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

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

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!

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

Friday Fridge Clean Out – Links for Writers, Jan. 28, 2011 Edition

►Novelist Nina Vida on how she resurrected a 20-year-old, traditionally published novel of hers, revised and independently rebirthed it as an ebook on her own.

► A lovely post by Ellen Meeropol on the writer's job of writing AND reading, over at Word Love, the blog of novelist Randy Susan Meyers. And another one over there by Karen Dionne, with the author's perspective on the making of an audiobook.

► Two writing sites I hadn't seen before: Life Story Writing and Extreme Writing Now. The latter, among other things, offers writing prompts, and you know how crazy I am about prompts.

► I mentioned his Chronicle of Higher Education essay here a few weeks ago, and now The Shadow Scholar, who earned a living ghosting college term papers and graduate theses, has, predictably, landed a book deal.

►Amazon is now selling Kindle Singles, short (10K – 30K words), priced at $2.99 or less. Interesting assortment of authors on their first offering list, ranging from Darin Strauss to Pete Hamill, Ron Rosenbaum to actress Claudia Lonow.

►Esquire magazine contributing writer Chris Jones (who wrote the wonderful piece on film critic Roger Ebert and his cancer battle last year) has a new blog, where anything might come up.

► I'm looking forward to seeing Andrew Rossi's Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times, which recently captured much attention at Sundance.

► Finally, a hilarious digression -- submit to this "journal" and eliminate the agony of waiting to hear if your submission has been rejected.

Have a great weekend.

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?

Books in My Bag: Used Bookstore Haul, part II

The other day I posted about a mini-spree at a used bookstore and mentioned the memoirs I had picked up. Today, I'll fill you in on the books about writing that wound up in my bag.

Bookworms: Great Writers and Readers Celebrate Reading, edited by Laura Furnam & Elinore Standard (Carroll & Graf, 1997). Sixty short essays by a wide-ranging and somewhat eclectic collection of noteworthy writers and readers, including: Tobias Wolff, W. H. Auden, Sven Birkets, Charles Lamb, Miep Gies, Jane Kenyon, Alan Cheuse, Wallace Stevens, and Anne Lamott. I opened to a page at random and found this: "Reading while watching baseball on television is especially fine, and given light reading, is easily brought off with the help of the instant replay. Why do one thing at a time when you can do two? And between the two done simultaneously, light reading and watching television, the former almost always wins out." – Joseph Epstein

The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White (Fourth edition, 2000). Yes I already have two copies. So what? This one is in a larger format, in pristine condition; mine are tattered, yellowed and often out on loan. Plus there's a foreword by writer (and White's stepson) Roger Angell, who says, "Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time." My favorite Strunk & White admonition? Two: "Don't explain too much," and "Be clear."

The Writer on Her Work, edited by Janet Steinburg (Norton, 1980). Another essay collection, bringing the total of essay collections on my shelf to…oh, you don't want to know! Essays by 17 notable women writers, including so many favorites – Joan Didion, Toni Cade Bambara, Mary Gordon, Honor Moore, Maxine Hong Kingston. Opened at random, I read this: "A writers needs certain conditions in which to work and create art. She needs a piece of time; a peace of mind; a quiet place; and a private life." – Margaret Walker.

Roget A to Z, edited by Robert L. Chapman (Harper Perennial, 1994). Yes, I use an online thesaurus; yes I have a battered old copy of Roget's from college. But, you should see this one. Nearly three inches thick. So beautifully laid out, graphically and visually pleasing. And organized alphabetically. 300,000 words! I especially love the slightly tongue-in-cheek quotes, for example, under the synonyms and other information for the word conservative, you'll read: "the leftover progressive of an earlier generation - Edmund Fuller."

So that's my haul. What did you emerge with the last time you stepped into a bookstore, used or otherwise?

Reading Anything I Want To Read. Not so Much Fun After All.

Ask MFA students what they are looking forward to post-graduation and chances are they will say something about gaining back control over their reading. Throughout most MFA programs, and for very good reasons, the reading list is determined by curriculum, faculty, genre track, workshop focus, seminar assignments, and other factors. Some students have input (three of my four faculty mentors considered my ideas when developing the semester reading list). But it's not just that the reading list is more or less dictated, but other factors are too: the speed at which we must read, the staggering quantity and the nature of the reading, and the necessity of reading with notebook nearby, jotting thoughts for annotations and/or critical research theses.

As an MFA student moves through the program's two (or three or four) year cycle, perhaps like me, each accumulates a bigger than usual stash of "to be read" books either on their shelves, or on an overlong list. "I can't wait to read what I want when I want," is a common lament.

What's that expression? Oh yes, Be careful what you wish for.

In the nine months since my MFA program ended, I've read and read and read. Anything I want, anytime I want. At my own pace. Just because. Reading heaven, no? No.

There are many days when I wish I had a list, an annotation deadline, a seminar prep requirement based on an assigned book. In other words, now that I can read what I want when I want, as quickly or as slowly as I want, there are days when I have no idea what I want.

