Mid-Year Reading-Like-A-Writer Reality Check-In

I decided early in 2017 that I wanted to read a lot more books. Not entirely a stunning revelation for a writer! I wanted to read more books that aren't required for work, ones that are new-to-me (and not re-reads), books languishing in my to-be-read pile and/or one I hear out about and suddenly must read, now. 

It's working.

Though, you wouldn't know it from my Goodreads tally, because I so often forget to list them--even though, accountability advocate that I am--I had absolutely, positively, definitely told myself I would! Over there, I'm committed to reading 65 books this year, and each time I open the site, I'm confronted with the admonition that I'm "15 books behind"! No, no I'm not, I protest, aloud, in my empty home office. 

One reason the GR tally is off is, ironically, related to the very way I'm getting more reading done: about a chapter before I finish the book I'm currently reading, I start the next. Just a few pages here and there (and yes, it feels like cheating on a trusting boyfriend!), just enough so that when I close a book, that inevitable feeling of loss and abandonment--and sometimes the silly thought that no next book could possibly ever come close--doesn't keep me from opening and starting the next book. 

You know that feeling, don't you, the one that makes you melancholy, wistful, or sad to leave a beloved character or narrator behind. It can sometimes hang about for days, keeping me from starting the next book. Yes, occasionally that feeling was, is, delicious. I actually want to wallow in that dreamy world-of-the-book for a bit longer. 

Already being at least a little bit inside the next book is a reliable way to keep reading, but it's also the reason I forget to record my progress. The trade-off is worth it, though. Those reading gaps, the time between books, were adding up. Let's face it, there's never going to be enough time to read, what with all the other demands on our time, and in a more practical/philosophical/mortal/morbid sense: we're all going to outlive out to-be-read pile, after all.

A bit sobering, but there you have it.

Another tiny trick that's helping: making sure the current book is on the same level of the house as I am. Really, I'm not kidding. If I remember to carry the book downstairs in the morning, then when I'm done working for the day (in my upstairs home office), it's handy while I'm waiting for dinner to cook, or relaxing on the couch or patio, and when I can't avoid commercials when watching live TV. Likewise, when I remember to bring the book back upstairs at the end of an evening, it's more likely I'll read before bed and/or in the early morning, when the husband leaves very early for work and I could sleep longer but just can't. 

Seems silly, but if I have to go back up or down those 11 stairs well, instead of reading more of the current book, I may grab my phone and scroll for a mindless few minutes that turns into an hour that sucks the life out of reading time.

Right now, I'm making my way through a somewhat specialized section of the to-be-read pile (having added about six more in the books-by-MFA-friends category, including Stolen Beauty). Next, I'm eyeing novels that, for various reasons logical and/or esoteric, have been tempting me from the master to-be-read pile: Lincoln in the Bardo, The Mare, The Great House, The Cottonmouths (won in a giveaway over at The Debutante Ball). Oh but maybe first, or in-between, the memoirs Hunger, Year of the Horse, and Guesswork. Or...

That's it for today. I have another 30 minutes before I need to get ready for a workshop. What shall I do?

Image - top, Flickr/CreativeCommons-Tim Geer

Write. Read. Repeat. Susan Sontag said it first. I just follow Directions.

By now, you probably know that I simply do not understand writers who aren't also constantly reading. Because how--other than through reading--do we even begin to want to be writers? And what's paramount to learning more about writing than reading?

I'm over at Story Dam today, participating in their April A to Z blogging challenge. I was asked to name a favorite bit of writing advice, and then say something about it.

It's posted today under "D is for Directions" and is a brief commentary on the Susan Sontag command: “Directions: Write, Read, Rewrite. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 as needed."

"I’ve heard this advice interpreted several ways. Some folks think it means that you should write and then read what you have just written, then rewrite it. And of course, that’s true. But I take this advice in the broader sense..."

Read the rest here.

Image: Story Dam

Read-Along. Like a Ride-Along. But with books.

Let's pick up with the reading theme from the last post, shall we? I mentioned that I want to read a lot more than what is required for my work life. But there's one part of work-related reading that straddles the work and pleasure reading columns.

It's what I call the Read-Along. This is something I offer to do with my writing coaching clients, or sometimes writers for whom I'm editing a manuscript that's in need of more-than-moderate revision.

What we do is carefully choose a book that speaks to the very particular writing challenges that client is facing—and then we both read it, simultaneously.

Sometimes we read just a chapter at a time, and I follow that up with a series of questions. Or I ask the writer to note down observations. Other times, we read bigger chunks, then we check in, sometimes with a longish phone or Skype call. Or we read it through quickly, then make our way through again slowly, zeroing in on something in particular—say, the chapter endings, or time movements, or structure.

On one hand, it's like a tiny little book club for two. But it's really a very focused reading-like-a-writer activity, customized for that writer's interests and writing goals, and making some of the same demands as the reading annotations required in many MFA programs.

Sometimes we're in search of quality prose, a tight story, a prime example of a form. Or we're looking at a particular type of book or story structure or organization; a genre that's new to the writer-client; maybe a POV she's never written in before.

