A Writer's Moment: Immersing Readers Into The Story

A Writer's Moment: Immersing Readers Into The Story: "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."   -- E.L. Doctorow Novelist and historian E.L. Doctorow, whose novel...

Immersing Readers Into The Story

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."  -- E.L. Doctorow

Novelist and historian E.L. Doctorow, whose novel Ragtime won every major writing award and was the precursor of many other great works to follow, said that it is the historian's place to tell us about a time in history or an era, but it is the novelist's role to tell us how we would act and feel if we lived in that time or era.

Born in 1931 (he died in 2015), Doctorow created characters that exemplified Ernest Hemingway's admonition that when writing a novel, the writer should create living people “ . . . people, not characters.  A character is a caricature." 
                                                
I thought about Doctorow and his marvelous work recently while doing a radio interview about my own novel And The Wind Whispered, which I set in the 1890s in South Dakota’s Black Hills.   "You really put us into the time and place," the interviewer said.  "Did you feel an obligation to make that real to us, so that we would know?"

I used Doctorow's words above as part of my response, saying that it is, indeed, the writer's obligation.  It is not acceptable to be  “mostly right.”  We must be completely right in what we share if we are to remain true to our craft and the great writers like him who have led us along the way.  

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader,” Doctorow once said.  “Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: 'Leaping' Into The Unknown

A Writer's Moment: 'Leaping' Into The Unknown: Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's ...

'Leaping' Into The Unknown

Part of writing a novel is being willing to leap into the blackness. You have very little idea, really, of what's going to happen. You have a broad sense, maybe, but it's this rash leap. – Chang-Rae Lee

Born in Korea on this date in 1965, Lee is a novelist and professor of creative writing at Princeton where he has headed up that program for many years.  Lee has used his Korean immigrant experience as a focal point for his award-winning writing.  But, while that is his own focus, he stresses with students to be aware of a broad spectrum of writing and writing styles.

“I'll offer them stories from Anton Chekhov to Denis Johnson, from Flannery O'Connor to A.M. Homes.   Perhaps investigating all that strange variation of beauty has rubbed off on me … (and) that's why I enjoy teaching literature.”           Lee's first novel, Native Speaker, won numerous prizes, including the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The novel centers around a Korean American industrial spy and explores themes of alienation and betrayal as felt or perpetrated by immigrants and first-generation citizens, something he’s repeated in other works. 

Often, he said, he isn’t sure where he’s headed when he starts writing, but that’s not a bad thing.   As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, he said it is convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.   “I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Celebrating 'A Writer Extraordinaire'

A Writer's Moment: Celebrating 'A Writer Extraordinaire': “Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong t...

Celebrating 'A Writer Extraordinaire'

“Never use the word 'audience.' The very idea of a public, unless the poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an 'audience'. They're talking to a single person all the time.” – Robert Graves

Born July 24, 1895, Graves was a British poet, historical novelist, critic, and classicist who published nearly 60 volumes of poetry along with dozens of other writings in all genres.  Among his 120-plus total volumes was the world-renowned novel I, Claudius, and his historical memoir on WWII, Goodbye To All That.          Graves’s sad love poems are regarded as among the finest produced in the English language during the 20th century.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Graves’,

A Lover Since Childhood

Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?

    If thus and thus I do,
    Dazed by the thought of you,
    Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
    My heart cut through and through
    In this despair of you,
    Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:


    give then a thought for me
    Walking so miserably,
    Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
    Do but remember, we
    Once could in love agree,
    Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Writing Effectively By Keeping It Simple

A Writer's Moment: Writing Effectively By Keeping It Simple: “So many people think that if you're writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go. Want to add a dragon? Add a ...

Writing Effectively By Keeping It Simple

“So many people think that if you're writing fantasy, it means you can just make everything up as you go. Want to add a dragon? Add a dragon! Want some magic? Throw it in. But the thing is, regardless of whether you're dealing with realism or fantasy, every world has rules. Make sure to establish a natural order.” – V. E. Schwab

 Born on July 27, 1987, Victoria Elizabeth Schwab is perhaps best known for her novel Vicious, her Shades of Magic series, and for her children's and young adult fiction written as Victoria Schwab.  The daughter of a British mom and “Beverly Hills” dad, she grew up on both the West Coast and in the Deep South, a lover of fairytales, folklore “and books that make me wonder if the world is really as it seems.”

A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, she studied everything from Physics to Film to Art History and English, then held a wide variety of jobs before turning to writing.  Not a bad career move. 

Her work has received critical acclaim, been featured by writing magazines and The New York Times alike, been translated into more than a dozen languages, and been optioned for TV and Film.  She said she loves working in many different genres and writing for all ages.   “I still get rejections - frequently - and my goal isn't to never fail, to never be turned down, but simply to succeed more often than I don't,” she said.  “And in order to do that, I have to constantly put myself out there, to judgment, critique, and rejection.” 

