What is your earliest smell memory?

Mine is of the smell of wood chips baking in the sun.  The wood chips in question lined the playground at my first elementary school, that I attended as a four year old.  This school was in the Haight, where it is seldom sunny, but in my memory the playground always smelled of sun baking into wood, and it's a smell that still makes me feel a little queasy.  I remember sitting on top of the parallel bars, where I felt myself to be (or ought to have been) safely above the throng of playing kids, and where every day a slightly larger and older child named Omsi (could it have been spelled this way? but how else could it be spelled?) would sneak up on me and spit in my ear.  I tried everything I could think of to get her to stop, including telling on her, but the adults I told didn't seem to take the offense all that seriously, maybe because I couldn't really prove it and there was little to show for it.  One day Omsi was on the bars when I got there, and without really thinking about it I ran up and pushed her, as hard as I could, off the bars, and she fell hard and cut her face and bled on the wood chips, and I swear that I could smell the irony tang of her blood too, baking into them in the sun, and I swear I meant it when I said that I was sorry, that it was just an accident. 

I write like...

http://iwl.me/

Check out this very strange website that analyzes a few paragrpahs of your writing and tells you who you write like.

I apparently write like Chuck Palaniuk, a fact I find hilarious and way off target, not that I'd mind writing like the author of Fight Club.  I remember hearing him read and talk once, and how how said that he emulates Amy Hemphill, which also seemed like a strange and unlikely comparison to me.


UPDATE: Someone inputted a section of the phone book into this database and was told that they write like Thomas Hardy.  So: maybe not such a good judge of authorial influence.  Good to know that as of yet, computers can not do a writer's job. 

PPP or "Post a Paragraph Project"

Thanks (or no thanks) to the dated nature of blog posts, I (and you) can see that it has been two months since my last one.  Truthfully, I am finding the shift from book promotion to...something else, I'm not quite sure what yet, a little uncomfortable.  Lots of writers complain that promoting their books takes up too much time, and I agree that it was time consuming, but there was part of me that found it comfortably "doable" as well, compared to the nebulous and uncertain process of writing new fiction.  I'm a good student.  I can do assignments, no problem.  Each article or interview felt like a homework assignment, with known parameters: a specific word count, guaranteed readers. 

There is such a huge difference between the first year of a project, before you can even say for sure what that project is, and the last year that you spend with a finished book, in which you try to help it find its way in the world by getting it into readers' hands. 

I spend a lot of time, in my writing teaching, talking to people who are feeling in some way stuck or intimidated or uncertain how to form and sustain the disciplined and regular writing practice that everyone says is necessary in order to get much writing done.  I know the advice to give, but that doesn't mean that I can follow it all of the time.  (I'm like the fat gym teacher).  There are two things that I almost always tell people who are stuck in or feeling daunted by the early stages of a project, because I believe that if you follow these two pieces of advice, you will get unstuck and make breakthroughs.

1.  When you don't know quite what to write about, use prompts.  It doesn't really matter what they are.  Just having something to trigger you, something to respond to, will get you writing, and your writing will lead you where it wants to go.

2.  Keep writing forward.  Don't waste today self-editing what you wrote yesterday, before you even know what your story is really going to be about.  Write a lot before you worry about whether you're making the perfect craft choices.  You might need to write 3000 words before you find the right beginning for a piece, and that's fine. 

With this in mind, and because I would love to hear other voices, I'd like to try and experiment that I am calling, "The Post a Paragraph Project."  If you happen upon this site and this post, and you're looking for a creative kick-start like I am, I encourage you (would beg be too strong of a word?) to respond to my post (I'll put up a new one every few weeks, if there is any response to this letter in a bottle I'm sending out), do a free write and then post your favorite paragraph of it here for others to see.

First prompt:

Write a memory, fictional or non, based on the song, "You Are My Sunshine."

I'll respond to the paragraphs if anyone puts them up. 

dziękuję

Today my novel sold its first (the word "first" seems optimistic, bordering on vain, but I'm keeping it) foreign rights: to Poland.  Having lived in France and Japan, I have harbored fantasies of being translated into those languages and as a result being able to travel back to visit old friends and haunts in countries I know and love.  While I'm extremely happy to be translated into Polish, I find myself curious as to what in particular about my book struck a nerve with the Polish foreign rights person, and also how they are going to translate Miyoshi-sensei's letters, written in "Japlish," or English with a Japanese flair, into Polish?  

At a conference recently, participants were asking about how much control authors have over their foreign translations, and how you can be certain that things like humor and poetry don't get lost in it.  The answer is, I'm pretty sure, that you have no control, and you can't know what might be lost (or possibly even gained?) in a language you can't speak or read.

