Word Strumpet

The Dream World

"Imagination is sacred and divine--I trust it implicitly."

So said Andre Dubus III at his Wordstock reading last weekend.  Dubus, best known for House of Sand and Fog, read from his latest novel, The Garden of Last Days, which was inspired by the Florida sojourns of the 9-11 hijackers.  After he read from the book, Dubus talked about writing the book.  He quoted Flannery O'Connor, who said, "writing is waiting," to make the point that even when you are staring at the computer monitor, you are writing.  And then he ripped off this line: "You are summoning, almost like a prayer to an angel, the imagination to give you something."

After hearing that line, I was ready to go buy every book the man ever wrote.  He went on the say that if you summon the imagination regularly it will reward you with things to write about.  Someone in the audience asked him how difficult it was to get inside the head of one of the September 11 hijackers, and he told how he resisted and resisted it, that he had no interest in making one of them a viewpoint character.  But then the novel seemed to sputter and fall flat and he was in danger of losing it completely.  He realized that he had to make one of the hijackers a viewpoint character, so he sat and did nothing but read books about the Middle East for five months.

Dubus quoted Mike Nichols, saying that the charge of the storyteller is to share what it is really like to be in the midst of whatever is happening.  In character-driven fiction, you want to establish empathy for the characters, not sympathy.  As a writer, you do this to the point that there is no other.  What you do in writing is to go beyond knowledge of the other to totally be the other.

Interestingly, this is true in fiction, as well as in many other arenas of writing. When you write a press release, there's a certain tone and style that you emulate.  In a much more superficial way, you're becoming the other--the PR pro who knows what will grab attention.  A blog post sounds different than a web page and an article in a newspaper is dissimilar in tone to a piece in the New Yorker.   In each instance the trick for the writer is to figure out the trops and do them.  Be the other.

I was discussing this with Mary-Suzanne yesterday in terms of ghostwriting.  How does a writer get out of their own skin and into the skin of the person who is supposedly writing the book?  Here are some tips (which are applicable to every kind of writing imaginable):

1.  Get Over Yourself.  Clear the gunk out.  Do it however you like, but I think the best way is to write a bunch of crap down on paper.  Set a timer and write out all the petty judgments and grievances and even all the things that are making you happy.  (You may get some ideas along the way, though that is not the point of this.  As an added benefit, you may also improve your mental health along the way.

2.  Enter the Dream World.  Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, center yourself, do whatever it takes to get yourself calm and zen and relaxed.  Listen to music if you need to. 

3.  Start to Observe.  Pull an image of the person you are melding with into your brain.  What do they look like, smell like, sound like, feel like?   Be aware that in making these observations you are still on the outside looking in.

4.  Become the Other.  Now, go a step farther and sink deeper into the character.  Instead of observing the character, imagine yourself actually going into her head.  What does the world look like from inside her viewpoint?  Where is she sitting?  What is the view outside her window?  What does she do when she first gets up in the morning?

5.  Trust Your Imagination.  Remember, as Dubus says, it is sacred and divine.    All you are really doing in this exercise is imagining life through another person's eyes.   And, honestly, what could be more important than bridging the gaps between us?

Top 5 Ways to Prepare for Nanowrimo

I'm not going to do Nanowrimo this year, because I need to focus on the final rewrite (yeah, right, how many times have I said that) of my current novel.  But I'm a huge fan of it and had a blast doing it several years ago, when I "won" by the way.

(In case you live on Mars, Nanowrimo is short for National Novel Writing Month, a project which encourages people all across the globe to write a "novel" of 50,000 words over the month of November.)

But since preparing for Nanowrimo is much like preparing to write any big project, I thought I'd post some tips.  Here we go:

1.  Set a page or word goal.  I figured to win Nanowrimo I would be safe if I wrote 2,000 words a day.  This allowed for acts of god and trips to LA, when I couldn't write every day.  If you aren't doing Nanowrimo,  you might want to set a page goal.  Three pages a day is good.  Doesn't sound like much but if you write three pages a day at the end of a month you have 90 pages, which is 1/3 of a novel. (God, this is such good advice, why don't I follow it?  Because it is much harder to set a specific page or word goal when you are rewriting--some changes are simple, some lead to many other changes forward and back.  Okay, I feel better.)

2.  Get it done first thing.  I like to get up first thing in the morning and write.  If I get going on the novel first, everything else falls into place.  If I decide to work on some other project, like those pesky ones that pay bills, I'll never get back to the novel.  When I did Nanowrimo, my deal with myself was that I couldn't go to bed until I had my word count done.   If I didn't finish in the morning, I had to keep going back to it until I did.  On the other hand, I know that there are people like my friend Tony who prefers to write from 8 PM to 1 AM. Huh.  A different opinion than mine, imagine that.

