On being intimidated by a favorite writer’s work
I’m focused on my own writing right now, thus the dearth of longer posts, slowdown in reviewing, and trickle of remainders. I feel guilty about it, if that helps.
A couple weeks ago, I was reading Rupert Thomson’s gorgeously evocative, meticulously pared-down This Party’s Got to Stop.
About a third of the way through, I [...]
Making your brain (and fingers) keep going
A friend who just finished writing a(n excellent) book in a short period of time says you have to ignore your brain when it tells you it’s done for the day. You may think you can’t keep going, but if you push on, what comes out will be even better. The next day, do [...]
Suggested writers’ agenda for January
I’ve been thinking about Saul Bellow’s notion that “art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos.”
Coincidentally, Colson Whitehead has declared this ShThFuUpAnWoOnYrNo (Shut the fuck up and work on your novel) Month. And why not? It’s winter, you’re going to be miserable anyway. What better things [...]
Fears, impulses & dangers I’ve been sensitized to
I’ve written plenty of autobiographical essays, and I’m sure I’ll continue to write them, but at the LA Times I try to explain why I’m working on a novel rather than a memoir, even though I’m mining my own life for the book. An excerpt:
When I was 12, I [...]
The silence of a falling star: on Hank Williams’ phrasing
Over the years I’ve developed a bad habit of going over sentences again and again in my fiction because they don’t quite sound right. By that I mean that the rhythm is off or the vowel sounds clash or an adjective is too bland or, worse, too “creative” in some [...]
On the melding of fact and invention in fiction II
In A.S. Byatt’s forthcoming novel, The Children’s Book, a children’s author visiting a museum in search of inspiration for a magical story she’s writing hears a great anecdote but has “the feeling writers often have when told perfect tales for fictions, that there was too much fact, too little space for the necessary insertion of [...]
In defense of agnosticism
When Bookforum relaunched its website recently, the editors introduced my favorite feature: an idiosyncratic collection of writers’ syllabi on various topics. Mine is devoted to doubt.
The narrator of my novel in progress has a storefront preacher mother and a family legacy of extremism that seem, the more she struggles against [...]
Literary quips, observations, and warnings #6
Many writers say that they write what they do because the novels they want to read don’t exist.
I don’t think about my own book quite that way, but to me one of the most frightening things about writing fiction is the corollary to this idea: namely, if you have an [...]
On the melding of fact and invention in fiction
Fiction writers who borrow from life often dodge inquiries about what’s true in their work, causing readers to see them as cagey or coy. But unless you’re writing strict autobiography and just changing names, these kinds of questions are difficult to answer honestly.
In some sections of my own book, [...]
Excerpt from my novel
An excerpt from my novel(-in-progress) is up at Narrative Backstage today, alongside audio readings from James Salter, Donald Hall, and Ann Beattie, new fiction from Richard Bausch, Stuart Dybek, Josh Weil, and Charlie Smith, new nonfiction from Rick Bass, and much more.
Originally this post included a disquisition on [...]
On the importance of what is culled
For years I’ve hoarded some of my stranger and darker experiences, with the intent of twisting parts of them into my novel. My narrator is not — and never was supposed to be — me, but I’ve inflicted many events from my own life on her. Even when [...]
In defense of Big Ideas in fiction
American creative writing instruction, in my experience, tends to discourage would-be novelists from working with philosophical concepts. Large, abstract ideas are seen as the province of scientists and Nobel laureates. Everyone else, the thinking goes, should stay squarely in the realm of concrete troubles like adultery or thievery or murder.
But don’t the best [...]
The soundtrack approach to novel writing
Recently I was commiserating with a writer friend about the trouble I have switching between different parts of my book — even now, when I’m just filling gaps.
Every new section feels like another hill to climb, and I’ve never been much of an athlete. I’d rather sit in the lodge, sip a bourbon [...]
Elizabeth Bishop and the U.S.A. School of Writing
“When I think about it,” Elizabeth Bishop once wrote to James Merrill, “it seems to me I’ve rarely written anything of value at the desk or in the room where I was supposed to be doing it — it’s always in someone else’s house, or in a bar, or standing up in the kitchen in [...]
On going feral — and being surprised — while writing
When I met a friend to see a show last fall, I turned up disheveled and withdrawn, with only seven of my fingernails painted, and I tripped on the stairs as we were descending to our seats. He caught my arm before I could plummet. “What’s going on with you, Maud?” he said.
“I’ve [...]