The writer Stephen Koch talks about how writing a book requires you to keep taking and relinquishing control.  You have to relinquish the reins to produce and get to the end of those early, free flowing drafts, and then take hold of them again in revision, and back and forth, times fifty or more, until the thing is finally "done," which really just means sold.  I was once at a reading where an author was making comments and adjustments in the margins of the published copy of her story collection, based on the responses of people in the room.  In other words, she was revising a finished book.  She couldn't give up control by calling it done.

She looked, frankly, crazy, crossing words out in the middle of a reading.  But I understand, to a point.  Getting to the end--of a book, or (as is now the case in my life) a book tour--is bittersweet.  Completion is satisfying, but done can feel like dead.  As long as you're still working on something, still engaged in solving its problems, it still has potential.  And potential is comfortable, a soothing word, full of hope and promise, especially for those of us who remember our student days with fondness, when everything was still up ahead.  Calling something done means saying, "this is as good as I could do for now," and then opening it for judgment.  Finishing something also means that you have to start something else, knowing how long it's going to take, and how arduous and awkward that process of repeatedly taking and surrendering control can be.

But it's also exciting.  I've been in the finishing stages of novel production and dissemination for a while now, and while it has been a pleasure--especially getting to know other writers and readers as a result of this book--I'm starting to miss the early part, the drafting, where you give up control to such an extent that you don't really know what you're really writing about as you're writing, let alone whether it even has potential.  It's scary, but it's also exhilarating.  Only by surrendering that control while moving forward do you open up the possibility for great surprises.

I'll never get to know how my novel reads in Polish, whether the funny parts are still funny or not, but I don't mind.  I'm excited for it to have a new life, beyond this country and the one in which it's set.  It may be done--my part at least--but it's not dead.

Ten Tips for Writers

My final post for The Well-Read Donkey:

While I'm relatively new to the world of blogs, much of my work as a creative writing instructor has taken place online.  For the past three years since its inception, I have been teaching creative writing workshops through Stanford's Online Writer's Studio.

http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/courses/onlinewriters.php).

I help facilitate this program, planning the curriculum and training instructors, as well as leading my own workshops in both fiction and creative nonfiction every quarter.

The program started when I was pregnant, and it was a job I was able to keep doing even when my son was a newborn (sometimes holding live chat hours while nursing--a fact which I didn't share at that time with my students).  I had taught writing in the classroom before that, and I enjoyed the chemistry of a live interaction, the crackle of excitement when a class is going especially well.  But I was surprised and pleased to find that I love teaching writing classes online just as much.  It's not the same, and you do miss certain aspects of the live classroom, but there are definite tradeoffs.  I enjoy being able to work at odd hours in my pajamas, a glass of wine by the computer and my feet propped on my desk.  I also like the intense focus of getting to know my students through their writing, and I do feel like I get to know them as people, which was confirmed when I met a group of them for dinner before the Kepler's reading. They were even more remarkable in person than on the page, which is saying a lot.

For my final post, I thought I would share some tips or suggestions that I give students in my writing workshops, for those of you out there who are beginning writers, or struggling with some stage of the process (as we all do from time to time).

1.  Make and stick to a regular writing schedule, and keep that time sacred--no email or checking facebook.  It doesn't have to be four hours per day, seven days per week.  In fact, setting a goal that's too lofty might doom you to fail, and that feeling of failure might keep you from picking up and trying again.  Be ambitious but also realistic.  If you're busy with a job and family, but you can carve out one hour each morning before the kids wake up, then try setting your alarm clock an hour early--even just two or three days per week.  If you go from zero hours per week to three hours per week, you'll be accomplishing three times more than you were before.  If you have Sunday afternoons free, then try setting those aside.  I just read an interview with a young adult novelist who has written three books using one weekend day per week to write.  The point is that you don't have to make it a full-time job, but you do have to set aside time to do it, and regularity and consistency tend to work wonders for writers.

2.  Whether you are in a writing workshop or not (and I definitely think they're a good idea, especially for those just getting started, to learn craft basics) find a writing friend, someone at about the same stage as you are, and trade work on a regular basis.  Having a close reader, and hearing that person's take on your work, will help you to be able to revise it.  Without a reader, it's very hard to have any objective sense of what's working well and what could still use improvement.  You can definitely use readers who aren't also writers, but I find that fellow writers tend to be better at giving constructive feedback.  It's nice to hear, "This is fabulous," but only hearing praise won't help you to grow or your writing to improve.  (Yes, I'm a big believer in revision.  Without it, I wouldn't be a writer).

