn’t mean it’s easy….

In the April 2008 issue of The Atlantic Monthly , critic B.R. Myers, in his review, “Keeping a Civil Tongue,” of Ian Robinson’s book on the English language, Untied Kingdom, wrote “People who cannot distinguish between good and bad language, or who regard the distinction as unimportant, are unlikely to think carefully about anything else.” 

My  first thought was “all right!  Finally someone writing about this, and especially how text messages, e-mails and disinterest have shredded a valuable reflection of our culture and made perfectly intelligent people appear stupid.”

My second thought was “oh, interesting way to look at a character, someone who may be extremely well educated but speaks like someone who isn’t.  That’s valuable in espionage, as is a talent for accents.  But what kind of a person doesn’t care about language?  It’s how people communicate.  Wouldn’t a person want to be understood?  Or maybe not….” 

Not exactly what Myers had in mind, my responses.  Ian Robinson is a critic of language and Myers was reviewing Robinson’s book, so he ranged over cultural influences such as advertising, morality, style and usage, and how language reflects (or not) a society’s belief system and/or tolerance for others, specifically regarding religion because Robinson approaches the subject from a conservative Christian point of view.  To read the entire review, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/myers-robinson.   Myers has a slight curmudgeonly tone and a sharp eye for the ridiculous or brilliant.  I enjoy reading his reviews.

Back to language.  Writers need to concern themselves with language on two levels.  First, the way they use it to write and tell their stories, their style and sensibility, their voice, and clarity.  Second, how they use it to reveal character, create suspense, execute transitions, etc. I tend to think more about the second than the first until I begin the revising process.  And when I think of character, I think of how a character speaks – vocabulary, rhythm, accent — and thinks.  Creating a character with a unique voice is one of the hardest things to do in writing fiction.

A multitude of voices surround us on a daily basis.  Most people tend to tune them out (I think, but do they?), but I am a shameless eavesdropper.  Not for the content of what is said so much as for the speech patterns and use of words.  I listen everywhere.  This is research of a different kind that requires me to go out in the world among people.  On any given day downtown, I can hear Chinese or Spanish or some other foreign language (recently an African language that wasn’t Swahili but I don’t know what it was, and the rhythm of it reminded me of Bartok’s music), English spoken in a variety of ways depending on the ethnicity of the speaker or education level or region of origin or age, and highly creative expressions and uses of words.  This research informs my writing and my character creation. 

Coupled with speech is the behavior that accompanies it.  Also the behavior that accompanies silence.  Body language can say one thing while the words spoken communicate something else.  So, for me, language also includes behavior to a certain extent, especially in terms of its consistency with what is said, or its inconsistency. 

The example that pops into my head is Marlon Brando’s brilliant evocation of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.  (I gain much inspiration and learn from really good actors.)  Don Vito was an older man in this movie, powerful, and protective.  How he spoke reflected his origins as well as his age and his education.  He is not a man of sudden moves either, so his speech is neither fast nor loud.  The viewer sees immediately in how he moves, his gestures, that he’s powerful but older and his speech is consistent with that.  Contrast Don Vito with Michael and Sonny.  Sonny’s recklessness, especially, is reflected in his quick and facile physical movements and speech patterns. 

So, reading B. R. Myers’ review triggered thoughts on language in a different direction for me than the review took.  I also thought about how much profanity is used everywhere now, and how that can reflect on the speaker’s concern for clear, communicative language vs. bursts of emotional rant.  Another kind of character….  

Life concerns continue to prevent me from writing on the novel again this month.  These things happen.  I suppose I was idiotically optimistic to think that life would step back when I wanted it to do so.  So, although I’m on a “leave of absence” from work on Perceval in Love I continue to write notes — most recently about the fifth book in the series and the climax of that book (and the whole series) — and keep up with journal writing, and trying to catch up with some reading. 

Writing in a journal daily serves many purposes in my writing life.  It is where I collect the raw material for my writing — raw material from life — as well as work through problems with whatever project I’m currently writing.  And I challenge myself, review the day, think on paper, try to understand the world and people.  I have been writing a journal since I was eleven, after reading The Diary of Anne Frank.

