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Leigh took this in early October on a stone patio we built over the last two years. It's at the edge of a steep bank that leads down to a creek that's both relaxing and an inspiration. The Smith Corona is the typewriter on which I started The Perfect Song. I finished it on the Dell Inspiron. Note: I'm changing the format a little. Instead of numbered chapters, I've given them titles so you can more easily skim to the one you want. The newest entry will now always be the first entry.
On Catching Up and Fine Tuning I’ve been running behind lately, on everything. The summer was a disaster in many ways and a wonderful learning experience in other ways. Driving Leigh’s parents home to San Diego in two cars gave me a lot of time to reflect on life, goals and the meaning of the moment. And now that we’re back and I’m nearly caught up at work, I have time to spend on my site. I’ve gotten behind on this page because, when it comes down to it, I’m not sure how much I know about writing. I know I can’t live without writing. And I guess I’ve always thought that that’s all I really need to know. I just made an entry into the Muse section and I was reminded that no first draft is ever good enough. Read it again, especially if you’re new to writing or thinking about it. No first draft is ever good enough. The entry I made contained the sentence “. . .and I knew many of the women – including Mary Smythe, my high school English teacher.” I went back and changed it to . . . “and I knew many of the women – including a woman I did not expect to see -- Mary Smythe, my high school English teacher.” It’s a minor change but it adds a moment of suspense. It pushed you on to see who the woman is I didn’t expect to see. In another section I wrote “The woman who caught me.” I changed it to “The woman who nailed me.” Nailed has a lot more impact. I also wrote “We’d praying and singing hymns.” By going back to it a third time I saw that I left out “been.” “We’d been praying and singing hymns.” Toward the end I wrote “A woman who knew her said she’s still beautiful.” I changed to and quoted her: “’She’s still beautiful,’” one woman told me. I don’t need to say she knows her. It’s inherent in her statement. Part of writing is the creativity. Part of writing is common sense. Part of good writing is a lot of fine tuning.
The Dreaded White I opened my On Writing file today to see what I would be uploading next and was faced with what every writer has faced at one time or another. A blank screen. Years ago it was a blank sheet of typing paper, which was even worse because you had to actually feed the sheet of paper into the typewriter. You were an active participant in the white space. But now the blank screen is simply waiting for you. There are no judgments on its part, nothing accusatory, certainly nothing to cause joy or sadness. Nothing really to stimulate fear. It’s just a blank screen. I sat for about two minutes in the 80 degree air that’s heavy with humidity, feeling the faint coolness of the ceiling fan, staring past my little sculpture made of horseshoes depicting a gold prospector and his mule, and out to the bank dotted with white and yellow wild daisies. I thought for a moment of the book I just finished, Deepak Choprah’s The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire and about the lessons within it. I borrowed it from Sherri, a friend who shares the same interests and I want to produce an audio recording of the meditations as a way of thanking her. But I can’t do that until Leigh’s parents are feeling better. Her step-father is having breathing problems in the humid weather. Her mother fell and hurt her tailbone. So they are rather permanently parked in the living room below me where we installed a window air conditioner to make them comfortable. The TV is set at a volume drowns out every other sound that ever existed. So I have to wait to record the meditations. Don’t be terrorized by a blank screen. Don’t let writer’s block paralyze you. There is always something to write about.
*(Note: I originally wrote: “Don’t be paralyzed by a blank screen. Don’t let writer’s block stop you.” I much prefer the revision above, don’t you?)
Prior To Before I was in Tag’s, a restaurant bar in Big Flats, NY. The place has a warm atmosphere and good food. It’s decorated with posters and autographed photos of bands and singers who have performed there over the years. Displayed in glass cases are autographed guitars of bands like The Blue Oyster Cult. The menu selections are named after bands. The menu titles and descriptions are short, lively and to the point (yes, someone has to write menus, too). I took a break to hit the men’s room. (Where did that phrase come from? “Hit the men’s room?” Women never say “I need to hit the ladies’ room?” Women visit the ladies’ room; men hit it. We may in time have equality of the sexes, but the way the two sexes see life, approach life and act in life, will never meet.) Anyway, I took a leak. (Do women ever take a leak? I’ve never heard a woman say she has to take a leak. And if you’re a male who takes a leak, how do you take it? Leaking is an action. It’s flowing away from you, leaving you. If you do take a leak, where do you put it? Hmm. . . .) * I circumvent my point. While I washed my hands, I read a sign posted on the wall that says, “All employees must wash their hands prior to leaving the restroom. I deal with this all the time as PR director at Mansfield University, and so does every other writer and editor in the world. How many times in your life has someone in conversation said, “You need to do this prior to leaving for the day? You have to sign this form prior to sending it in. You have to fill your gas tank prior to leaving on your trip.” How many times have you said, “I have to add this prior to ending our discussion?” My guess is this: 0. “Prior to” left conversations between humans somewhere in the early 20 th century. So why do we persist in writing messages that say “prior to” when you can say “before”? It gets back to my earlier point that when we sit down to write anything – even a bathroom “wash-your-hands sign”—we get all uptight and formal. I’m willing to bet the person who wrote the sign doesn’t have a PhD, maybe not even a college education. So what compels him or her to say “prior to leaving bathroom”? How formal! How stiff! How pretentious! I’ll wash my hands before I leave the rest room, not prior to. Don’t write in late 19 th century formal talk that you think you learned somewhere. Listen to the way people talk, including yourself. And then . . .write like you talk.
