Category Archives: Role of the Writer

Waiting Work

13 Wednesday Feb 2019

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A key skill in publishing your debut novel is the ability to wait well. There’s a lot of it. Waiting seems to be most of what is asked of you.

But what I’ve discovered is that waiting is not the same as doing nothing. In fact, waiting well is about not wasting time – perhaps the most valuable time you’ll have.

Since mid-October I have been waiting for the publisher of my debut novel (tentatively titled) The Confessions of Adam (Bold Vision Books, 2019), to complete manuscript edits and initial cover art. During this time I have not been lying on the couch eating cookies and binge-watching The West Wing. Instead, my focus has been on waiting work. I have (in order of importance):

  1. Read The Confessions of Adam, hardcopy, with pencil in hand, 3 times – once aloud.
  2. Completed and submitted for workshop the 6th draft of my next novel.
  3. Alerted my writerly and readerly network to the anticipated release.
  4. Scheduled and sat for my author photo.
  5. Altered my 2019 planned schedule in anticipation of release activities.
  6. Began building my book release email list and started investigating mass email platforms.
  7. Started to arrange book release readings at two venues.
  8. Investigated how to add a book release splash page to my website.
  9. Given notice to several book clubs of the upcoming, albeit yet undated, release.

For the casual observer, waiting work is hard to differentiate from routine work. The difference is that waiting work anticipates what might be needed while routine work follows a defined plan. Both are essential. Waiting work is no less critical to your progress. In fact, it can make the difference between routine work that is on-time and that which is rushed to completion or delivered late.

So, wait well and get to work.

What Were the Questions I Was Asking?

16 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer

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Earlier this month I asked myself why I wrote my debut novel, The Confessions of Adam (Bold Vision Books, 2019). I realized that I’d thought quite a bit about the ‘themes’ of the novel – the guiding concerns of the work – but I’d never written them down.
So I did. Here’s the list.
Central concerns/questions that drove me to write The Confessions of Adam:
What actually happened in Eden and after? I was drawn into the Hebrew narrative. I was a reader first.
How does personal memory work? Is even the most trustworthy of memories trustworthy?
How might Adam have defended himself – long after the events of Eden?
Why is this narrative so unexplored fictionally in this form?
So what are some answers that I came to while writing?
Here you go:
Reading the narrative of Genesis 2-4 was the greatest driver to writing it. If I hadn’t found it compelling as a reader I could never have written the story. There is also a creative event that happens quite early in the writing of something like this. You come to believe what you’re writing. Of course you know it’s fiction, but you come to believe that whatever happened, the telling you’ve settled on is closest to the unknowable facts.
Our memories (what and how we recall events) is a complex calculus. Our memories are shaped by our biases and reshaped each time we revisit them. Like putty, we pull at certain aspects of our memories and repress others. All memories are flawed and not to be trusted blindly. All memories need interrogation.
We know there is the defense, the reaction, that pops up in the moments immediately following a failure. There is also the entirely separate series of defenses that are riddled out in the weeks, months, and years following the event(s) in question. These short and long-term defenses are arrived at very differently. I wanted to look at these side-by-side with Adam.
The primary reason is because it is so familiar and hard to get at. A passable construct has to be put in place in order to peel back all the familiarity and gaze afresh on these events. And putting together such a construct isn’t easy.
What questions will my readers have after they finish the novel?
Those are the more interesting questions.

Keep Trusting the Process

28 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Debut Novel, Role of the Writer, Writing Discipline, Writing Life

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A few weeks ago I printed the first 30 pages of my forth-coming novel, (tentatively titled) The Confessions of Adam, grabbed a pencil, and began reading and marking the manuscript. It has been two years since I’ve read it and I know that in January I will be getting an edited copy from my press. Adam and I need to reacquaint ourselves.

Well, I am now 180 pages in and my writerly, drafting instincts are in full gear. I’m ready to do what I’ve always done with this manuscript – write another draft!

Then I remember – er, my wife reminds me – 

This time it’s different. Joelle Delbourgo, and my publisher, Karen Porter, have both said that this manuscript is wonderful. So have my early readers. I must now trust a new editing process. And at this stage, the process has moved beyond my desk to the editing process of my editor. Sure, I can go through it, read it, and mark it up, but a rewrite before January would be foolish. What is happening is all part of the process. It’s just part of the process that I’ve not seen before. Our experience is rarely the first measure of reality. This is a process that’s produced millions of novels – the author/editor relationship. My team has grown. The process is now collaborative.

Let the process continue.

What Is Writerly Success?

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

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What is the measure of a writer’s success? Is it placement of a short story in a lit mag? Obtaining an agreement with an agent? A book deal? Is it less than these? Is it finishing a draft? Starting a draft? Developing a character or finding a plot turn? Is it simply finding the right word or sentence or voice in a snippet of dialogue?
I suppose it is all of these things – depending on the day and the ebb and flow of our work.
But for me these days, with all of life crashing in, success in writing seems to be simply sitting down each day and doing the work. Actually spending time writing each and every day. This is success.
So, let us not put undue pressure on ourselves. We are successful simply by producing sentences each day. And in this way we are successful should we never get a piece placed or a book contract. And let’s be clear, should those things come, we are not more successful. For our grandest arrivals don’t come independent of the steps taken along the way.
The crafting of sentences is our writerly success.