One of my recent journal writing topics has been how to write about the life experiences I’ve been having the last two months.  Fiction or nonfiction?  Short story or essay?  I am leaning toward the personal essay form, perhaps structuring it like a musical rondo.  I already have the title: “The Itch.”  I’m thinking of titling each short section of the essay, also. 

I may not be working on the novel but I cannot not write…..

Vocation: a career, a calling, a purpose in life

Avocation: a hobby, pleasurable pursuit

Several years ago on a temp job, one of the people I worked for told me that writing was not a vocation but an avocation.  In her opinion, writing could never be a vocation and she thought I needed to stop deluding myself and accept a job with her company.  It was a good job, and if she had not disrespected my writing and writing in general, I might have considered the offer.

American society tends to view writing, in general, as an avocation — everyone can write if they want to (frequently, “everyone” tries without understanding what’s involved) — in part, I think, because reading is an avocation.  Unless the reader is a book reviewer or literary agent or editor at a publishing house, then reading is part of the job.  Exceptions ruin generalities…. 

Writing is a business and other jobs depend on writers to write, e.g. publishers and their staffs including editors, book designers, and the marketing and sales staffs, booksellers, book distributors, paper manufacturers, illustrators, literary agents, book publicists, MFA programs, movie producers, movie directors and their actors and crews, TV producers and directors, actors and crews, staffs at newspapers and magazines, and so on.  

Writing is a vocation.  Like other arts, it is difficult to gain attention and establish oneself, i.e. publish.  Hordes of people in the country inundate literary agents and publishers with manuscripts every year, and the agents and editors plow through them with an eye to their publishability and salability.  They try to predict what the market (readers) will want based on past successful books and their subjective perceptions of the market…and whether or not they can get behind the book for the long haul (up to 18 months and beyond).  A standard and scientific process that guarantees their choices will prove right?  No, purely subjective.

I write.  I write as a fulltime job.  I see this job as having two distinct parts: writing/writing-related activities and marketing/sales/publicity.  Without the writing side, however, there’s no marketing/sales/publicity side.  A friction exists between these two sides.  If I am working on the marketing/sales/publicity side, I am NOT writing.  If I’m not working on marketing, I’m not submitting my writing for publication.  I need lots of uninterrupted time to write and complete stories or essays so that I have something to market.  Researching markets, writing and sending queries consumes a lot of time when done right.  There’s never enough time for writing….

At present, writers who choose to self-publish their books tend not to be regarded in the writing/publishing industry as “serious” writers.  After all, anyone with the necessary money can self-publish now…and do.  They publish family history, favorite recipes of a grandmother or a personal journal of a special trip, or family stories and print-on-demand publishers give them the opportunity (for a price).  These books often are not subjected to a rigorous editing process.   Sometimes, though, a serious writer chooses to publish through print-on-demand, sell the books out of his/her car, and sometimes these writers generate enough interest and sales to gain the attention of a publishing house.  This is a rare thing and costly in money and time to the writer.  I don’t recommend it unless you’ve got the money to burn or you’re exceptionally stubborn and extroverted (for sales).

Working in the arts — writing, music, painting, sculpture, movies, theater, etc. — is the only vocation I know that often requires the writer or musician or actor to also have another job (or be homeless and starve), fulltime or not, in order to live and continue their work in their chosen art.  Could you imagine a doctor needing to do that?  The CEO of a large corporation?  An advertising executive?  Or a lawyer?  A society suffers when it stops its encouragement and support of developing and nurturing the imagination which serves society most in the process of problem-solving and empathy.  Is the imagination too much fun in our work-productivity-oriented society?  Too introspective?  Tapping too much into our emotions, psychology and humanity?

For me, writing is a vocation and always will be, whether or not I’m working a second job.  Writing is hard, exacting work if one strives for excellence.  I love it.  And I would like my writing to be published for others to read and enjoy (I hope).   

My brain lacks the synapses to write poetry, but I love reading it.  I love the distillations of emotion and images, the rhythms of language in poetry, its music.  Read poetry aloud.  Listen to yourself.  Poetry affirms humanity.  I used to read poetry aloud every morning for about 15 minutes before beginning my writing for the day.  The rhythms and language pulled my mind into a creative state for writing, opened the doors and windows of my imagination.  I read Homer (loved The Iliad), Virgil, Wordsworth, Pope, Tennyson, Shakespeare, among others, as well as contemporary poets.  Reading poetry is an essential part of being a writer, whether or not one writes poetry.  And I say this as someone who could not stand poetry when I was in school!  I am on the lookout for interesting and new poetry, poetry with substance.