3.  Prepare, prepare, prepare.  C'mon, you've still got three days.  That's plenty of time.  Nanowrimo rules say you can do as much preparation as you want--as long as you don't write word one until November 1st.  Make lists of plot points, decide on character motivations, figure out what your characters want and what will stand in their way.  Choose locations and make notes about them.  Think about where your characters live and what they wear. What do they do on an ordinary day?  By preparing to write your novel in this way, you are also prepping your subconscious for what is to come--and trust me, those 2,000 words a day will come much easier.

4.  Tell family and friends to go jump in a lake.  No, perhaps it is a bit too cold for that, so tell them to take a hike.  Or rent every season of Friends, or the entire set of the Lord of the Rings and lock themselves in the TV room.  Or perhaps this is the time to tell your wife to finally read Anna Karenina.  The point is to (kindly) get rid of them.  Let them know you'll need time, space and energy to complete this goal that is important to you.

5.  Treat yourself well.  Now, and for the entire month of November.  Go easy on the alcohol (I hate that part) and eat healthy, natural whole foods. Exercise regularly.  My favorite exercise is pushing myself away from the computer desk.  Kidding.  I love to walk, and walking is excellent for pondering plot points.  Do all the things that you know will create energy for yourself.  You need to be alert and full of energy to write those 2000 words a day during November. 

Here's the bonus tip:  HAVE FUN.  Nanowrimo is a blast, and I love that it gets people writing and also connecting in Nanowrimo meetings.  So enjoy it.  And keep me posted on your progress.  Good luck!

How to Learn to Write

Reading as a Writer

Last night Terry Price and I hosted a dinner for the new students entering the Loft, and, big surprise, the conversation was all about writing.

One of the things that Terry talked about was how, in the past, some of his students would complain that they didn't have time to read, that trying to write took such a big chunk of their time that there was no time left for reading.

This is a shame.

Actually, it is more than a shame.  It is a crime.  Because, honestly?  If you are a writer, you should be reading.  There's just no two ways about it.  Reading the kinds of books that you want to write immerses you in the tropes and techniques and traditions of that genre, whether that genre is the novel, or the short story, or creative non-fiction.  The only way to figure out where you want to go is to look at where others have gone before you.

MFA programs, particularly brief-residency MFA programs, are based on this very idea, and emphasize the value of writers reading to learn how to write.  We emphasize the same thing in the Loft.

Words In, Words Out

I have this theory that, when I'm writing a lot, I need to replenish those words.  Just as when you exercise a lot, you need to drink a lot of water to replenish what you've lost through sweat, so too, with writing, you must restock your words.

Some writers will tell you that if they don't like to read whatever it is they are writing for fear that reading will somehow influence them.  Um, of course its going to influence you, because that is why we read.

Because you know better than to plagiarize, you are not going to copy an author word for word.  You're just going to absorb the way that author writes, note how he uses dialogue, study how she writes description.  In this way you learn techniques you can apply to your own writing.

No Time to Read?

You make time to watch TV, don't you?  You make time to surf the internet.  When you stop to think about it, you can probably think of several time-suckers that you can rid your life of.  Throw your TV out the window.  Will you really miss it?  You'll have more time to write that way, too.

Inspiration

I started thinking about this post last night, when we were all at dinner, talking about writing and reading.  And thought more about it this morning, because I'm going to have a phone meeting with my new student, Jillyn, who is wonderful not the least of which because she is from Portland.  And then I read Basic Ways to Improve Your Writing (its the April 21st entry, scroll down a little to find it) on the blog of the Mad Hermit and that was the final piece.  (By the way, the Mad Hermit is doing some really interesting things in terms of marrying the technology of the internet with literature--video reviews and video readings of poetry and classics.  Really cool.)

So go read.  And write some, too.

Pay It Forward: Birthday Celebration

In the wonderful way that synchronicity often happens, today is my blog's first birthday and I won a contest.  What do the two have to do with each other?  Well, the contest involves paying it forward.  Because I won something, it is now my duty (and pleasure) to pass on a prize as well.  And since it is my blog's birthday, it seemed fitting to combine the two.

But first, let me tell you about what I won and where I won it from.  One day I discovered Too Cute Pugs and spent quite a bit of time there because it is the diary of pugs Pearl and Daisy and full of wonderful pug photos and pug banners and all things pug.  Since I am of the firm opinion that the world would be a better place if pugs ran it, or at least if everyone on the planet owned a pug, I was entranced.

Pugmama (Okay, her name is Sue) at Too Cute Pugs was running a Pay it Forward contest and all you had to do to win this adorable tote bag that she had painted was to leave a comment.  Since I was planning to leave a comment for her anyway, this was a wonderful thing.  And guess what?  I won!

And now it is my charge to continue to pay it forward and offer prizes on my blog.  Since I have absolutely no talent for anything besides writing (well, knitting, but I never finish anything so I'm not going to offer a half-finished scarf) all of my prizes are word related. So, are you ready?  Here we go:

The first three people to leave comments on this post will receive:

1.  A one-half hour coaching session to kick-start you in your writing.   We can talk about frustrations, fears, lack of time, goals,  how to establish a regular writing practice, whatever your little heart desires. I love coaching and helping to get people back on track with their writing.