Though it's often a book I'm already familiar with, and I read it again as the client reads, some of the most memorable read-alongs in the past couple of years were books that were new-to-me.  

I've read-along to a couple of young adult novels (with a fiction writer who typically wrote very long novels for adults); an emotional memoir (with a journalist who wanted to stretch beyond just-the-facts); and a humorous novel made up of very short chapters (with a nonfiction writer hoping to turn dysfunctionally funny family episodes into fiction).

Though typically separated by hundreds (maybe thousands) of miles, being "on the same page" (sometimes literally on the same day) as a writer I'm working with is a singularly enriching experience. It's one thing to say, "go read this book." It's another to be having the parallel experience, and knowing we're going to discuss it later.

I have one such read-along coming up. This time, it's a themed essay collection—for a writer-client itching to edit an anthology. While her story editing skills are strong, the idea of assembling the varied pieces is a mystery. We're going to be looking at the mix of essays and authors; how the pieces differ and what ties them together; the order and flow of essays; and the variety and level of prose in the different pieces. (And, as it's a book I haven't read before, it will do double duty for my 2017 reading challenge list.)

I can't quite recall how I got the idea for the Read-along; it may have simply been a client frustrated with something, and me thinking of a book she could read that might help…and then realizing I'd be better equipped to help if I re-read that book too. Or maybe something else. What I know is that the activity seems to deliver beyond what I'd originally hoped. Plus, it's kind of fun.

Reading should be fun. Even when it's not precisely "pleasure reading." Right?

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommone-DanielWehner

I Resolve to...Read. And read and read and read and read

 

This past Sunday, at an event labeled "Resolve to Write," a bunch of local writers met to rev their writing engines for the year ahead. As part of my role as an instructor/workshop leader with The Writers Circle, I led the group. It was great fun to help other writers identify and clarify goals for the year, share challenges, and discuss successful strategies for time management, creativity, and getting past the constant procrastination allure of just having to do this one more thing before I sit down to write…

I came away, I believe, as energized as the participants. Resolved to write more.

The year started for me though, with a slightly different but related self-imposed mandate: I'm resolved to read more in 2017. A lot more. And especially, more books that are not required reading for my teaching duties. Authors whose craft I admire. Books that sound like fun. Books to disappear in, lean on, learn from, laugh along with, linger among. Just more reading. More.

As always, my bookshelves, the to-be-read pile, the coffee table, the night table, my writing table, are all overflowing with books. So much to choose from…and more arrive weekly. I just can't help myself.

Two years ago, I resurrected my habit, begun in early childhood, of keeping a list of each book I read during a calendar year. This year, for even more motivation, I signed up for the GoodReads 2017 Reading Challenge. My goal is 65 books for the year; last year, I logged 43 completed books on my raggedy list (with five started but not finished). And I know I had some not-reading-anything days, so 65 seemed modest, but enough to keep me going. Maybe, I'll even exceed it.

Sometime during college, I fell out of the habit of listing "Books I Read 19XX" in a notebook. Mom kept report cards and my Girl Scout books until I'd married, and when I went through her things after she'd passed, I found all the Mother's Day cards I'd ever sent her. But no book lists. How I'd love to see and handle those notebooks again!

Though my GoodReads lists will be online somewhere, and my own private (duplicate, I guess) list will live in Excel-land, I'm toying with a paper notebook list too. Just want to see if it yields the same satisfaction as it did oh so many years ago.

If you're interested in setting up your own 2017 reading challenge, I'd love to hear!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Ruslan-paukrus

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- January 6, 2017 Edition

> At Electric Literature, Stacy Schiff, on the messiness of the writing process.

> Sundress Blog has a terrific list (and links to many of) "2016's 30 Most Transformative Essays".

> So maybe digital writing and reading isn't making college writing worse.

>In my final 2016 post, I mentioned my *I Did It List* idea for writers. At her Remains of the Day blog, Andrea Lani weighs in with her list and further thoughts about going forward from there.

>Steph Auteri's "24 Favorite Reads of 2016" is both a solid list and a witty peek at reading when one has a toddler.

>Yet more to chew on in the submissions strategy category, this time via Kim Winternheimer at the Masters Review Blog. Then there's Chelsey Clammer with an ode of appreciation to her submission spreadsheet and what it teaches her (I share this geeky love for my own Excel organizers).

>I don't know how this escaped me for months, but anyone (in this case, Joanne Novak) who writes a love letter to the EM dash has got me at—hello.

>While you may not be precisely interested in pitched articles or essays to Hearst magazines (or you might!), this post has so much to teach writers who find it a frustrating scramble to track down editors (and their email addresses) at mainstream media.

Have a great weekend!

Image: Flickr/CreativeCommon - Infrogmation

A Reading and Writing Gift, Courtesy of Contests Not Won and Journals Finally Opened

You don't enter a lot of writing contests, because you're frugal (okay, cheap) and entry fees deplete your meager annual marketing budget, and because you're not competitive by nature. (Perhaps you are convinced you used up your competitive mojo inside the horse show arena years ago, and that once winning a television and later a bicycle was the limit of your blind luck.)