Recently, I discovered a poetry collection, Mister Martini by Richard Carr.  Full disclosure: Richard Carr lives in my neighborhood and I also recently met him.  Learning that he was a poet made me curious about his poetry (you can check it out for yourself at his website: www.butterflyindustries.com or his page at www.mnartists.org).  I read excerpts of Mister Martini online and was interested to read the entire collection.  

What a great title, for starters!  Who is “Mister Martini”?  Richard juxtaposes descriptions of martinis in italics with a narrative about a fictitious “I” – the use of this pronoun in poetry can be confusing and misleading.  I learned from other poets that “I” is more often a fictitious narrator than the poet writing the poem, and that is the case in this collection.  It gives the poems an immediacy, however, and creates a relationship with the reader that might otherwise not occur if approached differently.  The reader becomes “I,” so to speak.  So, when the narrative poems talk of a father, it jogs the reader’s memory to his own father.  A powerful connection through words, and in a few, highly descriptive words, that rarely is done in prose but which prose writers strive mightily to achieve. 

As the collection proceeds, the poems explore specific situations regarding “I” and the father, and the italicized martinis seem to reflect back an emotional resonance like a mirror.  When I first read the poems, I thought in terms of music — the call-response of gospel music, or the rondo structure in classical music.  But now, I think of it more as a mirror — reality and its reflection.  This is a highly original structure that unites the poems, gives them an arc of development, however loose, I think. 

Images in poetry need to be as specific as images in a screenplay.  This doesn’t exclude metaphor.  For example, in a poem entitled “Odometer,” Richard writes:

“In the last limping mile of his beat-up life/the old man’s odometer simply/rolled over/and he drove on into yet another reality….”

Or, a favorite: “His shoes were sprawling palaces/for his imperial feet.” 

I love the images in this poetry collection.  They startle and delight without stopping the flow, just as images should in prose.  The martini images are particularly evocative.  I craved green olives for a couple days after I began reading this collection.

I plan to re-read Mister Martini and aloud.  And I recommend it for anyone who enjoys an original approach.  Bravo, Richard.

Usually nothing.  Or very little.  It’s difficult to talk about fears and their causes.  But writers tend to need to know about their characters’ fears as well as their own. 

 For characters, two important questions can focus in on a character’s motivation.  They are: 1) What is the character’s greatest fear? and 2) What is the character’s primary emotional vulnerability?  Sometimes these two questions have the same answer.

What if a writer were to ask those same questions about himself?  Especially regarding his writing? 

I have been thinking lately about two moments in writing that tend to terrify me.  The first is that moment in the middle of a story, or the second act, when I haven’t a clue what to write next.  Every action, every character, everything has stopped, waiting for me.  My brain freezes.  I begin to wonder what I’m doing, who do I think I’m kidding, I probably can’t write worth beans, etc., etc.  Or, I think the story isn’t worth pursuing further.  The physical sensation of my stomach tied up in a ball of rubber bands and being thrown vigorously against my rib cage accompanies the nauseous sinking feeling of failure.  I’m terrified I just can’t do it.  I can’t write or what I write is stupid and awful and on and on.  Even though I know this can happen (and will) and what to do when this happens, this moment still terrifies me.  The remedy, according to Steve Larson, a very wise screenwriter and teacher, is to take each primary character and ask for each: what does this character want?  What will this character do to get it?  What are the potential conflicts/obstacles to the character achieving his/her goal?  By listing each character and answering these questions for each, ideas begin to spurt and sputter, and soon I’m writing again, the terror forgotten. 