*I walk out of the men’s room holding a little bottle. I find our table, sit down and hold up the container. “Look honey, I just took a leak.” “That’s gross,” my wife says, studying the appetizers in the menu. “What do you think?” “I think men are gross.” “Well, aside from that.” She shrugs. “What are you going to do with it?” “Hmm. I don’t know. I didn’t think about that. I just wanted to take a leak.” “Did you pay for it?” “No. Why would I? It was mine to begin with.” “If it was yours how could you take it?” Hmm. Good point. Women are so practical. “I should take it back? She nods. “And wash your hands.”
A Quick Slash Cuts Deep When you’re writing for publication, and that includes the Web, watch your spelling and punctuation. E-mail has enabled us to speed up our communication. This apparently makes us feel compelled to speed up communication. We don’t take the time now in our correspondence to think, reflect . . . and proofread. As I’ve said before, I even get e-mails from college professors with typos. Typos can make a big difference in how your message is received. First, a letter with a lot of typos makes you look like a sloppy writer. In the cyber world it’s akin to meeting someone important to you and you’re wearing a sports jacket with ketchup stains on it. Your credibility is just plain suspect. Here’s an example of how even one little symbol can totally change the meaning of the message. 911 is the emergency police number. It’s a good thing, something you use when you need help. It’s easy to remember, easy to dial. 911 is good. Let’s add a simple /. That’s it, a /. You get 9/11. 9/11 is one of the most traumatic days in America’s history. Thousands died and tens of thousands were traumatized. 9/11 is a symbol of the previously unthinkable: terrorists attacking America. The video footage of the Twin Towers imploding is razored into the American soul. It’s etched into the minds of everyone in the world with a TV. It is a bad thing. One little slash turns a number representing heroes to a number meaning killers. It’s good to be careful with your writing—sentence construction, paragraphs, dialogue, character development—but the details are important, too. Use your spell check. Leave what you’ve written and come back to it a day or two later and read it again. It’s amazing how many typos appear. (My long time theory is that, like amoebas, they divide and recreate themselves every night. We sleep. They procreate). / “ , . : ; -- = + / > < They’re all important. Measure your slash! Watch your colon! Quote me on that. . . . The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.
Writing Your Story: Part 2 Studs Terkel found a way to get people to tell their stories. He carried around a tape recorder and asked them questions. What did they do? They talked! I found out as a young reporter that if you ask a couple questions and then just listen, people tell their stories. And every story is interesting. Every story puts a new perspective on an era, a time, a region, an event. I wrote hundreds of features on the lives of “everyday” people. “Everyday” is in quotes because there are no everyday people. Each one of us is an individual. We have experienced life in our own unique way. We react to our experiences in our own unique way. We create our reality in our own unique way. Your life is a series of stories. When they are all collected they make the story of your life. Everyone is always telling stories. Today in the video store, the woman who runs it was telling about her husband being ankle deep in wet concrete he was pouring when the man who was supposed to come and get their old dryer called. She didn’t know what she was supposed to tell him, and . . . . You get the picture. If you want to write about your experiences, your thoughts and reflections, keep a daily journal. (See chapter on journal writing). Do it everyday and it will become an integral part of your routine. You’ll look back at it a year from now, or five years, amazed. If you want to write about your past, as Bob did at 10 West, just start. Start anywhere, and within minutes you’ll be writing furiously. Don’t be self-conscious. Don’t try to think “deep” or write lofty thoughts. That will kill you everytime. Just write. If you still have a hard time, try this. Think of your computer as a person, as a friend you are telling the story to. Now the only difference between telling your friend the story and writing it is that it’s coming through your fingers instead of your mouth. That’s the only difference. Give your computer a name. “Hey Frank, did I tell you about the time Bernie Holcomb, the coronor was on his way back from picking up a body from a car accident. He stopped in the bar for a drink. And what I’m going to tell you is true, I swear. I was there. .. .” It can be a boy computer or a girl computer. Just pretend you’re talking as you’re writing: “Sarah, during the Depression we didn’t have indoor plumbing. We had a three-holer outhouse down in the yard. Sitting on that thing in the dead of winter was like parking yourself on a block of ice. In the summer there were hornets. We pulled water out of the well in the yard. That’s right. We didn’t have water in the house. Somehow we appreciated it more. . . .” Get the idea? Try it! Log off right now and give it a try while these words are still fresh. Let me know how you make out. I love success stories. Why do writers write? Because it isn't there. Writing Your Story: Part I After a reading at 10 West Café in Mansfield, PA, I sat at a table talking with different folks. Bob, a man in his 70s, sat across from me. He’d read The Perfect Song and had e-mailed me a couple times. He’s interested in writing. He wants to record his life in the Depression and World War II and other important aspects of his life. “I can sit here and tell you stories and experiences but when I sit down at the computer I can’t think of what to say or how to say it,” he told me. I nodded. It happens to a lot of people. “Just write like you talk,” I said. “I know. Other people have told me that, but it’s easier said than done.” So for any of you who have the same experience, this may be the most important entry I write. Read this carefully, then read it again and again. As I sit here writing, I’m composing thoughts in my mind, just as I’m doing when I’m talking with you. I’m listening and thinking about my response. We do it all the time. Writing is no different. Read this again and again. We have set up writing as this lofty process that you have to struggle with, push against, and writhe in mental agony. Finally you either experience victory by writing or defeat in the face of the blank page. This stereotype has been drilled into us in grade school, middle school, high school. It’s been like this for decades. I’ve read hundreds of accounts (and writers are guilty of this) of people saying they sit down with a pencil and blank piece of paper and feel frightened. “There’s this big void.. .the paper is blank and I have to fill it. . . “ They sit in front of their computer and say “My God, the screen is white and I have to fill it. . . “ We’ve set the arts up as if they were something only God or the Divinely Inspired can execute. Green baloney! Do you think the folks who sat in caves stared at the cave walls before they drew picture stories and said, “Oh, this cave wall is so big and blank and I have to fill it with this story of our hunt and I just don’t know how to start. . .”? Just pretend you’re telling a story. In Bob’s case, it’s his experiences in the Depression and World War II and other parts of his life. Just start it, Bob. Tell me a story from the Depression. Then tell me another. Just like you were talking to me. Computers are wonderful things. They store the information and you can go back and look at it and change a word, a sentence, a thought, the format. As I said, Bob is in his 70s and I laud him for knowing how to use a word processor. In the case of people with a lot of life experience, it’s incredibly important for them to write down their stories to pass them on to the next generations. Every individual story is very important. Every individual story adds a new twist, a new dimension, a new view to the overall story of that generation and its times. Truly, I want to reach out and shake that person and gently prod: please write your story. I don’t care if it’s a Pulitzer Prize winning story. Your children and people like me will cherish it! More next time. The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other comes from a strong won't.