When you do enter a writing contest, you're usually enticed by a theme you're already interested in writing something about (or have already started), or by the allure of publication in a journal or by a press you like. You try not to even consider the prize money (see above, re: not competitive/all luck expired).

Results from the recent Rose Metal Press CNF Chapbook Contest

Still, over the years (okay, decades), you've managed to rack up a few finishes in the tops three, and in competitions that whittle the field down first, occasionally been on finalist lists (most recently, in the Rose Metal Press Creative Nonfiction Chapbook contest). You've always tried, when awaiting contest results, to think of it as no more or less meaningful than a regular submission (okay, you lie to myself).

One of the "consolation prizes" of not winning a contest with an entry fee run by a print journal is often a complimentary subscription. So, you get rejected one way or another (alas, even a finalist finish is still a rejection...), and then at some point later on, an issue of the journal lands in your mailbox with a thud.

Do you read it immediately, eager to delve into the stories and poems and essays by writers who weren't as unlucky as you? Or do you let it sit on your desk or coffee table for days or weeks or months, avoiding the words of others who were luckier (okay, more skilled) than you?

You do both. Depending on mood, available reading time, the phase of the moon, the artwork on the journal cover. 

Then, on a blistering cold winter Sunday, when you really should be working upstairs in your home office, instead you build a roaring fire in the living room (okay, your husband builds it for you; it's Valentine's Day after all and he wants you to be comfy so he can sneak off to watch sports on TV), make yourself a big mug of coffee, cuddle under a quilt, and see what there is to read on the coffee table.

There is the winter issue of The Missouri Review. You open it, scan the table of contents for nonfiction pieces, find two, and read them, at first grudgingly, then with building interest, then hungrily. They are both so good. 

First, the one that intricately and seamlessly (and incongruously, but ingeniously) combines mistakes made in bird watching and the fallibility of eye witness testimony in criminal cases. 

Then, the one about the lousy family dog that keeps eating the children's pets, which seems like it would be a lousy idea for a piece of narrative nonfiction, but paragraph by paragraph convinces you once again that any subject, in the hands of a skilled and honest and witty writer, can become an excellent essay.

You finish your coffee, put the kettle on for tea, grab some cookies, stoke the fire and add more wood. Your husband is still in the family room watching a rerun of his beloved Giants winning the 2008 Super Bowl, but you interrupt, and wave your teenage son over and read them a terrifically funny line from the essay about the horrid dog, and the three of you laugh together.

Then you take your tea back to the living room and read the one about the bad dog all over again, and notice things, so many things. Then you read the one about birding and witnessing again and notice more things. And even though these are not the exact pieces that won the contest you entered many months ago, and instead of feeling as if these other writers are luckier than you, you simply are grateful for the chance to have read them.

And then you find one of those writers on Twitter, and tell her how much you enjoyed the one about her awful dog, and soon, the two of you are tweeting back and forth, and later she says that your praise of her writing has made her week. And suddently your day is made too.

Soon, you feel as if you didn't get a consolation prize at all (okay, maybe a little.) But you eventually go back upstairs to your office and for a brief moment you wish you had a horrible, no good, very bad dog to write about, but then you smile and pull out something you've been working on. And it all starts again. 

Why I Liked Jill Talbot's Memoir and You Might Too

When a book is forthcoming from an essayist whose work I've admired, I'm all in. I'll probably buy it and read it within the first few weeks it's available. That doesn't always mean I'll love it or even like it (even books that contain essays I've already read and liked don't always make the finest books), but in this case, I did. I do.

If you nose around the world of creative nonfiction, and especially if your favorite sandbox is the personal or narrative essay, you've either read or at least know of Jill Talbot's work. If not, you probably should (though I really hate using "should" when it comes to reading, so let's say I highly recommend her!).

Talbot's book, The Way We Weren't: A Memoir (published this summer), is now the handiest way to find so much of her fine writing all together. Here are a few things I found inside those covers that kept me interested. First, to my mind, it's a coherent collection of strongly linked, narrative essays that work both independently and as a whole, and together create an arc. And yet, there's an elliptical feel to it as well. A few chapters are in the third person—hard to pull off well in memoir, but effective here. All are positives in my list of reading and likes.

Next, several chapters are in borrowed forms— loneliness and longing expressed as a literature course syllabus; redacted legal letters concerning child support; courtroom transcript; addiction progression as wine list. Other chapters are segmented; I love the white space, the separations that strongly invite connection, the sense of seeing and understanding difficult parts of life in smaller increments, which to me is closer to how memory, reflection, and long-lens perspective actually work.

Finally, what grabbed me most was the voice and sensibility of the narrator; her willingness to be the multiply flawed human she is (we all are) on the page is both gripping and at the same time, smartly circumspect. Unlike some memoirists whose dysfunctional pasts seem to beg for (all the book's) attention on no other merits than that they happened, Talbot is able to weave a narrative that includes her mistakes as part of the wider story of a fuller life.

