June 2008 Archives

Today Sarah and I leave our apartment on inflated rubber tires, northbound on Highway 13. We're driving up to Kansas City, spending the night at her parents' house, and tomorrow we will catch a flight to Anaheim. I already checked in; I have my sister's boarding pass, her boyfriend's, Sarah's, and mine. I can already hear the loudspeaker voice in the airport: Do not leave your bags unattended. The red zones are for loading and unloading.

I bought a book this morning especially for the trip, Blood Kin, which is terrific so far. It scares me a little. Reading it, I've begun to care deeply about certain characters; people who, in the world of the novel, find themselves in dangerous, even life-threatening, situations. I hope the novel isn't tragic. Fighting back tears on a flight to sunny California is less than cathartic; tragic novels are best read alone, in privacy. Or so I believe.

That's all for now. Upcoming events (in the world of this blog) include a comprehensive report on the American Librarian Association Convention; a detailed account of my behind-the-scenes zoo tour, which will take place this afternoon at Dickerson Park; and an interview on Ask the Writer with accomplished author Benjamin Percy.

You'll feel better if you do it. Don't think too much. Don't talk about it too much. Discussion kills the magic, robs it of power, slows down the momentum. Worst of all, don't think about those who are doing it when you're not. The world is full of talent, but most people lack conviction.

I'm sitting right now at my favorite spot, behind the glass windows of the Mud House coffee shop, typing on my laptop. The chairs around me are fairly empty, except for two young men, one blond, one brown-haired. I was ignoring them until five minutes ago. I've been writing on my novel Atlantis in the Sand and a thousand words came out pretty smoothly. For fear of continuing when I don't know what will happen next (and a fear of becoming too seduced by the sound of my keyboard) I decided to knock it off for today.

I can hear the guys talking about writing. I'm going to write this in my script, one says. This kind of character is best. The other guy says, Yeah, that kind of character is best.

Don't get me wrong. It's fine to talk about writing. The process, the ups and downs, the way it rolls around in your head. I discuss it all the time. It gets you fired up.

Just today I was talking with Steve Rucker again about the novel. And his short stories. We're considering writing something together, even, co-authorship, something I'm interested in. So, yeah, I talk about it. And I read about it, too.

Then I'm fired up. But I know if I get too fired up, I need to do it right then. I can't wait too long or the enthusiasm flags. Right after talking with Steve I came down here and got down to business. No time to waste, etc., etc.

I don't mean to give a ha-ha-I'm-writing-and-they're-not kind of post. I'm not bragging. What I am saying is this: If you want to write, you need to get yourself wound up, and then you need to write the thing. It's hard for me, too. But you have to force yourself, sometimes. Otherwise you won't get it published. The short story. The essay about your Dad. The screenplay that will make you a million dollars. Don't plot it. Don't think about it. If it's been cooking in your head, and you start to type, it will come out. I promise it will.

Sarah always tells me, Have faith. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Today, talking with Steve, I didn't know what would happen next in my novel. I wanted so bad to open it up and keep moving forward. But I had set it aside for two weeks. So I came into the Mud House, switched on my laptop, and waited for it to boot up. Except Google searching the Arabic word for Snow, I did not open the Internet (all good writers should know when to keep the Internet browser closed). I forced myself to write Chapter 2.

Now I'm exhausted again and I'm back to square one.  But I did write. I'm that much closer to the end of the book.

So remember: If you want to finish that piece you're working on, that poem, that novel, or whatever, then you need to do it. No plotting. No fancy software. Just you, your mind, and a computer (or paper, or typewriter).

Don't move. Don't get up. Keep the locked door locked.

Yesterday the USPS gifted me with the new Poets & Writers, which has Marilyn Monroe on the cover (reading James Joyce's Ulysses). If you haven't got it, go buy one right now. Better yet, subscribe. One of my favorite pieces was "Agents and Editors." This month it's a Q&A with Janet Silvers, available online. There was also a very good essay by writing professor and accomplished novelist Robert Boswell. The title is "The Practice of Remaining in the Dark: How to Create Complex Characters." Sorry, fans. This one - well worth your time and money - is print only.

Boswell's article in particular raises a difficult question: When do you want fully rounded characters, and when do you want a flat character? Here's an example: The knights from a Chretien de Troyes story ends up flatter than western Kansas (Fast Fact: Kansas is the only state scientifically proven flatter on average than a pancake).

It's hard to imagine Yvain, the Knight with the Lion, exhibiting a range of emotions outside Courtly Love and Ass Kicking. I like my knights like I hate my tires: flat.

But even in genre fiction, so called, people seem to trump caricatures. Remember the anguish of Peter Blood (from Raphael Sabatini's pirate epic Captain Blood) when he comes to the conclusion that "only a fool" would set himself up as a doctor to human beings, which he considers "best exterminated"? Why then does Blood risk his life to save the slaves he is sent to work among? Why bother?

Boswell suggests that stock characters in fiction are only part of the problem. He echoes an earlier Ernest Hemingway sentiment (although he doesn't quote E.H.) that a writer should not be afraid to leave things out. What we give the reader, then, is a sense that he or she can never know the characters completely. In laying out his thoughts, Boswell mocks writing classes and writing textbooks, saying, in effect, "Why do I need to know this character's birthday? Tell me, please."

