Thursday Night Writes

After I finished my last blog posting, I felt unsettled.  I was okay with the piece at the time, but there were some doubts banging around in the back of my mind.  After sleeping on it, I looked again and saw several things that I would have liked to change, but it was already out there in the ether, so it let it go saying “it is what it is”.  It got me to thinking about both self-criticism and the comments made by my Thursday night writing group, family members and friends.  I wouldn’t say that I enjoy receiving criticism, even in the best sense of the word, after all I’m not a masochist or glutton for punishment, but I do see its importance because I want people to enjoy and value what I write.  I understand that critical reaction from others can be a valuable gauge of the quality of my writing.

Our Thursday night group has waded right into the minefield of critiques pretty much weekly over the years.  John, our leader and the most diplomatic person I know, sets the tone with observations based on his many years as an editor.  No matter how constructively offered, in many instances the response to a suggestion for removing or altering, say, a character, storyline, scene or even a snippet of description, is a protest that the writer really likes it the way it is.  John refers to elements that are favored only by the writer and that they can’t bear to surrender as their “darlings”.

All of us have “darlings” in our lives that we will defend.  People involved in romance, parenting and, apparently, writing have this in common: it’s not natural for them like it when their “darlings” are criticized.  Most of us have the good sense not to make uncomplimentary remarks about another’s love interest to their face.  Many of us are tempted to make a remark about the five-year-old running around the tables in a quiet restaurant but don’t want to tangle with the mother who becomes a cat with her tail on fire if anything negative is said about her little “darling”.  But people in writing groups seem to have very few reservations to point out flaws in the submissions of others.  Defensive reactions are understandable when someone or something that generates love within your bosom is under attack, but let’s look at what is really at stake.

Lovers and progenitors both have an organically occurring loyalty that will cause them to defend attacked sweethearts and offspring to the death.  If, in addition, if they consider their own self-preservation, they will irrationally defend the indefensible, mindful that their enamored will be alone with them in the middle of the night while they sleep or that their children will, some day, decide their nursing home placement.  Even when it doesn’t make sense, it is understandable to circle the wagons in defense of loved ones against outside aggression and maintain life as you know it.

On the flip side, a writer’s stalwart refusal to change one of their “darlings” ensures only one thing: the writer will be the only one satisfied with the work.  No, the writer will be the only one reading his work.  In that light, it seems that writers who want to be read have to be truly open to honest criticism of their work.  This sounds so easy to see, but I guess that after you have reached deep into your soul and psyche, you form an attachment to the thing to which you have given life.  I might suggest that if you, a writer feel that strongly about your creation, you should create your own little private library for your own edification, but listen and positively respond to the wider world’s reactions.

Hmmmm, I wonder how I’ll react when some megastar Hollywood director wants to make changes to my story when it’s brought to the big screen.

I’ve hardly set pen to paper for ten days. It’s a weird feeling. For over five years, I’ve been writing regularly (not daily—I can’t claim that.) Just now, though, I’ve got a five-week trip to pack for, two home improvement projects under way, an elderly friend who’s ill and considering assisted living, and a sick cat. And poison ivy.

So much for the endless stream of whining complaint. Thank you for listening.

I have to find out how real (sc. published) writers get it all done. I know they have lives. At conferences, I’ve distinctly heard them mention spouses and children. Unlike me, they have to make the rounds of book fairs and do public appearances. They must eat: quite a number of them are plump.

I warn you, the first person to suggest ‘discipline’ as the solution, dies. The house, the spouse, the garden, the shopping, the cooking… getting all those seen to, over and over, feels like boot camp forever.

A schedule? I have one. My brain only writes in the morning. In the afternoon, it stares out from behind my eyes and refuses any but simple, repetitive tasks. So I should carve out several undisturbed morning hours. But the 86-pound black Lab, Nussi, needs at least two, spaced half-hour hikes up and down Cottonstone Mountain, where we live, to keep from ballooning to 100 pounds. I confess to having the same problem myself, marked up by a certain percentage. Did I mention plumpness? The spouse, when at home, requires computer assistance at startlingly irregular intervals. The man to fix the dishwasher will be here at 10. Or so.

It’s more complicated than that, really. Here’s an example. Somehow, back in the mists of time, a custom arose that the spouse has a medium-boiled egg for a mid-morning snack. The spouse literally cannot boil an egg. The writer boils it. And empties the dishwasher while the water heats. And flips the wash while waiting for the dirty dish.

I can hear Gloria Steinem screaming. Tough beans, Gloria. That isn’t just a boiled egg. That’s communion, read the word how you will. That’s ritual. That’s a very happy marriage. Sure, I could say, “Go make yourself some toast.” But would that be a good trade?

Here’s a thought: that five-week trip is about to take me to a little town in the Rockies, Redstone, Colorado, population 92. where we have very few friends. There is no garden. There is a Whole Foods – some distance away, granted – that sells pre-made food. We have a microwave. I need to go on a diet anyway. The spouse, bereft of his New Hampshire wood lot, will need exercise. Dog walking is very healthy.

