A Writer's Moment: That Inner Music of the Words

A Writer's Moment: That Inner Music of the Words:   “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that the words make.“ – Truma...

That Inner Music of the Words

 

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that the words make.“ – Truman Capote

 

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana on this date in 1924, he was raised by his mother's relatives in Monroeville, Alabama after his parents were divorced.  In Monroeville, Capote was a neighbor and friend of Harper Lee, who would also go on to become an acclaimed author and a lifelong friend of Capote's.  Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird likely models Dill’s characterization after Capote. 

 

He grew to be an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor.  Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood, which he labeled a "nonfiction novel.” Aided by Lee, Capote spent six years writing that book.   To date, his works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television dramas.

Flamboyant and philosophical, Capote noted shortly before his death in 1984, “Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'Write What You Like to Read'

A Writer's Moment: 'Write What You Like to Read': “Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, ...

'Write What You Like to Read'

“Sometimes the characters develop almost without your knowing it. You find them doing things you hadn't planned on, and then I have to go back to page 42 and fix things. I'm not recommending it as a way to write . . . but it works for me.” – Barbara Mertz

 

An American author who wrote under her own name as well as the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels, Mertz was both a noted academic and a leading writer.  Born on this day in 1927, she earned multiple degrees in ancient history and Egyptology, including a Ph.D. in the latter field.

One of her mystery series (written as Peters) focused on a professor who held a degree in Egyptology.   Mertz wrote 71 books, including many mystery and suspense series'.  And while she was best known for those, two of her nonfiction books on ancient Egypt also are still in print. 

More than a dozen of her books were nominated for or won best novel or best mystery awards, led by Trojan Gold; Naked Once More; The Last Camel Died at Noon; The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog; and Night Train to Memphis.

                                    

She was named Anthony Awards Grandmaster for mystery writing in 1986 and Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster in 1998.   She wrote bestsellers right up until her death in 2013.

When asked why she liked writing mysteries, suspense and thrillers instead of more of her "scholarly" works, she replied that it was what she most enjoyed.  “There are lots of things to write about, but I think it would be difficult to write books I don't like to read.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'You Live Through Your Characters'

A Writer's Moment: 'You Live Through Your Characters': “Fiction, for me, is sort of a protracted way of saying all the things I wished I said the night before.” – Christopher...

'You Live Through Your Characters'

“Fiction, for me, is sort of a protracted way of saying all the things I wished I said the night before.” – Christopher Buckley

The only child of conservative author and speaker William F. Buckley, Christopher was born on this day in 1952 and has made his own way in the writing world as a noted humorist and satirist, creating such well-known works as The White House Mess, No Way To Treat A First Lady and Thank You For Smoking – the latter made into a film as well.

Buckley’s humorous pieces have appeared in all of the nation’s            

leading newspapers, and he also has had an ongoing career as a magazine writer and editor, particularly at Forbes.   And, Buckley has done considerable time in p.r. and says that “In public relations, you live with the reality that not every disaster can be made to look like a misunderstood triumph.”  

Buckley’s p.r. efforts were primarily in the political arena and his first-hand knowledge of the political world has often provided the base for his  satirical fiction, which he says he finds most enjoyable.  And, he says writing is a great way to live a life you might only imagine, noting, “You live vicariously through your characters.”

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A Writer's Moment: 'Escaping from Emotion'

A Writer's Moment: 'Escaping from Emotion':   “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from persona...

'Escaping from Emotion'

 “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.” – T.S. Eliot

Born Thomas Stearns Eliot on this date in 1888, Eliot was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the 20th century's major poets.  He started life as an American and ended it 76 years later as an English citizen and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."  The award came in 1948 and he lamented that he was almost sad to have the award because “No one has ever done anything after he got it.”

Having said that, he promptly wrote his 1949 award-winning play The Cocktail Party, then went on to author two more plays, dozens of poems, and several highly regarded works of nonfiction before his death in 1965.

Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945).  

“Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly,” he said.  “Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”  

 

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A Writer's Moment: Collaborating With His Public

A Writer's Moment: Collaborating With His Public:   “A poet should always be 'collaborating' with his public, but this public, in the mass, cannot make itself heard, and he has to gu...

Collaborating With His Public

 “A poet should always be 'collaborating' with his public, but this public, in the mass, cannot make itself heard, and he has to guess at its requirements and its criticisms.” –  Louis MacNeice

Irish poet MacNeice’s body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime (1907-63), due in part to his relaxed, but socially and emotionally aware style.   He was part of the generation called the Auden Group, also sometimes known as the "Thirties poets,” that included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis (father of renowned actor Daniel Day-Lewis).