Rewriting: It’s All About Play I realized, writing this column, that I constantly tinker with words and sentences but rarely think about it. You need to approach writing playfully, as I’ve said before. But you need to step back and look at the results of your play. In the pages on Books, I’ve been working on a passage about Mark Twain. I describe the Mark Twain study that I was involved with and I wrote this sentence. He wrote the most important works in the English language in this small building. After coming back to it, I decided I wanted to emphasize the study. So I rearranged it to this: In this cozy, octagonal building, he wrote one of the most important works in the English language. Both sentences work, but the latter puts the building up front and leads to the action (he wrote) and the result of that action (one of the most important works. . .). Of course, adding “cozy” creates a warm feeling. “Octagonal” emphasizes the unique architecture. I don’t look at anything I write as carved in stone. I even go back to pages that are uploaded and change things. I don’t ever approach writing as work. I may labor over something I’m writing but it’s a labor of love, whether I’m getting paid for it or not. If at any point I can’t think of where I want to go, or if I’m not getting the concept I know I want, or the feeling I want, I stop. I go do something else and come back later. I do this even if I’m under a deadline. I go outside, walk, pace, read, anything to let the conscious part of the brain shift gears. The unconscious is working on the problem without the interruption of the pesky consciousness. Take words. Create sentences. Build them into paragraphs. Approach it playfully.
You Want To Be A Writer? A lot of people want to be writers. I already knew that but it’s being reconfirmed everyday as I promote my book. One colleague e-mailed me and said, “You’ve done what a lot of us have dreamed of doing but haven’t.” A female friend said, “I have so many stories to tell. I just don’t sit down and write them.” And another: “It just seems so huge, so daunting, that I never get around to it.” I am not going to profess to show anyone how to be a writer. I don’t have profound secrets or nifty advice, except this: We’re all storytellers. The human being is a story telling machine. It’s the way we communicate. Something happens to us and we have to tell someone else about it. We go into the details that make the happening so unique. Usually there’s some kind of climax. Sometimes there’s a twist. Sometimes it’s funny and other times it’s very serious. The difference between a storyteller and a writer is . . .writing. I’ve written since I was in grade school. I just knew I wanted to write. I wrote all through high school. While attending college I was lucky enough to get a job as a reporter at a daily paper. It taught me more about writing than all my college classes. You observe. You distill. You write the facts in a quick, clean way because you have a deadline. Thousands of readers are trusting you to be honest and factual, bringing them accurate news. If I wrote a feature, I quickly learned to observe everything around me – the weather, the room I was in, the clothes people wore, their habits, attitudes, what they said and the way they said it. The main thing is to write. Each week I’ll add thoughts, experiences, opinions, some tips, and other things related to the writing world.
Avoid Mental Constipation Someone asked me if writing was hard. I shook my head. What’s hard for me is not to write. If I have to go a couple days without writing I get upset, antsy in my gut, like I’m not living fully. Even if I write about my day, it makes me feel better. And if only one person is reading this, I feel like I’ve written for a purpose. As for the journals that I kept for close to 20 years, maybe they will never be read. But it was great therapy writing them. It also gave me a new perspective on the events, experiences and feelings I was writing about. Part of writing is forcing yourself to relax and let it come to you. Most of The Perfect Song was a gift. It came from I don’t know where. I just sat and let it flow. Sure, I wrote it in my style, and a lot of the scenes or thoughts come from my experience, but there was some other consciousness working, flowing through my mind – sometimes easy, sometimes rushing -- like a cosmic stream. I never worry about stopping in the middle of a thought or even a sentence because I know when I go back, I can pick it up right there and continue. If you get tense about writing when you sit down, it’s not going to come to you. Get uptight and mental constipation sets in. I never try to get it right with the first draft. I just write. Let the cosmic stream flow. Once you have it down, you can go back and play with thoughts, sentences, dialogue, words. Writing should be joyful, full of feeling. You should do it with your full attention. It’s the same with any art. If a singer is singing halfheartedly, you know. But if a singer is doing a well-written song with all his or her soul, it sends chills up your spine. Giving it your full attention as you're writing is the hardest part of writing. Distractions take on a life of their own, multiply and scream at you: "Look at me! Play with me! Think about me!" And if the writing isn't coming easy, distractions are very tempting. Yes, I'd love to look at you or play with you. . . .. When you write, you have to enter an almost Zen-like state of focus. Be strong. Ignore the distractions and they weaken, shrink and go away. I've always admired the person who wants to do the best job he or she possibly can. Even if he's a janitor and is committed to keeping his area as clean as it can possibly be. Or the gardener who wants to create a work of art around the buildings where he works. Or the quilt maker who wants to create the most beautiful quilt ever. It takes a total commitment of thought and action. (And yes, I think that's how Mendel came into the picture -- the man who wanted to create the perfect song and committed his life to it). Writing takes the same commitment. “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” Mark Twain And then I wrote. . . . Here’s some background on my writing. I share this humbly, but I feel like if I’m going to put myself in a position of giving any kind of advice or offering opinions, I need to give you a little of my past. I’ve been writing professionally for 37 years. I started as a reporter at age 18. I worked as a reporter for five years and had several stories make the AP wire. One satirical piece was used in the Saturday Review, a respected news magazine at the time. I’ve had poetry and short stories published. Didn’t make much money, but they were published. I’ve had articles published in scholarly magazines on the work of Anais Nin. I’ve had articles on various vintage paperback authors published in journals with international circulation. (More some day on my work on unveiling the mystery of action/western writer William Ard). I’m the PR director at Mansfield University (www.mansfield.edu) and have won nearly 30 