                   As for writing advice, she noted, “I think a lot of writers are tempted to add complexity by over-complicating things, but always remember that most natural rules/laws are, at their core, simple. Start simple, and build from there, or you risk getting yourself and your readers tangled.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Icon Of An Age

A Writer's Moment: Icon Of An Age: “Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald Born in Alabama on th...

Icon Of An Age

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” – Zelda Fitzgerald

Born in Alabama on this date in 1900, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was a prominent Socialite noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband Scott as "the first American Flapper.”  She and Scott became emblems of The Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated.  

                                     A great writer of journals, she is often credited with providing key material for her husband’s book  This Side of Paradise.  He also often used her as the inspiration for his other key female characters, including Daisy in The Great Gatsby.  Her own artistic endeavors included a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, a play entitled Scandalabra, and numerous magazine articles, short stories and paintings.

She said her life was meant to be “lived!” especially through love of those around her.   “I don't want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Finding A Pathway To Writing

A Writer's Moment: Finding A Pathway To Writing: “Any setting can be a good setting for a novel.” – Chris Pavone Best-selling author Pavone says there are plenty of paths to becomin...

Finding A Pathway To Writing

“Any setting can be a good setting for a novel.” – Chris Pavone

Best-selling author Pavone says there are plenty of paths to becoming a writer . . . “but I think the most reliable ones involve total commitment: writing for magazines and newspapers, teaching writing, editing books, representing authors.”

Born on this date in 1968, Pavone grew up in New York City, where he still makes his home.  He graduated from Cornell University and was a book-publishing editor for nearly two decades before deciding to leave his “editor” pen for a “writer” version.  “I had 12 different job titles in publishing before I typed ‘The End’ at the bottom of a manuscript page,” he said.  “I thought the manuscript was in great shape; I was pretty proud of myself.  Then I sent it to some publishing friends and they tore it apart.”

 

A humbling experience most first-time authors face and from which many don’t recover.  Not Pavone, he took the suggestions to heart, went back to work and produced the multiple-award winning The Expats, a best-selling thriller that has now led to 4 additional books including his newest (published just two months ago), The Paris Diversion, a sequel to Expats.   

                                   Pavone said working at publishing houses was a great incubator for his writing because he came into contact with so many great books, ideas and authors.  At the same time he saw the opposite side and was faced with putting a damper on writers’ dreams.  “I spent nearly two decades . . . mostly as an acquisitions editor,” he said.  “But a more accurate title might be rejection editor:  while I acquired maybe a dozen projects a year, I’d reject hundreds upon hundreds.”

“I always wanted to write. But honestly I'm glad I didn't do it back when I was twenty-five or so, when it's now clear to me that I was a very poor writer and could've ruined my career before it even started.”

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Honing The Writing Craft

A Writer's Moment: Honing The Writing Craft: “I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the cr...

Honing The Writing Craft

“I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.   I still look at a newspaper as the center of a community.  It's one of the tent poles of the community, and that's not going to be replaced by web sites and blogs.” – Michael Connelly

Connelly, born on this date in 1956, decided to become a writer after discovering the crime mysteries of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida.  Majoring in journalism and minoring in creative writing, he excelled at both.  He started his career as a newspaper reporter, working in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale and specializing in the crime beat, of course – Chandler’s influence shining through.

 

Eventually he landed at the Los Angeles Times and then started writing creatively in what would make him a household name – mystery and crime fiction.   I was first drawn to Connelly’s writing because of his “newspaper style” – concise, to the point, and riveting.  When I read Blood Work, one of the cleverest ideas for a mystery I’d seen, I was really hooked.  

Translated into 39 languages, his books have garnered every major award for mystery and crime writing, and he has served as President of the Mystery Writers of America.  

Besides being a journalist, Connelly said a great incubator for being a writer is simply to BE a writer.  “You need to write.  Even if it's just one paragraph, write every single day."

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Reaching Into Space

A Writer's Moment: Reaching Into Space: On this 50 th anniversary day of the first Moon Landing, it seemed appropriate to share John Mageee Jr.’s beautiful “High Flight" fo...

Reaching Into Space

On this 50^th anniversary day of the first Moon Landing, it seemed appropriate to share John Mageee Jr.’s beautiful “High Flight" for Saturday's Poem.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., a China-born American was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Battle of Britain when he wrote this poem in 1941.  The son of missionary parents, Magee studied at Yale, and in September 1940 enlisted in the RCAF where he was graduated as a pilot.  He composed “High Flight” a couple months before his death on December 11, 1941 when his Spitfire collided with another plane over England.  
    Magee was just 19 when he died.   He is buried in England.

                         

            High Flight

  Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,                         

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

 

   Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Share Writer’s Moment with a friend at httpe://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader'

A Writer's Moment: Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader': “The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon...