3.  Do exercises.  I love prompts.  I love to give them to the classes I teach, and I love to be given them as well.  The secret about writing prompts is that it almost doesn't matter what they are.  You might be staring at a blank page, with no idea what to write, feeling utterly uncreative, and if I were to say, "In your first paragraph, make sure that there is a prosthetic arm, an animal and a hot beverage," I have no doubt that you would soon pick up your pen and a story would start to flow.  In grad school at Iowa, my friend Chelsey and I used to give each other arbitrary prompts like this, and it never failed both to amuse us and to trigger our imaginations.  The point of a prompt or exercise should never be to force you to do an assignment "perfectly."  There is no "wrong" way to follow a prompt.  The point is to trick your mind into forgetting about self-consciousness and perfectionism, and to get you free associating and imagining things outside yourself, and writing and enjoying writing.  You can make up your own exercises, or pick up a book like What If that's full of great prompts.

4.  Read four times more than you write.  This was the advice given by Frank Conroy (rip), the legendary former director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, when I was a student there.  It can be hard to follow when you're frantically busy, trying to hold a job, raise kids, walk the dog, exercise--oh yeah, and write.  That said, it is crucial that you read at least as much as you write, and that you read both in the form that you want to write in, and also in other forms.  You will not learn to write amazing short stories unless you are actively reading as many short stories as you can get your hands on, seeing all sorts of variations on the form, figuring out what works for you and also what you're not enamored of.  You won't be able to write a mystery if you don't read mysteries, or have a good idea of the goals and limitations of young adult fiction without becoming an expert reader of the genre.  But also read nonfiction, magazines, histories, biographies.  Saturate yourself in the written word.

5.  Take in other art forms, as many and as often as you can.  When I'm really stuck on a piece of writing, I've been trying and trying to figure out how to fix it, and the hours of applying the seat of my pajamas to the seat of my chair just aren't doing the trick, sometimes the thing that helps me most is to take an afternoon off and use it to go see a matinee or go to a museum or listen to music while taking a walk.  Visual art is especially helpful and inspiring to me, as is movement.  I've had story breakthroughs while jogging and listening to a favorite song on repeat.  After a lot of struggle, it's often when I surrender and stop trying so hard, and so consciously, that I'm able to figure out what I need to do to make a piece of writing work.

6.  Try the accordion approach to revision.  If one draft is really long and expository, with way too much backstory and lengthy asides, try making the next draft as streamlined as possible, cutting out everything that could possibly go without making the story overly opaque, perhaps sticking mainly to dialogue and just a few stage directions.  Then, on the revision after that, add back in the lines and details that you really miss and don't want to live without.  In other words, grow a long draft, then shrink it to the bare minimum, then grow it again, then shrink it...  After doing this a few times, you'll probably land on a final version that is just the right length.

7.  When you're learning how to write--and even after you're a seasoned writer, if possible--try not to think about getting published as long as you can possibly stand it.  Write as if no one were going to read your writing, allowing yourself to be fearless with the feelings and details that you put on the page, vulnerable and brave and experimental, even ruthlessly honest.  Take every risk that tempts you as a writer.  There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to get published, but my perception is that most people who focus on this too soon actually hurt their writing and (ironically) their chances of eventually finding their way into print. 

8.  When I was at a stage with my novel where I had been working on it for a few years but couldn't yet see the end, I was laboring to make pieces come together, and I didn't know if they ever would, I started to feel incredible resistance and resentment toward writing, and I actually made a header for my manuscript that said, "Remember that you choose to write, and try to have fun."  For me, it was helpful to remember that no one was forcing me to do this.  I could have been spending that time doing something to earn money, or out at a restaurant or walking on the beach.  No one had a gun to my head. 

9.  Have a boring job or have a baby.  I say this somewhat jokingly, and yet I found that a lot of that resentment or resistance that I just described went away after I had a child and suddenly found myself with a lot less time to spend on my writing.  Furthermore, the writing time I did have were costing me a lot in childcare, not to mention time away from my kiddo.  I no longer felt that I could afford to waste that time, but also--interestingly, because I hadn't anticipated this--I appreciated that time more.  I was less likely to torture myself over revising and re-revising the same paragraph over and over.  Having less time in which to write made me want to use what little time I have more efficiently.  I am a bit less precious and perfectionistic about my writing, more willing to move forward, to call something finished in order to move on to another project.