awards in national competition in the areas of feature writing, promotion, PR and publications. I’ve even done some technical writing. And of course I’ve written countless scripts for radio and TV ads, as well as produced the radio spots and directed the TV ads. I write, produce and host a weekly radio show. And I do publications, broadcast and print ads for various freelance jobs. For about 15 years I kept a daily journal, a whole different kind of writing. So when someone asks if writing is hard, my answer, as I said before, is that for me it’s hard not to write. What is hard for me is waiting. Years ago I just ran out of patience with the traditional publishing system. Send the ms in. Wait three months, get an impersonal rejection. Send it out again. Wait . . . . The fact is, as with anything else, it helps to have contacts. And since 98% of us don’t, you slog through the slow dance of send it out, wait, get rejected. . . . I like the idea that I published the book myself. It’s in print. That means a lot. If it doesn’t sell, then I can blame no one but myself. One of the sites I keep going back to is www.bookmouth.com Lot of well-written tips for marketing and promoting your project. Check it out. A person who publishes a book appears willfully in the public eye with his pants down.
From Nurture to Product This is going to be a free-flowing journal. No chronological stuff. I write this from the dual perspective of everyone in life – as a person of experience and as a babe taking shaky first steps. Writing? I’ve done a lot, sometimes 10 hours a day for nearly 40 years. I’m pretty comfortable with all aspects of writing. As far as marketing and promoting on the Net, learning Dreamweaver, discovering other pages and blogs on writing, I’m an infant, slobbering at the mouth, trying to learn language, laughing with the joy and screaming with the frustration of learning, wanting to dance in this vast new world while trying walk three awkward steps without falling down in a chubby little awkward heap. I spent two and a half decades bringing The Perfect Song to life. And now I must treat it as a product. I naively call our local Barnes and Noble, explaining that I’m a local author and I’d like to set up a book signing. The woman at the other end says she doesn’t know anything about book signings. I need to call tomorrow and ask for Kim. The next day I call and ask for Kim. Kim says she doesn’t know anything about me calling before. No one gave her the message. “I don’t usually—oh, here’s the note. Hm. Well, I don’t know. You have to talk with the manager.” “What’s the manager’s name?” “Her name is Kim, too. There are three Kim’s here.” “What’s her last name?” “I’m sorry but we’re not allowed to give out last names of our employees.” I give up and drive to the store a few days later. “I’m looking for Kim the manager,” I say at the front desk. The girl calls Kim’s office. “She says to meet her at the service desk.” I go back to the booth where a young, bald man with glasses is holding down t he fort. “Hi!” He greets me. “How’s Lane?” Lane is my daughter who used to work there before she moved to Maine, then Colorado, then Alaska. If she gets any further away, we’ll have to visit her by galactic beaming. I update him on her travels. “Didn’t you just write a book? I saw the article in the paper.” “Yes. I spent a lot of years on it and now it’s published and I’d like to get some copies on the shelves.” Just then Kim the manager appears. I show her a copy of the book. They look it up on their data base. “Okay. It’s a non-returnable so I don’t want to order a lot of copies, maybe two or three to begin, and then if they sell, we can order more.” “Tell people they can order the book here,” Kevin says. “A lot of people ask for a book and if we don’t have it, they leave. They don’t know they can order it.” “Sorry we can’t stock more right away,” Kim says, but we like to get a feel for if it’s going to sell.” “That’s fine,” I say, just happy to be having a dialogue. “I’m making posters. Can you use one?” Kim shakes her head. “Space is at a premium. One author made up little tent cards and I can put that on the desk here for a couple of weeks.” I nod, thinking I’ll take whatever I can get. I thank them and Kim leaves. Kevin continues talking. “Yeah, some authors think we should get 50 copies and have a whole shelf of their books, but it really works better the other way, with just two or three. We sell out, we order more. If you have a lot of copies and they don’t sell, they wind up on the remainder table and nothing looks worse for an author.” “I couldn’t agree more,” I say. I thank him and keep my fingers crossed. Later in the week I learn that at least two people have gone to Barnes & Noble to buy TPS. They didn’t have copies but could order them, they were told. I hope Kim the manager and Kevin get the book in soon. Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted. 1 Book At A Time
I go to the Mall and enter Waldenbooks. I find Wendy, the manager. I’ve known her for 20 years. In the 80s I used to collect the cardboard four color illustrations on top of book dumps, the little display units that held a collection of the newest best sellers. The folks there thought I was a little crazy but they were happy to get rid of them. I have an attic full of the four-color cardboard illustrations and hate to get rid of them because they’re interesting literary trivia pieces. I tell Wendy I have a novel, and pull it out, give her my speech that I’m getting pretty good at. She looks it up on her computer. “Hm. It’s showing just one copy available and it’s on back order.” I don’t know if that’s good or bad and don’t dare ask. “I’ll order it and see if we can get more.” We talk a couple minutes. “Would you like a copy?” I ask. “Sure!” “Would you like me to sign it?” I’m finding most people want it signed and for most, it’s really exciting to have the author sign it to them. “Oh, yes! I love signed copies of books.” I sign it and thank her for her help. Off to Ruby Tuesday’s to have lunch with Don, a radio station sales rep. His wife, Cheryl, is the Mall marketing director. We talk business, then she talks about her son and his passion for music. “He never showed interest in anything until last year when he asked for a guitar for his birthday! We bought him one and he’s just obsessed! He practices five hours a night!” We talk about him a few minutes. Then I make my pitch (which I do with less and less shame as the days go by. “Speaking of music, I just published novel which is about music, marketing, image and the power of the art.” “Really,” Cheryl says. The three of us talk about it. I give them a plot summary. “Where do we buy a copy?” “I have a few copies in my car.” (I can feel an inner cringe when I say this. Oh yeah! And I’ve got some great Rolodex watches and some used computers specially priced today only!) Don buys two, one for himself and Cheryl and one for their music-loving son. I ask everyone I sell or give a book to give me feedback and spread the word to others. The Gospel According To Damon: read this book. Buy it first.