Did I also mention the writing is just terrific? Did I mention it was a book I read in two days, and not because I had the time? I only "know" Jill Talbot a tiny bit via friendly social media exchanges, and I know very well that reading someone's memoir doesn't mean you know that person. But the person who rises from these pages? She's someone I'd invite in for coffee. 

The Book List That's Constantly Changing, and Remains the Same

Over at Facebook, this pops up from time to time: The 10 Books That Changed Your Life. I'm often tagged to chime in, and have always conveniently "forgotten". For me that top 10 list changes year to year, sometimes month to month. What I think "changed my life" at 12 fell off the list by 20, what moved me enormously at 30 slid away when I tried to re-read it at 40. And so on. Plus – changed my life how? Which life? My reading life? My entire life? My life as a writer? 

Recently though I saw it worded slightly differently: The 10 books that have stayed with you. I interpret that as the ones I keep remembering, the ones I find myself opening at random and reading from the middle of for no reason at all, the ones that are perhaps more meaningful not because they are the finest literature ever produced, but because I read them at a time in my life when I was especially open to the story, or the writing, or both.

I've left off the true classics all writers admire and return to, and I'm probably forgetting some marvelous contemporary soon-to-be-classics, but I've limited my list to modern books I've read in the last 15 years or so—and the ones I can remember distinctly and with pleasure, and without walking over to my bookshelves. I've mixed the genres together. And I went way over 10. Hey, it's my list and I'll do what I want with it!

Living Out Loud – Anna Quindlen

The Invention of Solitude – Paul Auster

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

Mountain City – Gregory Martin

Blue Peninsula – Madge McKeithen

In Revere, In Those Days – Roland Merullo

Small Wonders – Barbara Kingsolver

The Opposite of Fate – Amy Tan

Sleepless Days – Sue Kushner Resnick

The History of Love – Nicole Krauss

Picturing the Wreck – Dani Shapiro

Expecting Adam – Martha Beck

The Dogs of Babel – Carolyn Parkhurst

Swimmer in the Secret Sea – William Kotzwinkle

Manhattan Memoir – Mary Cantwell

We Didn't Come Here for This – William B. Patrick

Making Toast – Roger Rosenblatt

A Slant of Sun – Beth Kephart

Here if You Need Me – Kate Braestrup

I Married You for Happiness – Lily Tuck

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni

Without a Map – Meredith Hall

Eclectic, yes? Sure. I'm also sure this is incomplete, which I'll realize and clap my forehead for, as soon as I get up from where I'm sitting in my bedroom composing this post, and wander into my office and scan my bookshelves. Or tomorrow, when I read a new book and then can't stop thinking about it for a week or month or year. Or maybe this evening when I plan to read Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow, who passed away yesterday (and which I somehow never read).

Do you have a list like this? One that would make no sense to anyone but you? A list of books, which although they are excellent books – probably signals as much or more about you, and who you were when you first read it, and why you keep picking it up again --  than about the book itself? I'd love to hear (especially if we have a book in common)!

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - The Lost Gallery

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers, September 26, 2014 Edition

> Monica Byrne, a published novelist and produced playwright, discussed her submission, rejection, and acceptance stats in a brief Washington Post article, shared her spreadsheet, and offered some perspective: "That means I got 32 rejections for every acceptance."

> A bonanza of articles, essays, lists and more, all about the MFA, at Publisher's Weekly.

> Then, from the Ploughshares blog, there's an "MFA for the Rest of Us" -- a semester-by-semester list of oh-so-aptly-named "courses". Ahem.

> Wired magazine (and science) explains some of the reasons why we can't catch typos, why those who can type without looking at the keys know they've made a mistake before even looking at the screen, and other cool stuff.

> What's everybody reading? I like finding out, in the Books by the Bed section of the We Wanted to be Writers site.

> Many literary journals and small literary presses are closed to submissions over the summer, and re-open in early fall. Lists of some are posted here and here and here and here.

> Check out the first issue of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. 

> A new anthology from Creative Nonfiction magazine, marking 20 years, "True Stories, Well Told," will soon be available for pre-order. If you teach, you may be able to request a desk copy now.

> Finally, leave it to Powell's Books to graphically explain why physical books are best.

Have a great weekend!

Image by Eric Crowley vie Flickr/Creative Commons

Three Good Books. Out of Three Hundred. No, Three Thousand. No...

Last year, when my husband helped me re-do my home office (after 23 years), we lined two-and-a-half walls with floor-to-ceiling, walk-to-wall, black wood bookshelves. I think they look great against the new red walls, and it's a huge change from my previous system for books, comprised of hand-me-down half-height bookcases, used beige office shelves, and repurposed odd pieces of furniture topped with baskets, milk crates, plastic stacking shelves, and clumsy piles (plus boxes stacked in a corner).