OR

2.  A manuscript critique of up to 20 pages of writing.   I also love reading and critiquing.  Fair warning: I'm not offering line editing here, but more big-picture type stuff, with thoughts on story and character and so forth.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to a pressing deadline, I will not be fulfilling these prizes until after April 15th.  But then I'm all yours, baby.

So leave those comments for me and I'll post the winners whenever I feel like it all the prizes have been claimed.

Photo from FreeFoto.com.

More About the Writer's Loft

I wrote about my new gig as co-director of the Writer's Loft in Tennessee on Friday, and I thought it would be good to post a bit more about it.  For the record, its a great writing program, and has proven to fill a need.  Say you are a busy professional who's always had the writing bug but been forced to put it aside for those nagging little needs like career and children.  But now you're ready to get back to it--except you really don't have time to attend a class once a week. 

The Loft model works great in such situations, because it is focused one-on-one program that you can do anytime--at 6 in the morning when you awaken, late at night when everyone else is asleep, or in those stolen moment at lunch or on a coffee break.  It has also proven to be a great boon to people who want to apply for a MFA program but need to get their skills up.  Or maybe you just love to write and would like to have someone look at your work and advise you on it.  The Loft is a flexible program that suits a variety of needs. 

Here is some more information on it, and if you are interested, email me for info on when the next program begins and prices and all that. 

The Writer’s Loft

The Writer’s Loft is a low-residency certificate in creative writing program offered by the Department of Continuing Education at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.    The cornerstone of the Loft is the student-mentor relationship, which offers the writer the chance to engage in focused, critical study of his or her work.  The program also features a weekend orientation with lectures and panels, periodic tele-seminars, and other opportunities to build community among writers.  Currently, a Writer’s Loft certificate can be earned in 18 months if each semester is taken sequentially or longer if the writer decides to take breaks.   It is also possible to sign up for the course on a semester by semester basis, and the aspiring writer who does not want or need to earn a certificate may find this option appealing.  While most of our students are in the mid-Tennessee area, we will also be starting a component to serve those in other regions of the country. The mission of the Loft is to develop the student’s maximum skills, style, and voice as a writer in a supportive, encouraging, and open environment.  The goal is for the student to become the best writer that he or she can be at this point in his or her development.  To this end, the course of study is set through meetings between mentor and student, in which the student’s goals and current level of achievement are considered. 

Low-Residency

The Writer’s Loft functions as a low-residency program.  What does this mean?  It is an increasingly popular style of teaching writing, with many MFA programs offering a low-residency option.  In a low-residency program, the student attends courses on location several times throughout the year and then returns home to complete the rest of the course assignments.  This works particularly well for writing, because the best possible way to learn writing is to spend as much time as possible writing.  Writers learn by writing, not by sitting in classrooms listening to people talk about writing.  Yet because writing is generally done alone, writers also crave community.  Low-residency programs address this need and also telescope writing instruction into one or more highly focused days. 

The Loft at a Glance

• Weekend Orientation with workshops, panels and other learning opportunities

• Focused one on one instruction

• Most course work completed at home on your own schedule

• Opportunity to be a part of a thriving writing community

Excellent News

Well, the meeting about the ghostwriting may have been a terrible debacle but I did get some excellent news yesterday.

The writing certificate program I teach at in Nashville (actually it is part of the Continuing Education Department at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro) has, of late, been....how shall I say this delicately....well, it has of late been the poor orphan child of the department.  As in, totally ignored.

However, my fellow mentor Terry Price and I have long cast covetous eyes on the program, thinking if only we could get our hands on it, we could build it back up and make it into the writing program it deserves to be.

Well, folks, the time has come for us to quit casting and start acting because as of today, Terry and I are now the new Program Directors of the Loft. 

This is all new and it is so new that we don't even have a website to point you to.  More information will follow as it develops--I'll be putting up a page on this site to let you know all the details.  What it means is that from now on, except for existing students and online classes to be developed in the future, all my teaching will be through the Loft. 

For those of you in the Nashville area, we'll be holding orientations and other local events.  But there will be a component for people who reside elsewhere (after all, I live in Oregon) which may include teleseminars and so forth.  Or, you might want to just have the option of working one on one with a mentor, which is a powerful way to learn and the heart of the Loft program.  This can be done no matter where you live.

Additionally, I'm now going to start taking advantage of the fact that I am a certified coach and focus attention on coaching writers.   What's the difference between coaching writers and mentoring them?  I'll be writing much more about this on my new coaching writing website, but for now think of it this way: if you like to write but have a lot of questions about how to write, you probably need a writing mentor or a writing class.  If you've been through all the classes and know your stuff pretty well, but can't seem to find a way to get yourself to write, you need a writing coach. 