The second moment is when I need to show someone my writing, e.g. send the novel to a literary agent or someone else for feedback.  The terror strikes even when I consider letting a good friend read my writing and I know for certain I will get thoughtful, constructive feedback given gently but firmly.  But the worst moment is when I send my writing to a stranger.  I’ve heard this compared to sending a young child into the unknown, but it’s not really about the child (writing).  It’s about how the writing reflects on the writer and what the response to the writing will be.  It is about both a fear of rejection and a fear of success, slugging it out in my psyche.  I also fear that my stories are stupid when I want them to be interesting and grab readers and hold them through to the end.  I guess I don’t know any writers who do NOT experience all these fears when on the verge of showing their writing to a stranger or anyone.  The only remedy, for me anyway, is to acknowledge the terror, acknowledge what it’s about and then box it up and throw it to the back of my psyche’s closet even as I’m mailing out the manuscript.  After all, what do I want?  What will I do to get it?  What are the potential conflicts/obstacles in my way?  Surely, I am a potential obstacle to myself, and I have control over that.   So, I return to my writing — I usually have more than one project going at a time.  Immersing myself in another story I love banishes the terror of what response might come back to me about the story I’ve sent out.

Writers live with these fears all the time.  They also live with constant uncertainty — perhaps a subject for another day. 

Where to begin with my research into conductors and conducting?

 I worked at Orchestra Hall for the Minnesota Orchestra at the time, so I talked with other staff there.  They were generous with ideas, suggestions and sharing their knowledge and experience.  I began by reading books on conducting — history, how to — followed by biographies of conductors.  I took notes as I read books by Erich Leinsdorf, Peter Paul Fuchs (The Psychology of Conducting – excellent), Bernard Jacobson, Harold C. Schonberg, Helena Matheopoulos, Richard Wagner (really stuck on himself), and Max Rudolf, among others.  I resisted the urge to request interviews with every conductor who worked with the Minnesota Orchestra during that time.  I learned as much background as possible first.

Next, gradually I talked with people who worked with conductors, e.g. artistic administrators, publicists, assistants and musicians.  Even drivers.  I wanted to have as complete a picture in my mind of what a conductor’s life is like as I could create, what kind of education, interests, etc.  Evan would be a freelance guest conductor in the story, so I focused on this aspect of a conductor’s life rather than music director.  During this time, I interviewed only one conductor about European orchestras in comparison to American and how conductors work with each.  I already knew Evan would come from an American orchestra and re-locate to Europe, and I knew little about how European orchestras worked, so the interview was essential and productive. 

After the first year of research, I increased and intensified my observation of conductors at work.  I attended orchestra rehearsals (I love rehearsals!) and concerts.  I traveled to talk with musicians at other orchestras and observe more conductors.  I stood on the podium myself after rehearsals to see what it felt like, and I learned the basic conducting gestures.  I interviewed more conductors.  Each interview was to address very specific questions that that conductor could answer due to his experience, both on the podium and in life.  For example, one conductor had worked extensively with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, knew the concert hall and orchestra, knew Amsterdam (Evan would have concerts there).  Another year and a half passed doing this work before I felt truly confident that I knew enough to write Evan authentically as a conductor.

Then I stopped.  Research can form a solid foundation on which the imagination can build.  Too much foundation, it shows above ground and the structure doesn’t work.  I wrote about ten more drafts of Perceval before I realized that it was the first in a series of five novels.  At that point, I returned to researching conductors and conducting.  Evan needed to continue to grow professionally through the story.  So, for the last year and a half, I’ve been filling in more blanks with research: how conductors build career, build repertoire, rehearse certain works, and respond to concert halls.  I’ve finished most of this research.  The door remains open on it.  Questions pop up all the time.

Back to those questions in Part 1: Do conductors know who they are?  As in being self-aware and self-confident, about the same as the rest of us, I’d say.  Do conductors know what they want?  In music, generally.  But the best of them are always open to learning.  Are conductors stubborn?  Well, I’d have to say, yes.  They have to be in terms of leadership and communicating what they want.  The best of them also understand that they can’t always get what they want and therefore, they need to know when to let things go, compromise, negotiate.

As I’ve gotten to know conductors and their musical lives over time through interviews, I’ve learned that there’s no substitute for talking with them about their work, score study, building repertoire, programming concerts, rehearsing an orchestra, performance experience and blunders, travel and concert halls.  For example, when I walk into a concert hall, my attention focuses on the space, the seats, the stage, the orchestra.  When a conductor walks into a concert hall, he hears it more than sees it.  He listens to the acoustics and how the orchestra sounds. 

I love talking with conductors.  Each one I’ve interviewed has been generous with his time and sharing his experience and knowledge.  And I’m happy to report that I managed not to annoy any of them.