10.  Write the poem/story/article/book that you wish you could be reading, but that you haven't found out there in the world.  This is my favorite piece of advice, that I always come back to as a writer, and pass along to writing students whenever I can.  You will do your best writing if you feel passion for your subject, and if you're saying something that you think needs to be said, and hasn't yet, at least not quite the way that you want to say it. Don't copy someone else's book, even if it's a book you love.  That book already exists, and doesn't need to be rewritten. 

If anyone feels like commenting, I'd love to have other people add to the list of tips for writers.

What inspires you, keeps you going when it's going slowly, or helps you out when you're stuck?

And since I mentioned the fact that I was pregnant when I started teaching online, and then the way that having a baby proved unexpectedly useful (not to mention challenging) to me as a writer, I thought I'd post a picture of said child holding my book.  Shameless, I know.  But he'll never let us get away with forcing him into cute poses like this later on, or let me write about him either, I suspect.

Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Whom?

A change of scenery, for once.

Just for fun, I wrote this piece on an earlier experience abroad that I had as a 16-year-old on AFS, placed with a completely crazy (and rather wonderful) family in the suburbs of Paris.  

http://www.wowowow.com/culture/french-women-sexuality-malena-watrous-456599

The Accidental Blog Tourist

Last month, while I stayed home, my novel went on a “virtual tour” of book blogs. The person who set this up encouraged me to visit the tour stops and contribute to each comments thread, to thank the bloggers and answer potential readers’ questions. I found this a little embarrassing, as if I were eavesdropping on conversations about me (which I was) or obsessed with people’s opinions about the book. I’ve heard some writers swear that they never read their reviews, good or bad, and while I’m not sure I believe them, I can understand why this might be wise.

The tour started with a book blogger who didn’t want to read “another depressing book about suicide,” and resented having to read about a woman in a relationship with another woman. She doesn’t like reading fiction in which the characters make “objectionable lifestyle choices,” a point she made more than once, carrying it into her comments thread. “The lesbian thing was the icing on the cake!” (Um—that sounds kind of good).

While I knew that I should just brush it off—clearly this wasn’t the right reader for my book—her review irritated me. She is entitled to her opinion, and her politics too, I guess. Still, her criticisms struck me as odd, coming from someone who apparently wants to review fiction, if not for a living then at least for free ARC’s and a public platform. When I write book reviews, I’m sometimes assigned novels that aren’t exactly my thing, books I wouldn’t necessarily choose to read in my free time, but I try to approach them on their own terms, not to contrast them with books closer to my taste.

I was tempted to remind her that fiction represents the spectrum of human experience, and that homosexuality and suicide both occur fairly frequently within that spectrum. But I figured she didn’t want to hear it from me. Besides, I didn’t want to be accused of recruiting. I chose not to post a comment on that particular blog post.

But aside from that first stop on the tour, the book bloggers who took the time to read and write posts on my novel were generous and insightful, measured in their varied opinions, which interested me greatly. Before the advent of book blogs, I don’t think that writers had the chance to see how readers (not just professional book critics) were responding to their choices on the page. Aside from that lingering feeling of voyeurism, it was cool to follow the comments threads, to see how something that one person mentioned especially liking could spur another reader to want to pick up a copy, or how the same thing could make a different reader decide this probably wasn’t the book for her.

The book bloggers and their followers were clearly passionate and close readers, and they made me doubt all of the fear-mongerers who have been dourly predicting the death of the novel, and the collapse of the print media as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that it’s an easy market for fiction writers—especially literary fiction writers. The print media is struggling, and book reviews in particular are dwindling or getting cut with disappointing frequency. I hadn’t realized how little print space there is for book reviews, compared to the number of books being published, until I paid a recent visit to the basement of the San Francisco Chronicle, a labyrinthine space devoted to the storage of galleys, most of them gathering dust before getting boxed up and donated to the library. There is precious little space left in print journalism for book reviews, most of which go to authors with established reputations and readership, making it hard for beginning writers to get attention paid to their books, so that they can find their readers.

But book bloggers are definitely working hard to compensate, and they’re doing a great job, not just filling a niche but creating something new and dynamic on their interactive sites. One of the things that I love about some of the book blogs that I only recently discovered, like Sasha and The Silverfish (http://silverfysh.wordpress.com), and The Constance Reader's Guide to Throwing Books With Great Force (www.constance-reader.com) is that there’s no market-driven pressure behind what they can choose to review, no need to satisfy advertisers or a particular demographic. They can blog about adult and young adult books, literary and genre fiction, just-published novels and classics. They also have space to do interviews or run pieces by guest bloggers. With readers able to leave comments (and authors encouraged to chime in on the comment threads) it fosters a real literary community, and gives me hope that the novel will survive and even thrive, in spite of (or maybe even because of) the changes in publishing.