In writing, as in life, much of what lies beneath contains 90% of a novel's substance. Hemingway also famously compared fiction to icebergs. What floats beneath the surface supports magnificent beauty, maybe; but there's no reason to map that ice, to tick it off in meters, and so on. To write on and on about a character simply drains the life from them, and the energy from you, the writer. So think twice before opening up that fancy writing textbook, or before you fill out a questionnaire. Start instead with probing questions, learn a little, and begin to write.

The people in your story will reveal themselves in time.

A few days ago, Steve Rucker invited me to lunch at a small Italian café downtown, near the square, and I was in such a good mood I said absolutely without consulting my dwindling cash supply. For once didn't think about spending money. Dollars are tight, but not so tight I would turn down a steaming plate of spaghetti. Nona's is a narrow building painted white and trimmed in robin's egg blue, with some of the best food in Greene County for under ten dollars inside.

I had just finished up a meeting with my thesis committee chair, Brian Shawver. He read my proposal and gave me ideas for my thesis. Mostly we just sat around and talked. He talked about concerts in Kansas City, old professors of his from the University of Iowa, and Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union. We drank some coffee and talked about genre fiction and literary fiction, and the coming Fall semester. He gave me his thoughts on how to build convincing characters, and we talked about several points from his books Aftermath and The Cuban Prospect, and we debated the pros and cons of using tricks to burn a character into the reader's mind.

I left feeling wound up, ready to write, excited to tackle this new novel I'm planning, which is titled Atlantis in the Sands. It would have to wait for Nona's, of course.

When I met up with Steve, we fell to talking. I could listen to people like Brian and Steve talk all day long and never get bored. It came up that I had been reading the new The Atlantic article, "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?"

This article isn't what you think--it's not memory-based, really. But the opening bars struck a chord with me. You see, for a while now I've been feeling less sharp than I was. Not that I'm a genius, you know, just that I wasn't always so flaky. The author, Nicholas Carr, suggests that hyper-links and Internet, while making research easier, is actually altering our brain chemistry, and gives several instances of shortened attention spans, etc. You can read the whole article here and I hope you do.

The answer I had been seeking to my questions ("Why can't I finish what I start?" and "Why is it so hard to focus on writing sometimes?") was right in front of my nose. I knew it had something to do with the article, but I didn't know what. As he often does, Steve pointed this out to me. He's got that built-in, shock-proof shit detector Ernest Hemingway loved so much.

Writing is paying attention to a fictional setting moment by moment, with non-judgmental awareness. In mindfulness, when a mind wanders, you bring it back patiently, time after time. In writing, you have to keep closing the Firefox window with Wikipedia in it. Or Google Earth. Or Merriam-Webster Online. Or all those books you checked out from the library.

Mindfulness is hard enough. Writing, too. So why make it more difficult?

Steve said he always had to write late at night. No music, nothing. He said, "It was like I had to be in a bubble." I said, "I should try that." I thought of Stephen King's locked door, which he says is all-important. A locked door to keep distractions out and to keep the writer in.

Apparently, I sometimes need to lock the door in my head.

When I write now, I refuse to open other windows on the computer, even for research, unless the question is very small and easily answered. An example of that would be "When was T.E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom published?" Answer: "1935." But for something more complicated, like, "How does a steam engine work on an old train?" I do that research before I start writing. Otherwise, it's too easy to get distracted.

When I got home, I tried locking the door in my head for the first time. I wrote 10 pages, 2,000 words, and I plan to write more next week.

What follows is an interview from 417 Magazine, which has been cut down and modified into an oral history. My lunchtime conversation with Mr. Woodrell took the better part of an hour. He arrived at 11:30, and I interviewed him for this feature. Then we just talked and ate a little lunch. Turns out he likes L.A. and lived at one point in San Francisco. He lately had returned from speaking in Jackson, Wyoming, in the valley of the Teton Mountains. He loves the Russian writers, Lev Tolstoy and Feodor Dostoevsky, and he even drew some inspiration, early on, from Isaac Babel's stories about the Red Calvary.

Someday I may transcribe the whole thing, which would be a long process, but for now I'll re-print what the editors of thought would work best for their issue. If you ask me, the talk was fascinating and worth devoting more words to. Another wonderful, in-depth interview with Mr. Woodrell is available on NPR, where he discusses Winter's Bone. A full list of his books is available on Amazon.


What It Feels Like to Ride with the Devil

by Daniel Woodrell, as told to Ben Pfeiffer

Woe to Live On came out in 1987 and disappeared with scarcely a trace. I thought that was the end of it. It's the lowest-selling book I've ever written, even though a lot of people love it. It slowly worked its way into people's hands. There was a woman at that time who was a reader for a producer in New York; he was looking for something about war. She pushed that book; he decided to try something else. But she remembered it. Ten years later she was working for Ang Lee, he's shooting Sense & Sensibility, and he allegedly says, "Get me a war movie next."

She remembered the novel and had a copy, because it was out of print. He read it and said yes. The first thing was the title. The people at the studio said they will not have a movie with Woe in the title. They had to go to a lot of trouble to find a title everyone was comfortable with. I'm not crazy about the title myself... The movie's is Ride with the Devil.

They were very nice to us all along: James Schamus, currently the head of Focus Features, but then he was our screenwriter, and Ang Lee. I got to go to the set a few times, and I watched them shoot the raid on Lawrence, 300 horsemen spread out, riding down a hill into an encampment. This was a pretty amazing spectacle. It was exciting to see actors and actresses using my dialogue. I could see how well the lines worked, if at all. It's the ultimate test of dialogue.

In the end, they were amazingly faithful to the original novel.