As always, email me if you are interested.  There will be much more information on both the Loft and the coaching to come.

It is Beautiful Here In The Great Smokies, And I Now Know What Ekphrasis Means

At least I think I know.  But you will have to wait a bit for erudite me to enlighten you on that, because first you must suffer through an update of my travels.

I'm in Gatlinburg, at a beautiful resort perched on the side of a mountain (well, they call them mountains in these parts, but, well, out west....oh, never mind).  The reason I am here is to write, and by that I mean write write, ie, work on my novel.  And I am going to do that, yesiree Bob.  Despite the fact I have two, count 'em, two copywriting assignments that came in at the last minute.

Ah well, I shall deal. 

And now, for the fried food Nashville report.  I have now completed the definitive tour of Meat 'N Threes in Nashville, having visited Carolyn's on Friday, which is fish day.  I can't link to Carolyn's because, trust me, it does not have a website.  It does not even have a sign. It is on the ground floor of the Sunday School Publishing Building, the one with the pretty blue squares on it. 

The ladies at Carolyn's boss you around a little, and you really want to listen to them and do EXACTLY what they say.  Otherwise, I don't know what might happen.  But, I will say, the Mac and Cheese (remember it counts as a vegetable in the south) is to die for.  My other favorite Meat 'N Three, Varallo's (or maybe it is Vallaro's, I always get it confused) is closed for remodeling so I couldn't go there.  I really don't think Carolyn's is going to be remodeled anytime soon.  Nosiree.

Oh, by the way, if you lock your keys in the car on James Robertson Parkway on the way to Carolyn's, and you call AAA to come rescue you, if you are really lucky, the AAA guy will not only help you out but he will do even more.  Like perhaps profess his love.  But only if you are really lucky and highly lovable.

Other highlights of my time in Nashville were visits to Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, a quick spin through Ernest Tubb's Record Shop, where Candace bought me a Nashville bumper sticker on condition I really, truly put it on my car, the traditional Sunday morning breakfast at Monell's, and visits with all my wonderful friends and their various assorted children and S.O.s.

And this fried food travelog took so long I don't even have time to write about what ekphrasis means, or how I learned it, or the actual writing event that was one of the reasons I went to Nashville in the first place.

So, more tomorrow.

By the way, corn pudding counts as vegetable, too.  So do mashed potatoes.  And red beans and rice.  And so do grits. And I am sorry, but you just CANNOT convince me to like grits, no matter how they are classified.

Mayborn Wrap-Up

Did I mention that the Mayborn was chock full of informative lectures and panels?  I know I've talked about my fabulous, amazing workshop, and the Oprah Incident, and a few social events here and there.  But lest you think that the entire conference was held in the bar, I now present a run-down of a few memorable presentations.

I loved Melissa Shultz.  She started the conference off on Saturday morning with a lecture on free-lance writing that had lots of meaty information.  She presented Ten Keys to Success in Free-lancing, ranging from "establish a plan" to "learn how to market" to "be an armadillo" (i.e., learn how to take rejection).  I especially liked her advice that sometimes you might want to generate a concept for a potential client.  For instance, a client may not understand that he needs to utilize good SEO techniques to drive people to his website. Once you explain SEO to him, perhaps he will hire you to write it.  Or maybe you can convince a small business owner that she needs a newsletter.  It pays to be creative in conceptualizing.She also gave me a couple good tips about the business side of things and reminded me I need to be much more organized on the book-keeping.  If I pay attention to her, maybe next year it won't take me a whole day to go through receipts come tax time.

Melissa shared several websites for free-lancers and I list them here:

Freelancewriting.com

American Society for Journalists and Authors

Media Bistro

I had the opportunity to get to know Melissa a little at the Joyce Carol Oates reception, where we had a fine time talking about mid-life crises, and more the next day.  She is also a literary agent with Jim Donovan Literary.

For a good interview with Jim Donovan, click here.

I also enjoyed Rob Kaiser, who is the writing coach for the San Antonio Express-News.  He did a great lecture on Impressionistic Writing.  Kaiser says that Impressionistic Writing is "not beholden to the timely or the famous but to truths of the world that transcend those things." 

I just loved that.

He talked about how, really, with the right treatment any event or person can become a story and he urged writers to "stick to the sights and sounds of a scene as you saw it," and then with your own sensibility turn it into a story.

Here's my take-away quote from his presentation:  "Electronic media is the mirror on the living-room wall that reflects back at us but print media can be the impressionist painting."  Nice.

Christine Wicker wrote Not in Kansas Anymore and also Lily Dale, The True Story of the Town That Talks to the Dead.  She says she writes about the "nut factor," or what people really want to know about the story.  That you'll find the meat of the story when you figure out what it is that people really want to know.