I would like a new reading list, please. For life.

For a while I determined to read the literary classics I was too embarrassed to admit having never read in their entirety (or at least not for decades). I bought Speak, Memory, but constantly forget it's on my shelf. There too, sits most of Jane Austen. I did begin St. Augustine's The Confessions (reportedly the first Western autobiography ever written). I guiltily admit I abandoned it on page 11, though I did read the entire 31 page preface by Patricia Hampl (see below).

In less ambitious moments, I declared (to no one except myself) that once the MFA was over, I'd read any old dumb book I wanted, just for fun. Or, having concentrated on nonfiction during the MFA, I vowed to read only novels, and maybe even some not-so-great ones, too. Then there was the long list of books and authors I wanted to check out, those recommended by faculty members and visiting authors and fellow students. I planned to read the dozen or so newly published books written by recent graduates (and fellow students) of my program. And those published by members of the rich, extended writing community at home, which I'd dutifully purchased – and stored. These now stand, along with (oh God, I am going to say it in print – the nearly 200 other not-yet-read books), in one bookcase in my home office, fully dedicated to future reading, their spines uncracked.

So you'd think I wouldn't have any trouble deciding, on a day to day basis, what to read. You'd be wrong.

Here's what happens. I stand before the shelves. Wonder what kind of a reading mood I'm in. Ask myself if there's anything I should be reading. Muse over what I want to read that day – fiction, memoir, biography, poetry, essays, history, genre fiction, the newspaper, a cookbook, 100 Klean Korny Jokes for Kids?

You see the problem. It's a combination of riches – so many books, so much time, too few outside expectations. (Well, the abundant time is actually a fallacy, but compared to the amount of "leisure" reading time available during an MFA program, I feel positively overrun with "free" time now.)

I stare at the shelves. I scan titles. I pull out one and then another and another book and make a small pile of "possibles." I read the first pages of each, the acknowledgments page, the jacket copy. Then I put them all back on the shelf and start again with another pile. Finally, I choose a handful of books and scatter them around – night table, breakfast counter, car, desk, coffee table. I may start all of them at once and see which one wins me over. I may start just one and work my way methodically through the group. I may lose interest altogether and find myself back at the shelves, staring.

The only three exceptions to this debilitating dithering are: if I'm writing something which leads me naturally to wanting to read a particular author or book; if I've recently promised someone I would read their book and respond; and if I've been assigned a book review. (See – expectations and deadlines are just grand, no?)

It's not that I haven't been enjoying my reading time post-MFA. It's just that I often don't have the sense, which I did all through the program, that whatever it is that I'm reading at the moment, has a purpose. And I also miss the delicious ability to say to my family, "I'm busy reading for school." (Yes, I know that for a writer, reading is an essential part of writing, indeed as essential as the actual writing. Try explaining to hungry kids and a spouse who just arrived home through 90 minutes of rush hour traffic, that dinner is not ready because Mom was reading.)

Lately when I look over the books I've read in a given week or month (ready to be reshelved in the "already read" cases), I get a sick feeling – not because the reading experience itself was not satisfying, but because I wonder: Was there was something I should have read instead? Did I read closely enough (as closely as if I had to annotate)? Or I panic at the overall "message" my reading might be sending (to whom I don't know).

And then there's the (lack of a) method of how I choose books lately – you'd think I had no literary education at all. Last week I read Jane Hamilton's terrific novel, A Map of the World. Why? Because my son, who loves maps, saw it on my shelf and asked, "Mom, what's this book about?" I'd forgotten I had it. So I read it. And was glad I did. But is that any way to choose? A few weeks ago I read Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen. Why? I needed a pick-me-up and the cover art reminded me of my sister. Not too long ago I read An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Home in New England by Brock Clarke. Reason? Maybe because the cover was red or the fact that I'd recently returned from New England. Then I re-read, for perhaps the fourth time, the first half of The Florist's Daughter by Patricia Hampl. This at least I understood. For anyone who attempts to write memoir and falls into a crevasse of doubt – or maybe I should say for women over the age of 45 who attempt to write memoir and find themselves straddling too many familial lines -- a lifeline from Hampl seems only natural.

For a while I thought it would help if I reported here on the blog on what I was currently reading, or had just read, or was about to start reading, that perhaps I'd make wiser or richer literary decisions that way. But it was far easier just to stop putting that information on the blog, instead.

None of this haphazard book selection malaise is in evidence when I choose reading material for my students. Then, I make sure-footed decisions and present precise lists of books and authors, carefully curated to address specific writing issues. And perhaps those students find themselves thinking that once the 8- or 10-week class is over, phew, then they can go back to reading what they want.

I wish them well. But I've found that being one's own reading czar is not as much fun as I'd anticipated. And now, I need to end this post, which I have a feeling was just another way to put off choosing a few books for the week ahead.

Suggestions?