Here for Saturday’s Poem is a poem MacNeice plaintively wrote on the occasion of his 50^th  birthday.

Star-Gazer

Forty-two years ago (to me if to no one else
The number is of some interest) it was a brilliant starry night
And the westward train was empty and had no corridors
So darting from side to side I could catch the unwonted sight
Of those almost intolerably bright
Holes, punched in the sky, which excited me partly because
Of their Latin names and partly because I had read in the textbooks
How very far off they were, it seemed their light
Had left them (some at least) long years before I was.

And this remembering now I mark that what
Light was leaving some of them at least then,
Forty-two years ago, will never arrive
In time for me to catch it, which light when
It does get here may find that there is not
Anyone left alive
To run from side to side in a late night train
Admiring it and adding thoughts in vain.

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'Close to Her Heart'

A Writer's Moment: Writing 'Close to Her Heart':   “What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and ...

Writing 'Close to Her Heart'

 “What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.” – Luanne Rice

Rice has been a regular on the New York Times’ Bestseller List, her work translated into 26 languages and many made into movies – including for TV’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” 

Her novels - among which are The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat, and Sandcastles - deal with love, family, nature and the sea.  Born in New Britain, CT, on Sept. 25, 1955 Rice got into writing early and had her first published poem (in the Hartford Courant) at age 11.  Her first short story was published in American Girl magazine when she was 15, and her debut novel, Angels All Over Town, at age 30.

As a just-beginning novelist, Rice was married to a law student and would sit in on lectures on criminal law and evidence, mesmerized by how the cases would unfold and getting ideas for her writing.  From that she developed a research and writing style that have led to her remarkable success. 

 

Luanne Rice

She said she enjoys doing research and also writes down her dreams – both of which make up parts of her work.  But, she said, she bases many characters on the real people she has met and is inspired by.  “While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart.”  

 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: It's That 'Realness' Factor

A Writer's Moment: It's That 'Realness' Factor:   “Good fiction must be entertaining, but what makes fiction special - and True - is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a large...

It's That 'Realness' Factor

 “Good fiction must be entertaining, but what makes fiction special - and True - is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a larger message.” – Jerry B. Jenkins

 

Jenkins, born in Michigan on this date in 1949, might be best known for the Left Behind series, written for Tim LaHaye.  But overall, Jenkins has written more than 200 books in multiple genres ranging from biography and self-help to mystery and young adult fiction.

 

Writing from an early age, Jenkins covered high school sports for local newspapers even before he could drive, being paid $1 per column inch.  In college, he served as night news editor for the radio station WMBI, owned by the Moody Institute, where he became Vice President of its publishing division in 1985.  He’s been a writer-in-residence there from 1988 onward.

 

In addition to his novels, he’s done “as told to" personality books on athletes and religious leaders like Hank Aaron, Joe Gibbs, Mike Singletary and Sammy Tippit.   Twenty-one of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, and many of his stories have appeared in magazines like Time, Reader's Digest, Parade, and Guideposts.

 

“Writers write,” he noted of his prolific career.  “Dreamers talk about it.”

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: 'No Second Acts'

A Writer's Moment: 'No Second Acts':   “My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the sc...

'No Second Acts'

 “My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

Born in September of 1896, Fitzgerald is one of the greatest American writers with a remarkable output during his very short life.  In his 44 years his star burned brightly in the writing universe, primarily through brilliant short stories – which many find surprising because of his very well-known novel The Great Gatsby.  But Fitzgerald wrote hundreds of short stories that truly were reflective of what’s known as “The Jazz Age” and the writers who inhabited it, “The Lost Generation.”

A native of St. Paul, Minn., where his childhood home is still open to visitors, Fitzgerald attended Princeton, but dropped out to join the army during World War I.  It was at Princeton that he began his writing and in the early years of the army that he met his future wife Zelda, also a major influence on his writing efforts.  

A few years ago I purchased a set of Fitzgerald novels, marketed as key examples of the writings of the Lost Generation.  At the time, I thought these were just four of his many works.  Instead they were THE four of his novels – Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tender Is the Night.  He said he kept wanting to write more, but never could generate his earlier enthusiasm.  It led to his famous statement, “There are no second acts in American lives.”

 

F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was named for his distant cousin, the famous poet Francis Scott Key, and at times said he felt too much pressure to produce.  That, many said, drove him to drink and early death.  But it might just as well have been the pressure to produce that led to his death.  “At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; at 45 they are caves in which we hide,” he wrote in anticipation of that upcoming birthday, which he never reached.

“All good writing,” he said, “is like swimming under water and holding your breath.”