On the difference between journalism and book writing she says, "If it happened and it's interesting--that's sufficient" for a journalist to write about.  However, for an author, "interesting is not enough.  You have to know what your readers care about."

She also made what I thought was a great point--that one thing the reader always wants to know about is the author of the book.  That sometimes that can be the thing that pulls readers through the pages.  Think about it.  Isn't that true?  If you are reading a novel, aren't you always glancing back to the author photo, reading the bio, wondering how closely the book echoes the author's life?  And if you are reading non-fiction, aren't you wondering how the story was researched and written? 

Finally, I want to talk about Erik Calonius, who wrote The Wandered: The Last American Slave Ship and the Conspiracy that Set Its Sails. He gave such a great talk on the process of writing his book, how he discovered the story, how he researched it, and how he shaped the narrative.  And even though it was Sunday morning and I could barely see, I hung on every word.

Does Courage Equal Good Writing?

One of the participants in last Friday's Mayborn book manuscript workshop, Carol Harper, asked me a question via e-mail today. 

Does courage equal good writing?

I love this question because nobody's ever asked it of me before, and in all the years I've been pondering writing and talking about writing, I've never heard it discussed.

Carol raised the question, I believe, because in our workshop we discussed several memoirs which covered intimate, personal matters.  There was quite a bit of talk about the courageousness of the participants.

Perhaps such talk, and the word courage, is cheap.  It's like I often point out to new writers--they need to get away from the generalities and into the specifics.  Courage, to be sure, is a generality.   It's also the word Dan Rather used to sign off his newscasts with until everyone reacted with such hilarity and mirth that he had to quit.

Maybe that right there tells us something about how we view courage.  But back to the original question.  Does courage equal good writing?  Another reason Carol might have asked me that question is that in talking to an agent about the memoir form, he said something along the lines of what is important to the writer is not necessarily of interest to the reader.

So, what takes enormous courage for the writer to put down on paper does not automatically become good writing. 

Here's what I believe (you knew it was coming eventually):

I believe that every time any one of us sits down to put words on paper, it is an act of courage.  If we are sitting down to write about painful personal memories or events, it takes even more bravery.  It is hard, damn hard, to put yourself on the page for the world to see--and judge, because you know they will--over and over again.

Writing in and of itself is an act of courage. 

But once we've mustered the strength and valor to face the blank screen or the empty page, there's another act of courage required, and that is the courage to learn how to best present the information so that it is of interest to the reader.  That's a different kind of courage, the courage to learn and change and transform what doesn't work on the page into what does. 

Transforming what doesn't work to what does is the life work of some of us, maybe all of us.  I like to think that practicing on paper makes it easier.

Bottom line?  No, courage does not equal good writing per se.  But courage is a necessary precursor to all good writing.  So in a way, courage does equal good writing.

And maybe the word courage isn't so cheap after all.

At the Mayborn: Workshopping

It wasn't all about Nan Talese and Oprah at the Mayborn last weekend, far from it.   While the lectures and panels and discussions and networking comprise the meat of the conference, the side dishes are the workshops.

Conducted all day Friday, they follow the standard workshopping procedure of every MFA program in the country.  (Actually, I'm making a huge assumption there.  The Mayborn follows the workshopping procedure used at the Spalding MFA program, which writer-in-residence George Getschow and I both attended.)

The workshops are designed to be supportive and nurturing, but that doesn't always happen.  I've been in many a workshop where personal feelings take precedence over exalting the work.  However, I have to say that this particular Mayborn workshop was one of the best ever--and it wasn't because of me. 

It was because of my awesome group:  Michele Myers, Anita Tipping-Wheeler, Dawn Youngblood, Marilyn Brand, Anna Louise Bruner, Lane Devereux, Carol Harper, Donna Johnson, and our wonderful token male, Stephen Eric Levine.

This was a group that brought such deep respect for the work and the process to the table that we bonded quickly and were able to get right into nurturing, supportive, and constructive critiquing.  Bear in mind that several participants had written courageously intimate memoirs.  In one case, the piece was gut-wrenchingly personal, and this was the first time the author had ever submitted anything for others to read.  The bravery that takes simply awes me.

What usually happens in workshops is that several themes emerge, and this one was no different.  Thought it might be helpful to take a look at those.

• Start Far In
• Over and over the group pointed out how a work could be improved by starting farther into the story, or starting with a gripping scene to pull the reader in and then filling in with back story.  Remember, you don't have to explain everything or write chronologically.  Hook the reader, and then tell us the details we need to know.
• Know The Purpose of the Book
• Why are you writing this manuscript?  What story does it tell?  Why does this story need to be told?  Why are you the one to tell it?  Answering these questions can help you to designate the theme of the book, and that in turn can help you with structure.
• Complex Characters
• Over and over again in the May born pieces I marveled at the complex characters that people had constructed.  The writers showed the characters with all their foibles, without judging them.  The writers were not afraid to deal with paradox in their characters.  For instance, a charismatic faith healer who had multiple families--yet was a stalwart advocate of Civil Rights as he wandered the south.  Or a troubled adopted daughter who was rescued by a stable family--and ended up rescuing the mother of that stabled family in return. 
• Dialogue and Memory
• We talked a lot about how to write dialogue when recreating scenes in non-fiction.  How does the non-fiction writer use dialogue when he or she may not be able to remember what was said years earlier?  Not sure we ever came to a consensus about it, but the gist was that some lines are so memorable you always remember them, and beyond that, creating dialogue to go with the feel of the scene is okay.