Would it surprise anyone to learn that it wasn't nearly enough room for my books, even after a careful reduction? That a second culling yielded four boxes of books, now in the garage awaiting pick-up by a terrific local service that matches no-longer-needed books with organizations that want and need them? That two more boxes are in the basement; I'm undecided about their fate. That at the end of every class I teach I haul a suitcase of books into the classroom -- duplicates of books I love, books left over from contests I've judged, books I didn't enjoy but are well written enough that others might -- and still, the shelves groan?

Honestly I don't expect the situation to get much better, and though I am slowly coming around to making use of my Nook, I don't mind a bit. When you are a writer, when you have a constant need to locate good material to teach from and learn from, when reading is like breathing, and when you work at home, being surrounded by shelves that spill over is a good problem. 

Which brings me to a month or so ago when Drew Myron, a lovely writer (who contributed a guest post here with tips on giving a reading), asked me to participate in the "3 Good Books" series at her website, Push Pull Books. She assigns each invited writer a specific topic based on what she knows about the writer's work. I was happy she asked me to talk about books that feature personal essays, and even more pleased that I could pick not-so-new books (the idea is to suggest what may be missing from other writers' shelves). I decided to narrow it a bit further to essay collections by women writers which have influenced me and my writing (I hope).

To do the "research" for this assignment, I didn't have far to go. I simply stood up from my seat at my still-new writing table (in the office re-do, I tossed the desk and the entire idea of a desk), and traveled a few feet to spend some quality time with my bookshelves. The section that houses essay collections is a single unit unto itself, about two feet wide and seven shelves high. It was a good trip.

My "3 Good Books" guest post is now up, and I hope you will jump over to Drew's blog to read it.  And I also hope you have shelves that spill their riches all over your home and/or office too!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- May 9, 2014 Edition

For your weekend reading, skimming, rooting, bookmarking pleasure...

> ASJA (the American Society of  Journalists and Authors) has made two audio recordings from panels at their very recent annual conference available at no charge to the public - one on copyright, the other on writing about trauma survivors. Check it out.

> Soon-to-be debut novelist Beth Cato weighs in on what she did when she know in her gut that a crucial piece of feedback, from a well-qualified source, was all wrong for her story.

> Over at Wordserve Water Cooler, Lucille Zimmerman sums up the five marketing surprises -- pro and con -- she didn't learn until after her first book was published.

> Want to know how to get published on McSweeney's (like my writing friend Candy Schulman did today)? A McSweeney's editor has tips (and it's not, contrary to popular thinking, (only or at least all) about coolness and hipster cred).

> At SheWrites, learn how one writer created a life crammed with books and reading.

> Ever daydream about starting a very small press?  Spenser Madsen did and he's (bruised but) not sorry.

> Frustrated over how slowly your (here it comes, I'm going to use that dreaded word, get ready, and I apologize in advance) *platform* seems to be growing?  Alexandra Franzen has some incredibly good advice on adjusting our perspective.

> Finally, one of those very cool, ever so slightly awful Buzzfeed lists, this time "33 Amazingly Useful Websites You Never Knew Existed."  I saved you some scrolling time -- definitely useful, or at least, interesting to writers:  the Online Etymology Dictionary; Practical Typography (everything blessed thing you want to know); WriteWord's Word Frequency Counter (for when you suspect you overuse certain words; you're usually right, by the way); Mathway (it will solve anything; because we writers do words, not numbers); and PrintWay (for when you absolutely want to print it, but without all the ads and other website wonkiness).

Have a great weekend!

Image: Windell Oskay/Flickr, Creative Commons

Of Tennis and Reading: Love

My son wants to join the tennis team this spring, so to get back in shape, he's signed on for a series of weekly two-hour evening lessons. And I cannot wait, because at the huge tennis bubble, there is lousy cell reception, and from what I can deduce, no wifi.

I found out for myself, the minute he went through from the viewing area to the courts and I pulled out my phone to let my husband know where we were. I soon noticed: no one on phones--not bored parents, not teenagers awaiting rides or their turn on the courts, not younger kids hanging about while siblings swung rackets, not employees. Even the television was on a low volume.

Bliss.

That was last week, and I was grateful to pass the time mostly talking with another mom, something that doesn't happen so often beyond the middle school years. I wandered around the building a bit, but there's nothing much to explore -- a small tennis shop, a gym surprisingly empty and quiet, a closed hair salon.

This week, I have something else in mind: I'm going to read. Maybe for two hours. And no one will email, ding, ring, tweet, or message me. Well, they might, but I won't know; not unless I make the long walk back to the dark, cold parking lot – and I'm not that much in love with technology.

I might write some too, given as I always have a notebook in my purse, but I've been craving a long reading stretch, somewhere away from the background buzz of undone household chores, unedited client pages, to-be-commented-on student papers—and the cooking and laundry (always the cooking and laundry!). I remember having these almost enforced unfilled time blocks more frequently when my sons were younger and there was more time spent on sports fields and car pool lines, in church basements, indoor soccer bubbles, and waiting areas. Now, they are hard to come by naturally, harder still to schedule.