Ernest Hemingway Here's How How do you learn to write? Just write. The first generation of desk top users approached computers with trepidation (and for good reason; if you hit a wrong button you could lose everything, crash and a host of other things). Because they were fearful of the unknown, they made mistakes and learned more slowly. The second generation approached computers with a sense of fun, totally without fear. They learned fast and because they learned fast they learned more. . .and more. Writing should be approached with a sense of fun. Over the generations we’ve carried a myth that writing is this high, lofty art that should be approached only by the chosen few, the enlightened and the educated. Green baloney. Just write. Write everyday. It’s like everything else. As you work at it, you get better. Then you look back and see that what you wrote at the beginning wasn’t that good, maybe. And you keep writing. Examples of good writing are everywhere. You don’t want to dive into Shakespeare or The Iliad right away? Read the newspaper, magazines. Some of my English professor friends probably would disagree but I say read Entertainment Weekly, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated and other magazines. It’s all tight, snappy writing. Go to novels to learn about style and character development. Go online and read movie scripts. * * * The one thing nearly all examples of good writing have in common is active sentences. The first thing any person wanting to write has to do is unlearn everything you learned in high school and much of what you learned in college. Get rid of long passive sentences. Kill big blocks of paragraphs. Let your writing dance with a life of its own. If the writing is good enough, the writer disappears. * * * As you write, lock your ego in a secret trunk. Get rid of your self-consciousness. Those are what get in the way of writing. I’ve never agreed with the concept of “writer’s block.” Writer’s block is just the self getting in the way. It’s you being conscious of yourself trying to be a writer and not being able to think of something to say or the way to say it. Once you learn to keep your self-consciousness out of the picture, the writing flows. Certainly an athlete doesn’t perform at his or her peak everyday, but they play everyday, even if they’re just practicing. They don’t say “I’ve got athlete’s block today and I’m not going to pole vault.” A musician practices everyday. A writer writes everyday. Life is what happens to a writer between drafts. Damon Marketing 1+1+1 Judy, a radio sales rep in a medium sized city, tells me to get my book into the large bookstore in town. She tells her friend, the owner, about it. I call the lady. “Yes, I looked your book up online,” she says. “Maybe I missed something, but it sounds a little weird.” It takes me totally by surprise. “Uh, well, three generations of people have read it and love it.” “Who’s that, your family?” Again, I’m caught by surprise. “No. Just people. Could I bring a copy down?” “Bring it. I’ll look at it.” I could have mailed it but I wanted to meet her and maybe win her over a little. Her reaction opened up some insecurities. Maybe others were being polite when they said they liked it. Maybe she’s the first really honest person I’ve run into. I drive down a couple days later and find her in the large store crowded with books. I introduce myself. “Oh, you’re the one with the book I’m not sure about.” I say yes and hand her a copy. She looks it over. “Hm. I don’t know. I’ll look at it and make a decision. Excuse me, but I’m behind on some orders.” I didn’t win her over. I know not everyone is going to like my book. I just wanted the one who dislikes it not to be the owner of a very big bookstore. I have lunch with Judy but don’t tell her about my experience. Three days later Judy e-mails. “I read the entire book Saturday night. I couldn’t put it down!. . .” I thank her and tell her to please spread the word. I know she’ll talk with the bookstore owner because they’re good friends. We’ll see what happens. Yesterday I checked with our local Barnes & Noble and was really happy to see my book on the shelves. For a writer, that’s the ultimate trip. Thanks Kim. When people buy the book at Barnes & Noble, I make less money than when they buy it from me. But I’m telling everyone to tell their friends it’s available at B&N. I want B&N to have to order and re-order. As I said before, when it comes to marketing the book, I’m learning. So I’ll share my experiences in real time for what they’re worth. When you go to market your book, you’ll have good and bad times. Just remember these pages and know you’re not alone. Also, go to The Fiction Writer’s Page at http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/cmns/fwp.html It’s a great site by a man who cares about writing and helping people. Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.