So, I'd like to thank my group again for being so wonderful.  And congratulations to our very own Donna Johnson, whose manuscript, "Holy Ghost Girl," won the grand prize of the contest!

Oprah/Mayborn Controversy Video

The infamous Nan Talese comments about Oprah are now available for your viewing pleasure here. 

She didn't even talk for that long, but I guess people don't usually diss Oprah, hence the whole world is now weighing in, once again, on the brouhaha.

Here's my own personal opinion (I know you were waiting for it).    I think that Nan Talese was grandstanding a bit, and that her comments sounded defensive.  If Oprah's people did indeed treat Nan Talese as she said they did, and I have no reason to believe they didn't, then their own actions were reprehensible.

However, let us not forget that all of this brouhaha is based on bad behavior to begin with, okay?  As a writer, I believe in truth, through and through.  How can you not?  That is the absolute bedrock core of what we do as writers--tell the truth, and that goes for writing both fiction and non-fiction.

It is important to remember that truth for each of us is different.  If 12 writers wrote an account of the same event, every account would be completely different because each of them would see a different truth.  But that is not the same as presenting material as truth when it is not.

I have heard--and again, I don't know for sure that this is true--that James Frey originally tried to sell his book as a novel, but the publishers (and by extension, Nan Talese) told him they wanted to put it out as a memoir because it would sell more books. 

That's bad behavior, folks.  Sorry, but it is.  And thus, she has just a wee bit to be defensive about.   

What amazes me is how and why we're still talking about it, a year and a half later.  There's something about this story that strikes to the core of our beliefs about honesty and disingenuous and betrayal. 

By the way, you'll notice once again that I'm not linking James Frey to Amazon in this post.  I have no interest in helping him sell more books.

Mayborn, Round I Don't Know What (And Don't Forget Oprah)

Nan Talese is the best thing that ever happened to the Mayborn Conference.  The publicity about her remarks dissing Oprah is all over the place, most notably at the Time magazine website.  Head on over there and check it out.  You can easily find it because last time I checked, it was the number one most emailed story.  Apparently the Oprah and James Frey story has legs.

Okay, now that you are caught up on all the good gossip I can tell you about the conference.  I'm going to do somewhat of an overview today, and then post on individual lectures and events over the next few days.

I think I already mentioned that the conference is held at the Grapevine Hilton in Grapevine, Texas, just a little bit away from DFW airport.  It began for a few select attendees on Friday.  These attendees were select because they submitted their manuscripts to be workshopped and got in.  There were five essay workshops and two book manuscript workshops, of ten participants each.

I had the pleasure and honor of leading one of the book manuscript workshops.  We had such a great group.  We rocked.  We honored and supported and held the energy through some pretty intimate readings and discussions.  I love my group.  It was such a powerful experience that I'm going to devote a whole post to it.

Friday night was the Texas Barbecue night, though they had some fancy name for it that I can't remember.  Let me tell you, those Texas boys can make a fine barbecue.  Good stuff.  That night, the delightful Mary Roach, author of Stiff, and Spook, spoke.   I loved hearing her story about how her very first piece was published in the crappy shopper section of some random newspaper.  I always think fabulously successful writers like her are sprung into the world fully formed, so it was nice to hear about the humble beginnings of her writing career.

All day Saturday and half the day Sunday, were the panels and lectures.  George packs them in.  I mean, sometimes there is barely ten minutes for a bathroom break.  But I like that--lots of bang for the buck.

One of the highlights of Saturday for me was a VIP reception for Joyce Carol Oates and other bigwigs.  They poured wine and beer liberally, of course. 

Ahem.  Not a good idea to send me to an event where they pour wine liberally.  I chatted with the managing editor of the Fort Worth paper, is it the Star Telegram?  We talked about why it is that most newspapers cannot regularly handle writing narrative journalism.  Not only is it an issue of having writers who can write literary non-fiction, it also takes a certain kind of editor.

Since I live in Portland, I'm lucky, as the Oregonian is one of the few newspapers with a huge commitment to the form. 