The Writers’ Workshop*

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

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Disclaimer: Like earning a writing degree, or attending a writers’ conference, joining or starting a writers’ workshop can be a terrific way to procrastinate and avoid the hard, solitary work of writing. However, assuming you’ve nailed this prerequisite and your writing discipline is in place, the writers’ workshop can be an irreplaceable addition to your writerly life.
In February 2017 I founded the Westside Writers’ Workshop. This workshop was started because a fellow writer, Andrea, wanted it. I was open to the idea because I was post-MFA and without a place to take my writing. Any workshop is an experiment, an unknown, a lark. It can disintegrate in any number of ways.
This one didn’t. The reasons for that are for another post. Let’s stay focused on you.
Here is what a writers’ workshop can do for you:
Distinguish the difference between solitary and alone. If you look up these two words you’ll find no profound difference. So I’ll create one. Writing is solitary work; however, it is not work that we should do alone – in confinement, without interaction with others. Humans are designed to do nothing alone. We are designed for relationship, for communal purpose. A writers’ workshop ensures we’re not alone in our solitude.
Offer reading writers. You need a group of readers to take your work to as you’re creating it. You need the reader’s feedback in order to finish a story. You also need writers to take your work to. You need people who are neck deep in the process as well, preferably who have gone further into the wild than you have, and who can act as honest judges and caring guides.
Provide essential deadlines. A writers’ workshop provides deadlines/submission periods/expectations. It is easy to drift in our solitude. We can work endlessly, never finishing anything, never achieving a pre-arranged milestone with our work. The workshop brings structure. It creates room for finishing work. Every creator needs a designed and tended place in which to work.
So be a writer. But don’t be a loner. Help other writers as you go. And they will help you.

*Note it’s not a Writers’ Group. It is not a place for loitering. Work must get done. Production is the goal. It is a workshop.

Fishing | Writing

30 Wednesday May 2018

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Yesterday I took my family on a four-hour fishing charter off the coast of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. It was a near-shore trip. We were at most a mile and a half off the coast trolling for Spanish Mackerel in 20-50 feet of water. As it turns out, there was time to think.

Fishing: The trip out from the marina and the first hour were uneventful.

Writing: Getting started each day is mundane, routine. It is not exciting. It takes time to get to the place where you can focused on the work.

Fishing: The second hour was uneventful too, but for the churn of the sea and sky and a sheet of rain.

Writing: We sputter, lift, and roll in search of some line that might lead to a paragraph, and perhaps promise the flash and glimmer of story.

Fishing: The third hour saw one of my daughters catch a Spanish that was too small to keep.

Writing: The ratio of words that we write vs. the words that we keep is not in our favor. Those sentences that at first suggest such promise are often the first to come under the Delete key.

Fishing: The fourth hour my son caught a ten-inch Lizardfish.

Writing: Ugly writing will appear under the tips of our pens. The key is to recognize how ugly it is, avoid compromise, and move on.

Fishing: On the way back to the marina we saw some dolphins playing in the causeway and for a few minutes our fishing charter became a nature tour.

Writing: Lean into the unexpected. When something pops up that is not on your target, pause.

Fishing: I didn’t lay my hand on a rod all afternoon.

Writing: Ending the day without a viable sentence is still a day spent searching for one.

Fishing: I tipped the captain and stepped back onto the dock.

Writing: The time spent with your butt in the chair is the cost you pay. The results will sometimes come and often not. The protocol is the only constant.

My Fixation With Flash Fiction

02 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in Contract with the Reader, Role of the Writer

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It all started last November at 2nd and Charles, a bookstore in Hagerstown, Maryland. It was there, that my friend Al Clingan handed me a book he’d discovered just moments before – 420 Characters by Lou Beach. I finished reading it today. I’ve dipped into it once every few days for six months, like some sort of fictional candy dish.
Several years ago I read MicroFiction, the anthology edited by Jerome Stern. I remember being attracted to but not hooked by the form. But Beach’s book has caught me, shaped my current writing project, and caused me to lift my snout and root out other important flash fiction collections. Here is the flash in my reading stack (thanks to recommendations from Sarah Manguso): Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon, Novels in Three Lines by Felix Feneon, and The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard.
What is it about this form? Is it the simple, concrete, tight prose that the form demands? Is it the pent up energy, the speed at which the fuse burns and the way it leaves you to imagine so very much of the result?
And yet, for these same reasons, it is an uphill climb to write. The cutting and shaping that one must be willing to inflict on one’s prose requires new depths of heart and concentration. The collaboration with your future reader is taken to new intimacies as well, as you trust them to slow down, care for each word, and thoughtfully conjure all that you’ve left outside the frame. And then there is the ordering of the pieces. I’ve got nothing. You will want to do what I’ve done – ask your poet friends. They know that drill.