I'm not sure yet what I'll bring besides a few unread sections of the print Sunday New York Times, though the choices are plentiful. On my desk are a poetry collection and an ARC of a memoir, both to be read in advance of interviewing the authors (sounds like work but mostly pure pleasure), an anthology of short essays I've been dipping into, a novella I've been meaning to reread, and fat new novel, beckoning.

The best part is that the lessons will go on for weeks and start just early enough in the evening that my husband won't be home yet, so I'll be chauffeuring. Now, let's hope no one at the tennis center decides it will be a good idea to rectify the signal "problem".

Photo by HoriaVarlan/Flckr Creative Commons

Reading (Way) Outside My Comfort Zone

I like to read outside my comfort zone from time to time, and when I do read a book, or even part of one, which I wouldn't ordinarily pick up, I always learn something.

Readers of this blog know of my interest in song lyrics and the people who write them. While waiting for my son to finish a chess club event at our library the other day, my eyes fell on Decoded by Jay-Z.

In the book, the rapper and hip hop star offers analyses of his own lyrics, interleafed with anecdotal reminiscences of coming of age in the Budford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. I'm pretty certain Jay-Z had a ghostwriter, and she's kept the star's voice on the page (for better and worse, depending on each reader's taste).

I read the first 40 pages in between doing a zillion other things – one of which was compiling a lecture on nonficiton writing that involved working with memories that seem elusive or incomplete. One of my points is that in many cases, it's often more interesting to the reader – and certainly more honest – for the writer to put our own misgivings about the quality of our memory right on the page, to write the memory holes into the prose. I know I have many examples of this on my bookshelf.


But before I had a chance to look for them, there, on page 4 of Decoded, I stumbled across one example of working with a fragmented memory. Jay-Z is describing the first time he saw a rapping rhymer in action, on a street corner in his rough-and-tumble world (bold mine):

"...Like the day I wandered up to something I'd never see before: a cipher – but I wouldn't have called it that; no one would've back then. It was just a circle of scrappy, ashy, skinny Brooklyn kids laughing and clapping their hands, their eyes trained on the center. I might have been with my cousin B-High, but I might have been alone, on my way home from playing baseball with my Little League squad. "

He can't remember who he was with or where he was going, so he shares that with the reader, suggesting likely scenarios based on the activities he does remember doing frequently (being with B-High, walking home from baseball). He didn't know what to call the thing he'd come across, though later he learned the word (cipher), but he tells the reader about his ignorance at the time of the incident. Both are better decisions, sharing with the reader what the author doesn't know, than either skipping the incident altogether, or fleshing it out with details he can't stand behind or couldn't have known at the moment.

As for the book in its entirety, I may not get to page 317. I know only a handful of Jay-Z's recordings, so I can't comment on whether his meditations on, and explanations of the lyrics, jive with what I thought the lyrics meant (or if I really want to go there). I don't have an opinion on whether hip hop lyrics are a new and important poetic form. Or even if I like the guy.

I'm only saying that when I read outside my comfort zone, it makes me think. Sometimes, I read more carefully. That's always a good thing for a writer.

Readers, what have you read lately that's outside your comfort zone?

Gift of Reading: The Gift of an Ordinary Day

A few months ago I had one of those wonderful reading experiences, both as a reader for pleasure, and as a writer-reading-as-a-writer: a mixture of admiration for the prose, a deep connection to the story, and a boatload of those head-nodding, tear-wiping moments when I wondered if the author had been stalking my daily life, reading my mind.

The book is The Gift of an Ordinary Day, a memoir by Katrina Kenison, who for seven years edited the Best American Short Stories annual series. When that job ended, coinciding with her family's move to rural New Hampshire, Kenison began writing this deeply felt narrative about the transitions in her life as a mother.

Surely one of the most significant reasons I loved this book so much is that Kenison, like me, is the mother of two sons; hers were born three years apart, mine a little over four. It is her sons' passage from little boys into adolescents and then young adults, which forms the backbone of her generous reflections on what it means, as a parent as a woman, to both hang on and to let go.

Though I wasn't planning to, early in my reading of the book, I grabbed a pad of those page-marking sticky notes. Before long, the edges of the book resembled a fringed throw rug.

One of the first things I marked is this: "Whether we choose change or it chooses us, the only thing we can know for sure is that security of any kind is an illusion. The life we know is always in the process of becoming something else."

There are dozens of others. Some strike me as beautiful examples of lovingly crafted nonfiction, while others speak to me more directly. Like me, Kenison struggles with making choices for one child, whose needs and aspirations are slightly off center, and worrying about how it will affect the other.

Once, distracted by too many mothering demands in one direction, she'd forgotten about the pet hermit crabs. Later, she writes, "And though the shells have been empty now for almost three years, each time I look at them, these humble relics of our former life, my heart clenches a little, with an old sadness that still comes when I wonder if, at a tender and vulnerable time in his life, we let our younger son down by trying so hard to do right by our older one."

