Rediscovering old novels

I just started listening to Richard Ford's Independence Day and before that, listened to Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer, which I also loved. (She reads it on CD, too.)

I read new books for my show but if I can, I listen to older books while I'm driving, washing dishes, knitting, walking, and I love it.

Anyone else read any older books that you love?

(Rosie, our younger cat, loves books, too....)

Bring on the commas

Kate Braverman was on my show the other day talking about her new book of essays, Frantic Transmissions to and from Los Angeles. She had something interesting to say about letting loose with your writing: Use commas. Whenever you feel like using a period, use a comma instead. Commas, she said, start a kind of alchemy and create magic in your writing.

(I'm going to post that show this week. The one up there now is Kate when she was on a couple of years ago.)

I love that, though: Commas.....! Reminded me of what I occasionally ask my students to do--and what they often lament--during a freewriting: Write all one sentence. Then I set the timer for ten or 15 minutes. It's a great technique. It helps to break down the internal critic, to send that critic hobbling up the street for a coffee so you can be left alone to create.

Fiction frenzy

I have been in a fiction frenzy of late. When it comes to writing, all I want to do is work on my fiction. Being a teacher of writing and the author of a book on writing, and a coach, too, who advises writers on ways to get through blocks and make headway on projects, I'm examining why it is that now I'm in a fiction frenzy as regards my novel.

I've been working on it for a long time. I did freewriting for a year and when I came to about page 270 of 300 pages of freewriting, I discovered my story. The rest, as it turns out, was backstory.

So a year ago January I started on the draft. Now I'm on page 251 of the first draft. Well, it's not really the first draft. I do a draft and then I go back and tweak a little and then move on, go back a little, tweak, move on. Kind of a one step back, three steps forward dealybob.

I've passed the midpoint of the book--at page 251, one would hope I've passed the midpoint. And now my various subplots--and plot--seem to be coming into focus. The hardest part of the writing, for me, is figuring out what happens. I'm not an outliner or plotter. I tried once. I spent so much time on the outline and character biographies that when I was done, I no longer wanted to write the book. So I don't do that anymore.

But now, all the pieces of the story are in motion and when I sit down to write, I can pick from a handful of plots/subplots/characters and begin with them, and progress the story.

Doesn't hurt that the scenes I have been writing take place in Pennsylvania in the winter. In my book, it is snowing. Snow in winter is my favorite weather, so while I can't have that here, by the beach in Orange County, California, I can have that when I work on my book. The other night on my show Kathryn Davis, author of The Thin Place (she was also an influential writing instructor of mine), said place is everything for her in her books. Without place, she's unrooted, cannot go on. Now I see why. (By the way, that show will be podcast any day now--maybe even today. Go to http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com/ for updates.)

I had a deadline of April 1 but yeah, it's not going to happen. Maybe I should have picked a day other than April Fool's.

So, the point to all of this is, when you're into a draft and find yourself dragging your feet, just keep going. Know that there will come a point when you will feel excited again, as you did when you were first starting your book, and you will feel as if you are flying. It's like driving cross-country from coast to coast. If you've ever done this, you'll know what I mean. You are just about to Kansas and you think, I can't do this anymore. It's too far. But you've come such a distance to turn back now. You've got to keep going forward. What's the alternative? You've got to keep moving toward your destination, and soon the landscape picks up, there are mountains and interesting things to do and to look at. And then you are there.

It surely is about the journey, but you do want to get to your destination, too; to see your journey realized.

Valerie Takahama on Orange County writers and writing in the Orange County Register

A nice piece in the Orange County Register that mentions my show, among other writerly-related happenings in the O.C.

Click here.

And a piece on E.L. Doctorow in Time, pointed out to me by the illustrious Jordan Finkler.

Fat Tuesday

We're all Catholics around here and tomorrow is the first day of Lent, which will find us on a soup diet (except for Travis; he can eat all he wants) and no more sweets (or alcohol for me and Brian). Actually, Travis is giving up candy and soda but not all desserts. Lo que sea...... tonight, we're partying! Circus animal cookies, jelly beans, Milk Duds, white chocolate, and lots of Mardi Gras beads, wooo-hooo!

The books on the mantle have changed, too. From red (for Valentine's Day) to black, for the time of contemplation and quiet.

On the sun, snow and being tagged

Before I address the fact that I've been tagged, let me show you what I saw yesterday morning, our last day at Mammoth in the high Sierras. The rising sun streaked the wall of the guest room pink. Here, in Corona del Mar, architecture obscures the rising sun, oh woe.

So bleary-eyed, I pulled myself out of bed, found the camera on the nightstand, and pulled open the sliding door. The deck was icy cold. My eyes were drawn to the light on snow (the title to one of my favorite novels by Anita Shreve).

Now... about being tagged ....