The Status of the Dream – 1993

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

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I finished my undergrad on the campus of Indiana University/Purdue University, Kokomo. I took Sociological Theory from Dr. Earl Wysong who was a member of the Socialist Party of America, and my Psychology 101 professor had once provided therapy to the tail gunner of the Enola Gay. And it was during this time that I found writing.
I was walking down the hall one evening and there was a poster – in remembrance of the 25th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. an essay contest entitled “The Status of the Dream – 1993.” I remember looking at the poster and thinking, “I can do that. I can write an essay, I can win that contest.”
I had no evidence that any of these claims were true.
I submitted my essay to the Chancellor’s office by the deadline and a few weeks later I received an invitation to a campus tea during Black History Month. I assumed everyone had received this invitation. I utterly failed to connect the essay I’d submitted to this bit of mail. I went home, slipped into my favorite pair of Wranglers, threw on a sweater, and headed off to the late afternoon event.
I was the minority in the room and I was not used to anything upscale. I tried to stand near the back and began to plan my exit as soon as I’d arrived. Twenty minutes into the proceedings a gentleman in a suit and tie – I was desperately under-dressed – stepped up to the mic and, of all things, began to speak of the essay contest.
Sweet Moses.
Later in the evening I had several folks walk up to me and congratulate me. The fellow in the suit told me that from my writing it was obvious that I was a student of Dr. King’s writing. I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d read part of Strength to Love, several of the speeches, and very little else.
As I walked to my car that evening I realized that there was something to this. I had moved total strangers, scholars even, with my writing.
I could do something with this.

Style Is Content Is Style

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by in Qualities of Good Fiction, Role of the Writer

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Tone. Voice. Color. Style. These are four of the many terms that we toss about when attempting to describe the qualities of a piece of writing. Defining these is tricky, so any time we are offered a bit of clarity we should grab it.
I’ve begun listening to a series of lectures by Brooks Landon of The University of Iowa. They are talks focused on crafting sentences – how and why they work.
In the first lecture he states that style is a result of content. What is in the sentence – how it is constructed, what is there and what is not – determines the style.
I thought that style was much more elusive than that. A week ago I may have written something as tangled and sideways as: “the footprint left by a writer from the accumulated weight of his/her sensibilities, derived from the way they think about, feel, and experience life – this mash-up is what we call style.” Oh dear.
Landon’s explanation is fulfilling because it makes the writing, not the writer, the central focus. Instead of delving into the rocky terrains of psychology, micro-culture, and worldview, we are guided instead to consider syntax, word choice, and phrasing.
One way to test this is to transfer the principle into other creative mediums.
Does not the material from which a suit is made and the way this material is put together determine the suit’s style?
Do not the plants and the design of their beds determine the style of the garden?
Does not the choice of music and the choreography applied to it determine the style of the dance?
The power of your work is in the sentences, and nowhere else. And the choices you make about what is on the page and how it is consumed by your reader amounts to your style.
No need to dig further.
Thank you Professor Landon.

In Memoriam

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

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A seat at the Westside Writer’s Workshop sits empty. Andrea Shuman stepped from our presence into the presence of her Creator and Savior on Friday, January 26th, a little after 11AM.

Sometimes her work was embedded in the facts of fairy tale. “‘You shall bear a girl-child,’ the frog croaked in a deep voice that reminded her of damp bogs and dark places.” Other times her work reflected a deep love for Victorian-era literature, with it’s mysterious characters, twilight settings, and the difficult lives of the servant class. Yet there were other stories, like that of a female assassin who had rescued a young girl from a life of certain suffering in Africa. “Sweat stung her eyes. Her head throbbed. She rolled her shoulders, flexed her fingers, and squinted down the sights again.”
A week after Thanksgiving, when the Workshop read this last piece – and the first time we met that tough yet deeply feeling female protagonist, I encouraged Andrea to simply write. To write without concern for punctuation or format, to write, to write 100 pages, to write more, to write until she had run her imagination dry. With prose that was functioning at this level that was all her work needed from her. A couple of weeks later she told us of her excitement. She was writing at that pace. And it was working.
Over the next couple of months Andrea was going to lead the Workshop through a reading of Jane Eyre. Her email on January 16th reflected her excitement. “I want us all to pick up on subtlety and details. Let’s start out with the first two chapters. I want to talk about point of view.”

We all leave this life with work-in-progress. And there is no loss in that. That is the goal of a creative life. To leave work-in-progress. Andrea was a writer. Success for a writer is measured in the reader’s desire to turn the page. Reading Andrea’s work I always wanted to turn the page.

I know I speak for the other members of our Workshop – Roger (her loving husband), Rita, Teresa, and Jim. We’re glad we had the chance to hone our craft together. It was our pleasure, Andrea. And now, as our eyes grow weaker, you write by the very best Light.