It's really interesting to me to attend a conference full of journalists.  I'm usually off in cyberspace, the blogosphere, or writing fiction.  I love hanging out with newspaper types, as I find it very grounding.  It is so established and historic and traditional.  That said, the most wonderful person I met at the reception was a novelist.  Her name is Jane Roberts Wood, and I think once again its one of those "I came late to the party" type things.  Oh lord, we had fun talking and I'm pretty sure it wasn't because we were both happily drinking red wine.  I'm ordering her books from Amazon today, and if they are even half as wonderful as she is, I'm going to be desperately in love with them.  Jane rocks, that's all there is to it.   Here's a photo of her:

I wandered up to the dinner, sloshing wine merrily all the way and sat with Stephen Eric Levine, who is, get this, a storm chaser.  He was the only male in my workshop and he's got a good manuscript going about birthing your dream.  He has a tour company which takes people off in search of tornados and the like.  I am terrified of tornados beyond all reason but I still think its really cool.

And, well, the rest of the night there was a wee bit more drinking.  Certain people plied poor innocent me with more wine.  Not that I was the only one drinking too much, oh no.  The group from the Mayborn closed down the bar and then we all moved out to the lobby to hang out more.   Those journalists, damn they know how to drink. (Okay, there may have been an attorney involved also, but I'm witholding his name to protect the un-innocent.)

And may I just remind everyone how awful it is to have a hangover?  Especially when you have to get up early the next morning to listen to the lecture of one of the people you were drinking with?  (Though he was smart enough to quit drinking himself and go to bed at a decent hour.) And then when you later have to attempt to navigate two airports through a weather crisis that delayed half the flights in the southwest?  And when you end up having to stay at a hotel in Albuquerque and getting up at 4 AM the next morning?   Ouch is all I can say.  Ouch, ouch, ouch.

But, damn, it was all worth it.  Lest you think it was only worth it for the good time, that is an evil rumor that is simply not true.  I learned so much and most of all I was completely inspired, both by the lecturers and by the wonderful people in my workshop.  And to prove it, I'll be writing more about the meat of it in the days to come.

Mayborn Writers Conference & Oprah controversy

I'm in LA after the Mayborn Writer's Conference and will do a full report on my travels tomorrow.  I'm also planning a mini-series about some of the presentations.  So check back in!

Meanwhile, for a look at some of the controversy that got stirred up (or, as my friend Leigh calls it, the "Oprah smack down,") go to the CNN website.

Round-Up: Mayborn and Awesome New Service

I'm off to the Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction Conference tomorrow.  I wasn't going to link it, because its sold out, but you never know someone might drop out.  The good news is that I've finally learned how to spell the name.  There's no "e" on the end of it, duh.

I'm taking my trusty laptop and I'll have wireless access at the hotel, so I will report on sessions and what Joyce Carol Oates has to say at the keynote session.  At least that's the plan.  I won't be held responsible if those damn literary non-fiction writers shanghai me and force me into the bar and pour margaritas down my throat, when all I really want to do is sit demurely in my hotel room and write. 

Ahem.

In other news, I've found a really cool new site/service/whatever.  It is a blog back-up service.  As many of you are aware, Typepad had a wee problem yesterday when they had a power outage at their data center.  We didn't lose any posts or info, but it has always worried me that something more drastic might happen, erasing our blogs and leaving me SOL, because I never save copies of what I write.

Enter the wonderful folks at BlogBackupOnline.  They back up your entire blog for you and then do daily back-ups to catch new content.  Mine is being backed up even as I write this.  And, best of all, the service is free while it is still in beta.  And if yahoo mail is any indication, things tend to be in beta for very long periods of time.  So check it out.

See you in Dallas!  Or at least I'll be writing to your from Dallas!

Writing: Critiquing Mayborne Manuscripts

I'm in the middle of critiquing book manuscripts for the Mayborn Conference on Literary Non-fiction (it has some long official name that I can never remember) which is in Dallas weekend after this one.

The writer-in-residence and also doer of anything remotely related to the conference, George Getschow, asked me to come up with guidelines for critiquing.  He already had one set of evaluation guidelines for essays in place, so I worked off that and adapted it for book manuscripts. 

Thought it might be interested for everyone to have a look at.  Bear in mind that this is designed specifically for book-length literary non-fiction.  Here you go:

1.  Does the first chapter--the opening of the book--draw you in by teasing your interest, creating a mystery, a puzzle or a question that in some way grabs you and holds your attention?  Does the opening immediately present a conflict?  Or do you get the impression that the author is just warming up?

2.  Does the story deliver sufficient proof to make it credible?  Does the story demonstrate that the writer has done his/her research?  Does it contain telling details, facts, statistics, quotes and other material from a variety of primary and secondary sources to validate the main themes and sub-themes of the story?  Does the manuscript provide historical context?

3.  Does the story have a beginning, middle and end?  Does the manuscript have a clear overall structure?  Are you able to identify a narrative arc for the story?  Does it start in one place and end in another, with logical steps in between?

4.  Is the story presented in scene (showing) or does the writer rely solely on exposition (telling)? Does each scene accomplish a purpose? Does each scene contribute to the whole? Do the scenes, taken together, have a cause and effect flow that adds up to a plot?