What's Another Rewrite? Gold! When I’m writing feature stories, I often have trouble with the lead sentence. Rather than agonize over it, I go on and write the rest of the story. Sometimes, the lead comes while I’m writing the body of the feature. Sometimes I just leave it alone for a few days and it comes. The mind is always working on these things whether or not you’re thinking about the project. The unconscious streams along and always delivers the perfect lead or the perfect sentence. Understand that for any feature I really care about, I do no less than six drafts, usually more. Good writing entails a lot of rewriting. Last year I wrote a feature about a music professor, Dr. Kenneth Sarch, who traveled to Bolivia to create the first ever orchestra in the city of La Paz. He received a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to do it. Ken, a good writer himself, sent me regular accounts of his progress. He told me of jealousy and efforts to make him fail. He talked of the wonderful people in Bolivia and the growing political unrest. The unrest grew into a revolution and the lives of Americans were in danger. He continued building the orchestra and won countrywide recognition when they began performing. I knew I had a great story on my hands. It had drama, intrigue, working against all odds, even a couple miracles. It also had a happy ending. I rewrote it 10 times, searching for the right angle, the right voice, and many times the right word. This was one of those features where the lead did not readily present itself so I let it go and worked on the story. I went back to the lead. I wanted to summarize the story in such a way that it pulled the reader in. I finally settled on: “Dr. Kenneth Sarch’s assignment had all the elements of a good movie –intrigue, sabotage, political unrest in a foreign country, and the strength of human spirit to overcome obstacles for the sake of art.” I struggled a little to find the title, then let go and gave it time. It finally came: Season of Passion. The article won a top award in the 2003 Apex Awards, a national competition with thousands of entries. * * * I lost count of how many drafts of The Perfect Song I did, but it was close to 20. I rewrote the last page eight more times, and the last sentence several more. If the reader was good enough to follow me through the whole novel, I wanted the last sentence as close to perfect as possible. The tone the reader was left with changed with each different sentence. I am still happy with the sentence that closes the book. But it didn’t come quickly. Notice I did not say “it didn’t come easily.” I have never seen writing as a struggle. It might be a challenge sometimes, but never a struggle. Interesting note: A book dealer friend saw me after he'd read the first half of the book. “I love it,” he said. “But I want to know, does it have a happy ending?” I paused. “It has an ending,” I joked, not wanting to give anything away. I saw him after he’d finished it. “I really loved the book. I’m going to read it again.” “And the ending?” He nodded. “As I got closer to the end, I just couldn’t imagine how you were going to end it. When I got there, it was right on. It was perfect.” Rewriting pays off. Nonfiction writing is the processing of life. Fiction is the creation of life. Damon On The Road Again For years I kept a list of the books I read, satisfying some weird need to see on paper what I’d accomplished. But I also wanted to keep a record so I didn’t start a book I’d already read. Supremely annoying. At one point I was reading three or four books a week. Over the years that totaled several thousand. In the late 60’s I read Kerouac’s On The Road, which led me to William Burroughs and the whole Beat movement. I read On The Road again in the 90’s. Then I read John Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley. Two totally different writing styles. Two different approaches to seeing America. And two totally different personalities. One drank himself to death at age 47 in 1969. The other won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Both books are classics, and both celebrate America while mourning the changes-- mainly our loss of regional identity. Kerouac saw America as a young man speeding across the country. At night he noted the blue light coming from the houses they passed. It was glow of TV sets, and he saw American’s minds melding into one as they sat around the country watching the same entertainment. Steinbeck was an older man when he took his trip with Charley. He saw with mild dismay the developing interstate system and chain stores. Kerouac and Steinbeck rode across the U.S. and wrote down what they saw, their impressions, their thoughts and their interactions with people (and Charley, an amazing poodle). Neither book has been out of print since it was published. If you or I drove across country could we write a book like On The Road or Travels With Charley ? No. But we could write a book. Observe . . .and write. In my experience, the best creative work is never done when one is unhappy.
On Books and Writers On a sunny, mild November Day I held my first book signing. I’ve stood on stage as a musician before crowds of people hundreds of times over the course of 35 years. I’ve stood at podiums at conferences and concerts and addressed audiences of 10 to 1500. And today I was nervous, I guess, because it was a new experience. It turned out I didn’t need to be. Over the course of three hours, seven people drifted in and I knew all of them. The conversations confirmed my feeling that most people have a book in them. Jane, who I’ve known since high school said she’s wanted to write a book for years about some very painful years, but raising kids as a single parent and working, prevented it. Most importantly, she said, she didn’t want those around her who shared those experiences to go through them again right now. After she related some of her horrible times, I had to agree. Bob, a county planner who I’ve known for years, an outgoing heavy set guy with a great laugh, said, “I’ve got a novel I’ve been writing on an off for years. It’s a murder mystery. It takes place in this area and is based on real events.” He told me a little bit about it. “But I don’t know how it ends and it seems to me you’ve got to know the ending if you’re going to proceed.” I told him I would love to see more novels that are set in this Northern Tier of Pennsylvania area. It’s a rugged region at the foothills of the Appalachians. The mountains are strong and roll from mountain to beautiful valley to another mountain, gradually taking on a gentle bluish cast as you look in the distance. The mountains are dotted with farms, some of which go back 150 years. The natives love these mountains as much as life itself. Some families can trace their ancestry here back to the early 1800s. There’s heritage here, and pride, and a lot of stories. Bob said I inspired him to continue working. I told him he made a mistake in telling me about his book because every time I see him now, I’ll push him to finish it. He and others have the same reason for not finishing their book—life. Marriage, career, kids, tragedies, adventures, long work hours. In the end there is nothing to do but shrug. Just write.
Robert Frost Watch Your Writing! I just spent an hour at a discussion site for new writers. I noticed several things with mild amazement: 1. The bickering and rudeness. 2. The bad writing. 3. The typos.