Every Reader Is 'An Intelligent Reader'

“The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon. You can always do it better, find the exact word, the apt phrase, the leaping simile.” – Robert Cormier

An author, columnist and reporter, Cormier was known for his brilliantly crafted, yet oftentimes deeply pessimistic, downbeat literature. But his most popular works continue to resonate with his mostly Young Adult audience nearly 20 years after his death.  I Am The Cheese, After the First Death, We All Fall Down and The Chocolate War all won major awards, and I Am The Cheese is considered one of the best Young Adult novels of the past 75 years.

Cormier began his professional writing career scripting radio commercials and went on to become an award-winning journalist. And even though he became widely known, writing 18 novels and countless short stories, he never stopped writing for his local Massachusetts newspaper, the Fitchburg Sentinel and for those youthful readers who made up the core of his fan base. 

                           “I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind,” he once said.  “I don't think about how old they are or where they might live.  And all the stories I'll ever need are right here on Main Street.” 

Writer’s Moment with a friend at httpe://writersmoment.blogspot.com

A Writer's Moment: 'Shared' Thoughts From Great Writers

A Writer's Moment: 'Shared' Thoughts From Great Writers: "A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live  several lives while reading it."...

'Shared' Thoughts From Great Writers

"A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted. You should live 

several lives while reading it." -- William Styron

***

“There are places which exist in this world beyond the reach of imagination.”
― Daniel J. Rice, This Side of a Wilderness

***

“It seems to me nothing man has done or built on this land is an improvement over what was here before.” –Kent Haruf, West of Last Chance

***

“Writing well means never having to say, ‘I guess you had to be there.’” – Jeff Mallett

****

 “One of the advantages of being disorganized is that one is always having surprising discoveries.” – A.A. Milne

A Writer's Moment: Letting Nature Speak

A Writer's Moment: Letting Nature Speak: This month marks the anniversary of the birth of a great Native American leader, environmentalist, poet, essayist AND actor.   Chief Dan ...

Letting Nature Speak

This month marks the anniversary of the birth of a great Native American leader, environmentalist, poet, essayist AND actor.  Chief Dan George, born in 1899, became a household name in the 1960s and '70s for both his poetry and his acting, especially in the award-winning 1970 Dustin Hoffman film Little Big Man.

 

George was born in Canada and served as chief of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a coastal band located in North Vancouver, B.C., played Cheyenne chief Old Lodge Skins in this major acting role after having done a few roles on TV and in smaller movies beginning at age 60.  His famous line in the movie was “My heart soars like a hawk,” based in part on his poem “My heart soars,” which is his best-known written work.  The poem was recited by Canadian born actor Donald Sutherland at the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.  For Saturday's Poem, here is George's,

                My Heart Soars

 The beauty of the trees, the softness of the air,

the fragrance of the grass ... speaks to me.

The summit of the mountain, the thunder of the sky,

The rhythm of the sea ... speaks to me.



The faintness of the stars, the freshness of the morning,

the dewdrop on the flower ... speaks to me.

The strength of the fire, the taste of salmon, the trail of the sun,

and the life that never goes away ... they speak to me.

And my heart soars.

A Writer's Moment: Everybody Rock ... And Roll

A Writer's Moment: Everybody Rock ... And Roll: “I sat down one night and wrote the line rock, rock, rock everybody. I was going to use the word ‘stomp’ – like rock, rock, rock and then ...

Everybody Rock ... And Roll

“I sat down one night and wrote the line rock, rock, rock everybody. I was going to use the word ‘stomp’ – like rock, rock, rock and then stomp, stomp, stomp. But that didn't fit. I went from one word to another and finally came up with ‘roll.’” – Bill Haley

And so it sometimes is with writers in any genre, but in this case perhaps more than any other, Haley’s little idea turned into a mantra for a whole generation and changed the face of music forever.

When Rock Around the Clock appeared as the theme song of the 1955 film “Blackboard Jungle,” it soared to the top of the American Billboard chart for eight weeks and became the unofficial starting point for the rock and roll era.  Haley was quickly given the title "Father of Rock and Roll" by both media and teenagers who embraced the style.  Rock Around The Clock was the first million-seller in three countries – U.S., Great Britain and Germany – and Haley the first international touring rock singer.  
         Born on July 6, 1924, Haley intended to hang his star on country music.  He was a professional entertainer by age 13, working as a singing cowboy and in C&W roadhouses.  He formed a band called The Saddlemen and also worked as a disk jockey before renaming his band Bill Haley and the Comets after reading about Halley’s Comet (which actually is pronounced Hal Lee while his is Hay Lee, “But it seemed like a good fit,” he said.).

Haley had a whole series of number one hits after age 30, including Shake, Rattle and Roll, See You Later Alligator and Razzle Dazzle.  His records sold 25 million copies before his sudden death at age 57 in 1981.  He was inducted into the aptly named Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

Share A Writer’s Moment with a friend at http://writersmoment.blogspot.com