5.  Are the people in the story well presented?  Do they come across as multi-dimensional characters or talking heads?  Do they come across as human beings that think, feel, laugh, and cry? Do the characters have an arc?  Do they change and grow over the course of the story?  Is the protagonist clearly identified?

6.  Does the writer use specific, concrete detail and facts that are fresh and relevant, or resort to vague/abstract generalities?

7.  Does the writer employ metaphor, scenes, dialog, and other storytelling devices to make the story more vivid and help it to come alive on the page?

8.  Does the story possess a lyrical quality?  That is, does the story give the impression that the writer has considered the tone of the story, the sound of the language, the rhythm, the rhyme, and the pacing of the prose?

9.  Is there enough material to sustain the story over 300 pages?  Does the story being told warrant a book, or is it better told in an essay?

That's it!  Pretty extensive, huh? 

Now I better go actually read some of the manuscripts.  In truth, I've looked through all 10 submissions to the workshop I'll be leading and I'm very excited.  The work at the Mayborn is generally at a very high level, and this year looks no different.

Ernest Hemingway Lives!

One of the best places on the planet is Sun Valley, Idaho.

I lived there for a few months years ago, and my daughter recently spent a winter there.

More importantly, Ernest Hemingway lived there off and on and it is the place he chose to die. To commemorate Hemingway and honor his time in the Wood River Valley, there is an annual Hemingway Festival. I've never been, but it looks awesome.

This year's theme is Hemingway in Paris, for all you Francophiles out there. The event features many scholars who have written books about Hem's time in Paree. There are also readings, a screening of A Moveable Feast, and get this--a special dinner at Hemingway's home. That would be Hemingway's. Home. That alone makes it worthwhile.

Last time I was in Sun Valley, I visited a couple of places related to Hemingway. You can visit his grave at the city cemetery. Its i next to his last wife, Mary's grave, a simple slab beneath two tall shady trees. Easy to find without directions. The day I was there, it was covered with pennies and a solitary rose. I tossed pennies for publishing luck for me and my other writer friends.

This is a photo of his burial that Roy Burkhead sent me.

The other spot is the Hemingway Memorial. It is located off Trail Creek Road past the resort a little ways, again, not hard to find. And it is simply one of the most beautiful spots in the world. It features a bust of Hem above a sparkling stream and says the following:

Best of all he loved the fall
the leaves yellow on cottonwoods
leaves floating on trout streams
and above the hills
the high blue windless skies
...now he will be part of them forever

Oh, this makes me want to be there. Hemingway wrote this himself as a eulogy for a friend killed in a hunting accident.

For a nice description of all the Hemingway sites in Sun Valley and some literary and historical background, go here.

Photo of Bald Mountain by Greg L. Wright, published here under Creative Commons 2.5 license, via (where else?) Wikipedia.

Mayborn Contest Deadline Extended

My friend George, writer-in-residence at the Mayborne Literary Nonfiction Conference of the Southwest, has let me know that the deadline for the book manuscript portion of the contest has been extended for a week.  Manuscripts will now be accepted until 4 PM (central time) on June 22, next Friday. 

Its a good contest, with a book contract as the prize!  C'mon, you can't beat that.  George urges anyone working on a non-fiction book manuscript to enter the contest.

Read more about it here.

Mayborn Writers Conference

Just got back in touch with my friend George Getschow after a few months of us both being so buried in work that we've not been in contact.  That's a bad thing--I miss him. 

He's buried in work because he is the organizer of one of the best writing conferences in the country--the Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction Writers Conference of the Southwest.  That's a mouthful and I can never remember the full name, but its an amazing conference.  You can read all about it here.

Joyce Carol Oates is the keynote speaker, along with an amazing roster of luminaries.  George has a knack for getting big names, because the conference has such a great reputation.  Last year he had Gay Talese and the first year Susan Orlean as keynoters.

I'll be leading the book manuscript workshop this year as I did last year, working with 10 amazing writers to critique their manuscripts.  The conference is giving away $12,000 in contracts--yes, real book contracts--this year, so its really worth entering the contest.  I was impressed with the caliber of work last year, much of it coming from seasoned professionals. 

George teaches journalism at the University of North Texas, and he is the standard bearer for literary non-fiction, a passionate advocate of the craft.  Every year around the time of the Mayborn conference, he also teaches a three-week conference in Archer City.

Archer City is the birthplace and occasional stomping ground of author Larry McMurtry, author of Lonesome Dove, and The Last Picture Show which is actually set in Archer City.  McMurtry owns bookstores there. I've traveled to the town the last two summers to talk to George's students about using fictional techniques in non-fiction.  The place is amazing, a true western icon. 

I wrote a story about my experiences the first year that was published here.   You have to go to the archives, then click on November 2005, then click on Texas.

Anyway, check out the conference and if you have any interest in literary non-fiction, consider going.