I mention this for a couple of reasons. First, on a site used by writers, supposedly to help each other (not the case here), you would think everyone would be thinking about what they’re writing, how they’re writing it and how effective the writing is. You would think they would use words correctly. And you would think everyone would check words for typographical errors. Not so. Computers have made us feel we need to move fast, that speed is more important than accuracy. I include everyone here. I have seen bad writing and misspelled words from public relations directors at colleges and universities. These are the people on the front lines of the image of higher education! I’ve seen misspelled words from college presidents, for God’s sake. And yes, I’m guilty of the same thing at times. There’s no excuse for it. There is especially no excuse for those who call themselves writers. The second reason I bring this up is that I fell into this trap big time. As I was finishing The Perfect Song, there were a lot of changes being made—additions, deletions, revisions of sentences, paragraphs and scenes. There was a short time frame on every revision. I finally finished them after three different sets of revisions, and the book was published. And I was proud. I gave a copy to my brother, a former editor. He brought it back, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you ask me to look at this before you published it?” He asked. He handed me his copy. Dozens of slips of paper poked up from pages. I went to them and looked at the typos . . . many, many typos. I was sick. I had already ordered a hundred copies. I was so ashamed of it, I paid more money to have a new edition printed with all the corrections made. I developed a line as I sold the book that this first edition contained some typos, but since it was a limited run, it might be worth money one day if the book ever took off. The bottom line is that it never should have happened. Being pressured is no excuse. Having to squeeze the work in nights is no excuse. When you write, whether it’s on the web, in an e-mail, or in your fiction or nonfiction, pay attention. Walk away from it, come back and look at it again. The people you know in daily life know you from your appearance, your mannerisms, your speech patterns. They know you through your actions and interactions. The rest of the world knows you only through your writing. Just write. Then go back and work hard to make a good impression. You’re a writer. Language, spelling and grammar are the tools of your work. It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Revision 101 Playfulness. Earlier I mentioned that the generation of kids who grew up with computers approached them with a spirit of playfulness. Because they grew up with the computer and computer games, they had no fear. Because they had no fear, they learned faster. Because they learned faster, they learned more. And so on. Use the computer in the same way. Just write. Don’t labor over the absolutely-exact-just right word. You can always go back and labor. You can sleep on it. Just get your thoughts down. Push the characters along, or let them guide you. When you’re done, save it. When you go back, if you don’t like it, start revising. If you want to save your original, saved your revised draft under a new name. This preserves the original in one file and your revised work in another file. Readers over a certain age will remember at one time a writer wrote everything by hand on paper. If he revised, he had to start from the beginning and write everything down again. The typewriter made revision faster, but she still had to put in a blank sheet and start typing from the beginning. Now you just revise and save. Revise more and save. Bottom line is always the same. Just write. You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
Ira and Twain My friends at WSKG tipped me off that Ira Glass would be at the State Theatre in Ithaca, NY. Glass was named Best Radio host by Time Magazine in 2001. I’ve listened to his NPR show, This American Life, almost since it began five years ago. I wanted to see him. So I bought tickets and Leigh and I went up. Ira Glass is an anomaly. He has a thin, reedy voice with hints of a gayish lisp. He’s a Jewish guy with a girlfriend and in a couple shows lightly acknowledges his slightly feminine demeanor. But he has a way of looking at things that is so real it makes everyone else in the media seem as superficial as shoe polish. Every show has a theme. The stories are about real people—funny, serious, sad, pathetic, hopeful, but street-gritty, from-the-gut real. And the guy is in –what -- his mid-30s? I had to see him. The 1500-seat theatre was packed. Glass is a tall, skinny guy with mussed up hair, black frame glasses and has a nervous habit of rubbing his nose, running his hand through his hair as if to make sure it’s mussed up, scratching his cheek, his chin, his nose, with the index finger of his right hand. The hand seems to be constantly moving as he sits behind his mixing board. But he is totally engaging, a boy-man, a mixture of innocence and subtle satire. He has a childlike openness to experience, but his insights are as sharp as a newly-minted box cutter, delivered with a sense of humor that makes you laugh as you realize the size of the slash of his cutting insights. If Mark Twain were here today, I think he’d be Ira Glass. “We look for little movies of the mind,” he said. To do this, they find people who have stories, tell their stories well, from the heart, moving toward something unexpected. When you listen to the story you are transfixed, waiting to see what happens next. And when it happens, you wait to see what happens next. It’s about people in this life, fully experiencing it and telling you about this moment and what happens next. And that’s the secret: we want to know what happens next. You know what I’m getting at. A good character. A situation. And what happens next. Of course this is what good writing is all about. Pull the reader in with good characters in a believable setting (whether it’s realism or fantasy) in situations that make you ask all the time, what’s going to happen next? Glass used the example of the greatest storyteller of all, Scheherazade,who kept her life going for a thousand and one nights by the power of her stories. Read her stories http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4824/arabian/a_night_0.html Listen to This American Life on NPR. You’ll experience the power of word, the power of the story. And you’ll be inspired to look at your own life in terms of stories and myth. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to sit down and write your story. Just remember, from the beginning, make the reader want know: what happens next?