Fellow ASJA member and blogger Candy Harrington (http://barrierfreetravels.com) tagged me this morning. What this means is I need to answer the questions below, or not play. Of course I'll play. Here goes:

Four Jobs in My Life
Parts runner for a Volvo dealer
Countergirl at Dunkin' Donuts
Avon lady (at 17)
Baker (first job in San Francisco)

Four Films I Could Watch Over and Over
Out of Towners (the original, with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Dennis)
Some Like it Hot (Jack Lemmon, again)
The Odd Couple
Bladerunner
Dead Calm
(whoops...that's five)

Four Places I Have Lived
Plainfield, Vermont
San Francisco
Altoona, Pennsylvania
Corona del Mar, California

Four TV Series I Like
I pretty much don't watch TV, but my 11-year-old son and I will watch...
The old Dick Van Dyke show
Turner Classic Movie Channel
Knitty Gritty on DIY Network
Unwrapped on the Food Network

Four Places I've Been on Vacation
Rajasthan, India
Palm Springs, CA
the outback of Maine (camping)
Singapore

Four Foods I love
Hot fudge sundaes (which I stay away from but find greatly compelling)
Tofu turkey (homemade)
Butterfingers
Risotto

Four Websites I Visit Daily
asja.org (The American Society of Journalists and Authors' forum)
writingclasses.com (Gotham Writers' Workshop (online; one place I teach)
knittersreview.com/forum (knitting forum; yes...I'm obsessed!)
laobserved.com (LAObserved: Los Angeles media, news, sense of place)

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now
As I answer this question, I am at one of the four places I'd rather be (if I were home): Mammoth Lakes, CA, in the Sierras
Italy
Somewhere in Vermont where the snow grows deep
New Zealand

Four Bloggers Who Should Play
Victor Infante (http://ocvictor.livejournal.com)
Joshua Berman (http://blog.stonegrooves.net)
Anne Elliott (http://assbackwords.blogspot.com)
Bookish Wendy (http://thebookishgirl.blogspot.com)

The most important part of a writer's anatomy

Ayelet Waldman, author of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, and wife of Michael Chabon, was on my show yesterday. At the end of my show, I usually ask my guests for advice for the writers out there.

Ayelet talked about the girls in prison that she teaches and that she asked them what was the most important part of a writer's anatomy. (What do you think it is? Before you read on, guess.... I asked my own students last night and they said, "The eyes," "the brain," "the heart." Her students gave similar answers. Yes, they are all important but that's not it.)

"Your butt!" she said. Because if your butt's not in the chair, nothins' gonna happen. No writing is going to get done.

Yep. A writer's butt reigns supreme.

Valentine's Day, book cover blurbs and more

Holidays are always festive around here. Brian should hold a class for men: How to do a holiday right.



From the bedroom to the living room and dining room, it's about four steps. But there were paper hearts, pink and red, strewn across the hardwood floor leading to the dining room table clotted with Valentine's Day gifts (Chet Baker CD, knitting books, journal, tank top, Jelly Belly candies) and more hearts and balloons. This is where I work, a foot away from the roses, transcribing my free writes from my Moleskine into the computer.

Travis is in holiday mode, just like his dad. A "you are the best mom" card and cut out hearts, too.

Of course after my protein smoothie I scarfed a ton of raspberry and blackberry candies. It's Valentine's Day, right?

Here's a piece from yesterday's New York Times about being careful which blurbs you wish for.

Fiction's compelling nature

My friend Allison directed me to this essay on fiction in The New York Times by Julia Glass who wrote Three Junes.

No lawyers?

Lawyers are ubiquitous, right? Not so in Frey's case. (I know, I know, I'm still writing about this. Forgive me!) It seems everyone wants to place blame on Sean McDonald or Nan Talese or James Frey. And while all of them are somewhat to blame, I suppose, the publishing house's in-house lawyer should be the one focused on, don't you think?

What about the laywer?? Prior to Pen on Fire being published, I had a long talk with Harcourt's lawyer. My book was being vetted--a writing book!

Didn't Frey's book go through a thorough vetting? So easy to place blame after the fact, isn't it?

Frey's editor wouldn't have been the one to ask all those questions. This is what lawyer's do--they ask those legal questions. Or should.

Just my humble three cents.

Oprah pregnant with Frey's baby???

Could it be? Click here for more.

Fiction or nonfiction? Who cares!

I keep going back to that Eleanor Roosevelt quote I like so well--one of my favorite quotes, really.

She said, "The reason fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature to those of us who really like to study people is that, in fiction, the author can tell the whole truth without hurting anyone--or humiliating himself--too much."

I don't get that memoir or nonfiction sells better than fiction. I read fiction for the essential truth. We all know that a lot of fiction writers embellish what happened with made up stuff. That's the fun of it. And certainly we know that memoirs--and not just Big Jim's--are replete with made up stuff. That's not so fun.

What about Hemingway's best book (in my opinion), A Moveable Feast, or Kerouac's On the Road? Are they fiction? Are they nonfiction? Who cares!

Mostly I care about the quality of writing and whether it moves me in some way--mostly whether it moves me to keep reading.