Another passage which grabbed me: "And so I gather up the monotonous winter days, the snow days, the mundane weeknights, the hours we spend together watching a silly TV show, and I string them together in my mind like matched pearls on a thread, finding satisfaction in their very sameness. Ordinary days. The days in which nothing momentous happens, no great victories are won, no huge disappointments suffered, no milestones achieved. Most of our lives are made up of days just like this – if we're lucky, that is…"

And finally, my favorite sentence of all in the entire book:

"It would be so easy to forget to love this life, to just go through the motions, doing what needs to be done, as if it's all going to last forever."

I hope you will watch Kenison read from her book to a group of parents gathered in a living room, and/or visit her blog.

Typing Does Not Equal Writing, and other not-so-funny advice via David Sedaris

As I mentioned last week, I'm working my way through the book And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Top Humor Writers on their Craft. I found much of what David Sedaris had to say in his interview answers went beyond humor writing, right to the heart of writing craft and process.

Here are a few insights I especially liked:

"Q: How long does it generally take for you to write a story?

A: It can take years. With the first draft, I just write everything. With the second draft, it becomes so depressing for me, because I realize that I was fooled into thinking I'd written the story. I hadn't – I had just typed for a long time. So I then have to carve out a story from the 25 or so pages. It's in there somewhere – but I have to find it. I'll then write a third, fourth, and fifth draft, and so on."

When asked about how he sometimes edits his existing essays for reading to an audience, Sedaris described his preparation process, which also applies to the essay when it's still in revision. I believe this is good advice whether or not you will ever read your work aloud (although most writers will at some point read to a group). I read everything out loud, when I'm home alone, always standing up:

"When I hear myself reading out loud, I hear things I don't hear when I read (silently) to myself. When I read aloud, I always have a pencil in hand. If I feel I'm trying too hard, or I'm being repetitive, I make a mark. An editor can tell you those same things, but you don't necessarily believe the editor. So it's good to just learn those things on your own, and then to fix them as much as you can before you turn in the piece to the editor."

About how reading and writing intersect, a favorite topic of mine, he says, in part:

"…On the other hand, I also became a reader around this time (when he was studying art), which is so important for a writer. If I read a story in The Atlantic, I would be in a daze afterward. It just meant so much to me. When I later taught at the Art Institute (of Chicago), I could very easily spot the students who never read. Their stories would be shit. I would point to their work and then to a published work. I'd ask, 'Do you see a difference between these two things?' A lot of student couldn't see the difference. For them, there was no hope."

And, within a much longer answer to a question about the empirical truth, exaggeration and re-creation in nonfiction, he notes: "Memoir is the last place you should ever look for the truth."

I agree with that statement, in this way: My interpretation of his implication is that the only "truth" a writer can infuse into memoir is not centered on accuracy, factualness, or provable history; but only the writer's "truth" which is more about meaning, perception, recollection, and an honest personal and emotional exactness.

I highly recommend this book as so many of the other interviews are wonderful, too. By the way, I don't know this book's editor and haven't been asked by anyone to write something nice about it. Just passing on what I find useful, and hoping you find it of interest, too.

The Intersection of Writing and Reading: Part Two.

The subject today is again about the intersection of writing and reading.

But this time, not so much a rant about reading, as an attempt to unpack another question I get asked a lot by less experienced writers in classes and workshops: Should I avoid reading too much of the kind of material I want to write?

This one is less black and white as why writers need to read, though at first blush it appears to warrant a quick answer, as in, no of course not, don't be so silly.

But if I'm understanding the question properly – and since I've asked people who pose it to explain exactly what they mean, I think I do – the inquiry boils down to: If I read too much of the kind of writing I aspire to, won't I, even unintentionally, begin to mimic others' style? Won't I get another writing voice in my head when I should be listening only to my own?

First things first.

I believe we must read deeply and broadly from what I call our writing sweet spot: If you aspire to be a humorist, you read good humor writers. If you hope to write about trauma or a painful past, you read nonfiction which tackle trauma and painful pasts. If you want to write historical fiction, you read a lot of historical fiction. Poets read poetry. You get the idea.

The reasons are obvious – to see how others do it, and how well and how remarkable it is possible to be on the page. You'll discover places you can go with your work that you never considered before. You will also sometimes encounter stuff you don't want to do.

If you wanted to build an entire new kitchen in your home and you had very little building experience or maybe your building experience was only comprised of building commercial offices, and your cousin the master builder was putting in a new kitchen at a house just down the road and invited you to come along and watch, well - wouldn't you?

The next part, the notion of being unduly influenced by other writers is interesting but really not all that different. In short, I wouldn't really worry about it.

In the above example, your eventual kitchen might utilize some of the same techniques as your cousin's, and who knows, maybe even some of the same materials and similar colors and appliances as your cousin's, but it wouldn't BE that same kitchen. It wouldn't even look much like his kitchen because your house has different dimensions, and structural constraints, and you have a different budget and differing taste. Maybe he was building a showpiece kitchen for folks who mostly eat out, but yours is a kitchen for people who love to cook at home.