Charles Caleb Colton Journal of the Soul In the mid 1970s, inspired by Anais Nin’s Diaries, I started keeping a daily journal. Each night I laboriously wrote entries into college notebooks, detailing the events of the day – my personal events, some world events. I included my thoughts on both the personal and international scene. I included dreams that I’d had the night before. Some nights I would spend a couple hours on the journal entry. It soon became a habit bordering on addiction. My day wasn’t complete -- I wasn’t complete -- until I’d made a journal entry. But it was a good addiction. In every culture individuals have ways of ridding “evil spirits” or negative energies. The journal was my way of not only recording what happened that day, but also getting rid of negative energy. The journal was the cheapest psychiatrist around. I was talking to someone – an externalized me. But because it was flowing outward onto a page, it wasn’t me. It was a blank page, fully accepting and not judgmental. It was if each page beckoned gently, saying, “yes, yes, tell me more. I don’t judge. What you tell me is neither boring nor interesting. It is neither good nor bad. You had a victory, you had a failure. Tell me more. This is the tale of your life as it unfolds.” The journal improved my writing skills because when you’re writing by hand, you want to keep your thoughts concise. I learned to stop and think of a shorter, more dynamic way of writing my thoughts. It also taught me that there are many realities. If a hundred of us are at an event, everyone of us experiences that event in a different way. I soon learned that my description of an event or experience was exactly that: it was mine. But you also learn that experiences, while individual, are also universal. I kept the journal for many years, moving to a typewriter and typing one to four single spaced pages every night and putting the pages into large notebooks. I stopped writing the journal in the early 90’s because I’d turned my attention to other forms of writing – some short stories, a weekly radio show that I wrote and produced (and still do), and a lot of freelance stuff. I’m sorry that I had to stop because I’ve gone back and read different passages and am amazed at the spontaneity. While I might now remember an event in general, going back I find the details, the nuances and feelings of the moment, raw, ragged and real. We all have interesting lives. Even when there’s a tragedy, frustration, failure. If you stand back and look at it from a distance, as a story, it’s always interesting. I look back at the journals to mine the details of a life full of adventures. Give it a try. Take a half hour each night or early in the morning and just write about your experiences. You’ll soon see that your life is, itself, a work of art. A work-in-progress. Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Dialogue is more than Words Writing a journal develops a lot of different skills. It sharpens the memory as you scan back over the day’s events. If you work at it, as I said before, you learn to compress and say more with fewer words. You learn to choose the best words to describe a scene. You learn not to ramble. And, if you work at it, keeping a journal sharpens your skills at dialogue. When you listen to people talk, listen to how they talk. They don’t speak sentence after complete sentence. They might say a couple sentences and then a bunch of sentence fragments. For example: “I drove to the mall yesterday. Stopped at the gas station. Got a coffee and gas. . .can you believe it? Two dollars a gallon!” Take a minute and turn all of those into full sentences. “I drove to the mall yesterday. I stopped at a gas station. I got a coffee and gas. Can you believe it? The gas was two dollars a gallon!” The person sounds stilted and unreal. Also when people talk, they often don’t let the other person finish. While it drives me crazy, it does provide dynamic interaction. Example: “Larry fell into the pool the other day and—“ “He what?” “I kid you not. Fell into the pool. Wasn’t wearing anything but his boxer shorts and—“ “Larry wears boxer shorts?” “All the time. Says they make him feel loose and free.” “God I couldn’t wear boxer shorts. How’d he fall into the pool.” “I was getting to that. He was trying to stand on one leg with the other stretched out like they do in the Karate Kid—“ “Like Mr. Miyagi! I love that movie! And he lost his balance? “Yeah. Made a hell of a splash.” Make the journal your laboratory. Re-create dialogue that you hear. Describe characters. Tell the story of your day which is one small part of the story of your life. Tension is wonderful for making people laugh. Create a Feeling I was working on an ad for a client of ours the other night and as I worked through the process, I realized it was a good exercise to share with you, whether you write fiction or nonfiction. The ad is a 60-second radio spot for a department store that’s been in the same family for 100 years. My goal was to create a picture and a feeling, showing the slower pace of the small town department store, contrasting it to the faster pace and impersonal feel of chain department stores. In my first draft I wrote: “Maybe it’s the quality of products you’ll find on every floor, including women’s jewelry and fashion accessories. Or the large assortment of kitchen ware. Maybe it’s the personal attention of clerks who are interested in you and your needs. Smith’s also has a coffee shop that serves some of the best soup and sandwiches you’ll find anywhere.” All of this is true, but it’s kind of boring. So I rewrote: “There’s a slower pace and friendly feeling as you browse through name brand fashions, jewelry, kitchen accessories and gifts for the whole family. You get personal attention from clerks who are interested in you and your needs. When you need a rest take a break and relax in Smith’s coffee shop. Watch passersby on one of the most celebrated main streets in the northeast.” I was closer but not there yet. I had the concept and I was close to the feeling but some critical minor surgery was needed. Mind you, this is not cosmetic surgery. This is a process of cutting words, changing words. It will mean the difference between a patient who gets up and limps or one who can pole vault.
First of all, “you get” is lazy. That was there because I was after the overall concept. So I changed “You get personal attention” to “Enjoy personal attention.” The word “enjoy” connotes comfort and good feelings. It’s personal and speaks to the senses. Next I changed “When you need a rest take a break and relax in Smith’s Coffee Shop and watch passersby. . . .” I changed it to: “Take a relaxing break in Smith’s coffee shop and watch passersby. . .” It’s shorter and more to the point. You don’t really need to say “When you need a rest,” and “take a break and relax” is to long. “Take a relaxing break” sums up the experience and inherently says you need a rest. Tying everything together I ended with “The Smith family has been keeping it personal – our family serving your family – for one hundred years,” and then we go out with the jingle. So whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, get the thoughts down. Then go back and play with words and phrases. There’s always a better way to say it. A more dynamic way to communicate. And remember, whether it’s a 60 second spot, poem, article or novel, every word counts. There is no great writing, only great rewriting.
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