Right now I'm listening to Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed, which, by the way, is not what it seems. I really wish she had given this first book of hers a different title. So I'm lying down at my acupuncturist's this morning listening to it on CD and he comes in to check the needles and he asks what I'm listening to. I couldn't say, "Oh, it's Good in Bed. It sounds like some sort of porno dealybob. So I say, "Oh, it's a book by Jennifer Weiner. Her movie, In Her Shoes, just came out on DVD," as if this has anything to do with what I'm listening to.

Anyway, getting back to my point--I think I had a point.... Oh! Yes! It is that so much of Weiner's book seems autobiographical--the main character is an overweight woman, she's a writer in college and afterward--and I think, This must be from Weiner's life. But so much else obviously is made up, and I like that about the book, and about fiction--that you can embellish what did happen with what didn't.

This is what I love about writing fiction, too: I can tell the truth in fiction in ways I could never do in nonfiction.

I think I'm feeling a little sorry for Frey about now. He obviously had a story that entranced so very many. Would they have been less involved if he'd sold it as fiction? Wouldn't it be nice to drop categories and focus more on good stories, good writing?

Five favorite books?

Quick! If you had to name five must-read novels, what would they be? What comes to mind immediately?

One of my Gotham students asked me to name just five. Impossible! But I tried.

I said:

Underworld by Don DeLillo

Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow

Good Grief by Lolly Winston

Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner

Then I said, Light on Snow by Anita Shreve comes before Good Grief

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (Then I think I changed it to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy)

And now I can think of dozens more that are favorites.

So, name the first five favorite books that come to mind.

Thus spoke Evashevski

Frey's agent goes on record in Publishers Weekly.com.

Astrology's take

I'm sorry--I just had to post this. My resolve wasn't that strong, I guess...

Here's an astrological take on the latest literary fiasco in Beliefnet.com.

Heart? Intuition? Fun?

Okay, so Blogger straightened some things out. My main headline is now black instead of hot pink. This is good. I don't like the brown headings, though, at the start of each post. Do you?

My friend Sara suggests I do my own blog and she says she'll show me how so I can just link it to my Web site and not be so reliant on Blogger. Did I tell you Sara is an angel? (Sara, if you check in here, post your blog URL under comments if you're okay with that so everyone can visit).

So it's Saturday morning and I read an email from an author friend whose book came out last year and has done respectably. He was working on another proposal that his agent thought would sell--sort of a sequel. He says he woke up, shaking in his PJs, afraid that it was the wrong thing to be working on, and told his agent he changed his mind and was going to go in another direction. His heart just wasn't in it, not like the first book which was straight from the heart.

I wrote back to him, said his email raised an important question: How do you know when what your agent has in mind for you is the right thing, or not? In this wooly world of publishing, whose advice do you take? It's hard even listening to your own heart, your own intuition amid the din of what's selling.

Does it come down to having fun? What do you enjoy working on? If you enjoy it, then that's what you should be working on, and if you don't, scrap it?

Let's hear your comments....

These heading colors are driving me nuts...

...and depending what browser you use, formatting is off. Frustrating! No matter which template I choose for this blog, the headings remain hot pink and brown. Ergh. I've written to Blogger. No reply. Anyone know how to fix this?

Regarding other things in the news (I said I wasn't going to write about you-know-who anymore), I liked what Michael Wolff said (I think it was him) on Larry King Live last night, that we'd stay focused on the current debacle until another one takes its place. That's how we are, isn't it? Gotta have drama in our lives, the bigger, the better.

Being one who so easily can see both sides of a situation, and who hates conflict, I say, Publishers: Learn from this. Writers: Learn from this. Readers: Learn from this.

And let's move on.

Something's funky here

Sorry--Blogger.com has made some changes and caused my blog to look tres funky! Don't blame me.....! Hopefully it will change back soon.

Okay, one last post: Frey on Oprah tomorrow

From Publishers Weekly.com:

Frey Live on 'Oprah'
Our earlier report of James Frey's rumored appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show has been confirmed by a release from Harpo Productions. The author of A Million Little Pieces will break his post-Larry King silence to appear on a live hour-long show that will air tomorrow (Thursday, Jan. 26). Other guests will include publisher Nan Talese and "some of the country's leading journalists"--to address the headlines and controversy surrounding his memoir. No word on whether the Smoking Gun's William Bastone will be among them.

I am so sick of Frey's name in the news

This is from Publishers Weekly.com:

Frey Headed to Oprah?
With James Frey continuing to be the subject of intense media scrutiny, the author of A Million Little Pieces is reportedly headed to the Oprah Winfrey Show. Two separate sources said that Frey will be in Winfrey's studio tomorrow (Thursday), though it was unclear if the appearance will be live or taped for a future date. No one at Random House/Doubleday was available for comment at press time.

.......

I want to say that after this post right here and now, I will not post anymore about Frey. (Some people are obsessed with Jessica Simpson; I seem to be obsessed with the Frey debacle.) If you want to read about him, you'll have to Google his name, sign up for a news alert, and every time his name hits the paper, you'll be notified. More and more I just see him as a creep, like my friend Amy said. Sorry--I liked him when he was no my show but the worm has turned.