Your writing style will be your own, your writing will be your own too. You can't help that. You are stuck with yourself. Usually, for most artists, that's a very good thing. And you know what, if you end up writing like the next (fill in the name of any literary god) well is that a bad thing?

If you were (even subconsciously) to be so heavily influenced by another writer that you began to write in his/her style, that's also not bad news. A little imitation is often a good writing teacher; in fact many writing teachers assign imitative writing as a craft exercise.

Going forward, you won't be able to maintain that imitative style anyway. Your own writing proclivities, quirks and style will always win out. Even if you tried with every ounce of your being to write exactly like a fabulous (or even a bad!) writer, you can't. At least not for more than a few pages. And probably not even that long. Plus, you have different reasons for writing, and different experiences, different ideas about language, a different vocabulary, different urges and intention. That writer has one thing to say, and you have another.

Another reason TO read widely from the sliver of bookshelf you hope to one day occupy is to discover where your material fits in. Do you, as you hope, really have anything new to add to the literary conversation?

Now, having said all of that I also have to admit that there's something to be said for NOT reading from your writing sweet spot at certain times.

What times? Some writer say when they are deeply entrenched in a project, at one stage or another according to their own lights, that's when they want to screen out voices that are maybe a little too close to their writing voice.

I know a few memoir writers who read memoirs voraciously in between projects and up until the early stages of a new manuscript. But then they switch to reading third person fiction so that the only first person voice they are hearing in their heads as they are writing, is their own. I know one young adult novelist who will only read journalism while she's working on the first draft of a book, but then once she's sure of the arc of the story, she's okay with reading everything again.

When I'm reading a book for review, I tend to not read any other book in the same genre at the
same time. When I'm in the revision stages, or rewriting, a memoir piece, I too avoid reading memoir. But when I write personal essay, I practically inhale other personal essays. Everyone's different.

Then there's this.

Most writers I know (me too) will tell you that when stuck, the first place we go is to the bookshelf. Why? Well sometimes we just want to read for a bit, to get out of our own work and inside someone else's, to distract ourselves, but not leave the world of words entirely. But more likely, we want to see how X author (or ten other writers) did it. We're not looking to crib easy "answers" but to get inspired by writers we respect, to reassure ourselves that it's possible to get out of whatever writing corner we've gotten ourselves into.

I like this quote from a legendary stage performer, who was asked how he'd advise aspiring artists: "Watch the masters at work."

As writers, we "watch" the masters at work by reading what they've written.

Of Writing, Reading, and a Rant

Warning: I feel a rant coming on.

Look, I’m no authority on how reading affects the writer's brain or creative process other than what I know intuitively, logically and via personal experience, and what I've gleaned by reading about this issue, and from talking with other writers.

But I do know this: you can't be a writer if you are not a reader. A big reader.

Seems to me writers have to be readers by default, else how would any of us even know we want to write in the first place? Maybe that's a little too simplistic; the urge to communicate is not limited to marks on paper, after all, but I'm talking about wanting to write so that others can read what one has written. How else do we get that urge other than from experiencing writing first as a reader?

We all start out as readers before we are writers.

And yet in many classes and workshop I run, I'm gobsmacked by writers, in the early stages of their writing life, who claim not to be especially interested in reading and/or say they don't have time to read.

Here's what I say: If you don't have time to read, maybe you don't really have time to write either.

Let's say all you have available to devote to writing is a two hour chunk of time per a week. I'm suggesting you read for an hour and write for an hour, and over the long haul, the writing will be far better than if you had written for those full two hours.

Reading feeds writing. Reading good writing opens the door to a deeper understanding of craft, possibility, creativity. Reading teaches us to think as writers, and to know, in our bones, what it feels like to be consumers of writing.

Can vocal students NOT listen to recordings of vocal performances? To songs? To the radio, CDs, to each other? Do hopeful downhill ski racers progress by watching cross-country competitions, or by watching no skiing at all? Are there visual artists out there who rarely look at others' paintings? What would happen to a chef who rarely ate other chefs' cooking?

I don't get it and don't think I ever will. Most writers, if they've spent enough time thinking about what it is about their craft which they love, realize they are enthralled not only with the act of writing, but by the "moving parts" of writing, which we only notice by reading -- individual words and the millions of ways they can be put together, meaning and language, story, the cadence of words strung together, the rhythm and style of favorite lines. So why wouldn't we always want to experience more of that?

I believe a writer's reading life has a lot to do with what kind of a writer one chooses to be, or can continue to be. I love to read from many different genres and media, but it wasn't until I realized just how much nonfiction I was reading that I realized it was what I mostly wanted to write. The more I found my way to the top of the creative nonfiction reading pile, the more excited I was to try to secure a place there myself. In that sense, I feel that writing, as a personal act as well as the process which produces a public piece of literary art, cannot grow out of anything except aspiration.

And when the writing is not going so well, the answer is often not more writing. The answer to a writing problem is often more reading.

What say you?

P.S. Read anything good lately?