So, maybe that’s a research project for July. Try out ways to free up time. Decide what is worth less than writing and can be lived without. Practice ways of condensing the simple, repetitive tasks.

So, whaddaya think? Will that work? Even if it doesn’t, I’m going to get some writing done.

REPOSE WITH THE RIGHT BOOK

Usually the only exercise and adventure I want, or desire (notice I did not say need), are definitely to be found in one book or another. You have to read a lot of books to get just what you’re looking for in terms of exercise for the little ‘grey cells’, and when you find an author you like you stick to him like glue. Of course different areas of the brain will cry out at different times to be stimulated. That calls for a variety of genres and authors in order to satisfy the restlessness that ensues when ennui hits. Ennui of the brain is a terrible thing.

For sheer laugh-out-loud humor I enjoyed Tamar Myers for years and years. Then she got ennui and moved on. Writers need to exercise their brain cells too. When the author gets tired of her character, the reader knows it. Tamar’s books were definitely good for exercising the lungs.

For humor mixed with more fantasy than you’d ever hope to find in one lifetime read Jasper Fforde. Heaven forfend that he should ever get bored with Thursday Next! I know I never will. Jasper Fforde lives in Wales and seldom crosses the pond to speak in this hemisphere but, in September, he will be speaking in Vancouver. As my daughter points out, Vancouver is just as far as Wales and if I want to hear him, meet, him, learn from him, wouldn’t it be more fun to do all that over there? Yes, of course it would, but the couch potato thing will kick in and I’ll never go. To either place. But thinking about JFf., on the same side of the ocean, does get the blood flowing. Makes me want to get up and do something. Book a flight?

Faye Kellerman, a new discovery, and Tana French write psychological thrillers, one in L.A. and the other in Britain. I’m not whole-heartedly into that genre but have a great deal of respect for both authors who write exceptionally well and touch, but do not dwell, on the evil imbedded in their stories. That much I can deal with. Other, more heavy-handed thrillers I stay away from. Too much of a thrill, while being in repose, can be more than the heart and mind can take. Makes one get up and pace, or even take a walk. In the winter the quickened heart rate has made me reach for the snow shovel and get out in the (really) fresh air to clear not only the brain but the snow as well. No chance of ennui while reading a thriller.

So many good mystery writers, so little time to read them all. A really good mystery will incorporate a lot of the above specifics, keeping the reader on the tips of her toes from beginning to end. I like Aaron Elkins a lot. He, and his wife and sometimes co-author, Charlotte, travel the globe to seek out new destinations for his trusty sleuths, saving me the time and effort of doing so. Though, I admit, occasionally he prompts wander-lust in my lazy soul. One of his last stories took place in Iceland, a place where I actually have been (note my avatar), and made me want to re-visit.

Being a bookish couch potato is a lot more involved than a casual observer might think. A lot goes on in that prone body while, seemingly, only the eyes are darting back and forth. There’s a lot of potential in repose with the right book.

Are family demons a gift to fiction writers? In the first draft of my post today, I wrote about my mother. In so many ways she was a wonderful woman, but—but I’m pulling back. Though she is still an enigma to me, it is my grandmother, from whom I have more distance, who is the greater mystery.

My grandmother was crazy. She was an alcoholic, physically and verbally abusive to her daughters, and suffocatingly jealous. Yet to all outside appearances, she was perfect. Her Depression-era house, with its perimeter of roses, was modest and clean; her daughters’ clothes were hand-sewn with excruciating attention to detail; their grades were excellent.

Unnamed while she lived was that trifecta of shame: mental illness, alcoholism, violence in the home. If my grandmother had wanted help—and I don’t believe she ever acknowledged she had a problem—she could not have gotten it. The devil on her back was unmentionable. And besides, no one—no one outside the home—ever saw that demon.

My mother told some of the stories of her childhood, and my grandmother’s sister a few more that predated my grandparents’ marriage. But with the death now of my grandmother’s siblings, how she because who she was is a lost story—and besides no one wanted to talk about it. When I recall her now, I see a tall, strong woman with medusa-like hair, crazy-intense eyes, and skin discolored from cigarettes and liquor. The fiery anger of her younger years had quelled by the time my mother had moved back home, though I witnessed a few incoherent drunken rages.

I can talk about my grandmother more easily than my mother (the part I’ve cut from the earlier draft) because I didn’t have that much of a role in my grandmother’s drama. Unlike my mother, I don’t have to examine the things I did to survive in such a soul-crushing environment.

I admire those writers who can peel back their respectable outer shells and expose the demons inside. It takes courage, even when those demons are expressed through fiction. I once wrote a novella about an unlikely friendship between two girls who shared a horrific experience—except that I dialed back on the evilness. I couldn’t bring myself to name it. Instead, the girls shared a bad experience, but not one so bad that they couldn’t talk about it. I justified my cowardliness with the excuse that a truly terrible experience would be the story, rather than the story I wanted to tell about evolving relationships and attitudes.

The manuscript is shelved. I still have affection for the characters and I would never want to hurt them. It was a nice story, if boring. You wouldn’t want to read it.