The Ruling Passion in Writing – Henry Van Dyke

This writing advice was found in Henry Van Dyke’s book  “The Ruling Passion” published in 1901 by Scribner:

“In every life worth writing about there is a ruling passion,–”the very pulse of the machine.” Unless you touch that, you are groping around outside of reality” ~ Henry Van Dyke

A WRITER’S REQUEST OF HIS MASTER

Let me never tag a moral to a story, nor tell a story without meaning. Make me respect my material so much that I dare  not slight my work. Help me to deal very honestly with words and with people because they are both alive. Show me that as in a river, so in a writing, clearness is the best quality, and a little that is pure is worth more than much that is mixed. Teach me to see the local colour without being blind to the inner light. Give me an ideal that will stand the strain of weaving into human stuff on the loom of the real. Keep me from caring more for books than for folks, for art than for life. Steady me to do my full stint of work as well as I can; and when that is done, stop me, pay what wages Thou wilt, and help me to say from a quiet heart, a grateful AMEN.

Van Dyke says there are other passions besides romantic love, no less real, which also have their place and power in human life. The entire text to The Ruling Passion is online.

Cement Positive Writing Goals in 3 Steps

Here’s a simple exercise to get rid of the negativity and cement some positive writing goals. It’s painless. It’s motivating. It will work. (I owe this to Andrew T. Caddick, who presented this exercise at the Blushing Sky Word In-Word Out Conference.)

Take a piece of paper, fold it in half, and on the left half, write a list of what stalls you when it comes to writing. For myself, I wrote:

1. Avoidance- I put off even getting started
2. I get started but end up doing online “research” (i.e. Facebooking)
3. When a scene becomes difficult, I give up
4. The hubris of the real world keeps me from concentrating
5. I tell myself ten or fifteen minutes isn’t enough time so why bother?
6. I’m afraid what I’m writing is crap.

Now, open the paper and list the counter to each of your points. My counters are:

1. Sit down every morning and write.
2. Put the laptop away so you have to focus.
3. Plow headfirst through the difficult scenes.
4. Tune everything else out for the time you allotted yourself.
5. Take advantage of every bit of free time, even a half-hour
6. Write for pleasure. Write for yourself.

Lastly, write these counter statements out as positive goals. The hardest part can be writing this in all positive statements, but when you do, they have more power to motivate:

 I look forward to getting started on my writing. I will set a timer, even if it’s for a half-hour, as a time that I will ignore all distractions, and focus solely on my work-in-progress. Difficult scenes are a challenge that I can and will rise to. I’m excited about using my writing time as a time to tune out the bullshit in my daily life. I’m excited to use this time to forget about the real world. I will take advantage of every moment. I will remind myself that I need only to write for myself. In fact, I love it when I write for myself. My writing time will be a gift I give myself.

Doesn’t that sound delicious? I had never looked at writing quite this way before. If you try this, let me know how it works for you.

 

My List of 2011 Favorite Books

In Poets & Writers, Joshua Bodwell bested the typical “Top Ten List” of favorite books by making his own list of thirteen  titled “Bodwell’s Baker’s Dozen”. He states that his “exhaustively thorough” process involves standing in front of his bookcase and simply picking out recent reads. I like that.

Inspired, I made my own list, which I have titled The Sienkiewicz Seven (seven because I like the sound of it):

1. Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
2. Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky
3. American Salvage, Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell
4. No Where Near Normal by Traci Foust
5. The Four Stages of Cruelty by Keith Hollihan
6. The Devil’s Mistress by Laura Navarre
7. Talk, Talk by T.C. Boyle

Dialogue Shouldn’t Be Easy

Ali Luke’s guest column,10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Dialogue, on Write To Done made me reflect on a few tips that I learned over the years about dialogue, going beyond the 10 easy ways:

1. The best dialogue reflects what’s not being said.

2. In every conversation, ask yourself: Who has the power? Who wants to know something? Who is withholding information—and why?

3. Make use of avoidance, such as a character who changes the subject or backs out when the conversation gets difficult or becomes emotionally charged.

4. Give one of the speakers a hidden agenda.

5. Dialogue can reveal class or a lack of education. It can reveal attitude, prejudices and fears. Some characters are afraid to swear, or recoil when they hear swearing. Characters who are unsure of themselves may speak hesitantly. Others may repeat words or phrases, as if talking to a child. Most people use contractions, but when they are angry, they don’t. (as in “I do not want to go.”)

Why do we use dialogue? Partially to give information (while avoiding what’s called the “As you know, Bob…” information dump) and move the story forward, but more importantly, to show how our characters think and interact, good and bad.

A Writer’s Superhero

He’s the best kind of hero. Except for Comma Man, if he exists. Maybe all we really need is Punctuation Woman.

Solid & Well-Written, But Still Rejected

My agent just heard back from an editor at a publishing house I will leave anonymous, about my novel The Real Story. The editor said:

I have to admit that in the flurry of the fall I’ve gotten a bit behind, but I did have a chance to take a look at The Real Story. I think Linda is a talented writer with a strong narrative voice. I can see why she’s already garnering such amazing praise. This is a solid, well-written novel, but I have to admit I had a hard time seeing how to break it out in a big enough way on the already very crowded shelves for this category, and so in the end I’ll have to step aside, despite the novel’s considerable merits.

My agent thought this was a positive letter, and while, yes, it may be, it still leaves me scratching my head. What’s wrong with a solid, well written novel? Why does it have to “break out” in a “big-enough” way? And what on earth is big enough?

As my agent, Chelsea, told me, the attitude from big, traditional publishers seems to be “use extreme caution when considering acquiring anything from a new writer”—they seem to want a known quantity, and they stick with their stable of established writers, who they know always sell.

It’s demoralizing to think that someone an editor calls a “talented writer” with a “strong narrative voice” who is garnering “amazing praise” can’t get her “solid, well-written” novel published. Meanwhile, I’m continuing with my work-in-progress, although sometimes, I have to admit, it seems rather pointless.

Inspiring Accessories for Writers

So this post isn’t about writing, exactly, but I couldn’t help sharing these wonderful typewriter earrings I purchased from a shop on Etsy called Designs by Annette. I bought Jack London’s “Call of the Wild”:

You have to admit, for a writer, these are just fabulous! They’re long, too, so they show up from under my hair, which I love. Annette has earrings from such authors as Jack Kerouac, Agatha Christie, John Steinbeck, Flannery O’Connor, and for the poets, Sylvia Plath. All of them can be found here

I asked the artist, Annette Blazon, how she came up with this awesome idea. She said she purchased wood replica typewriter keys and wanted to create  a unique design with them. First she made earrings with keys and vintage typewriters, “which led to typewriters with quotes which then led to the asymmetrical earrings with the book and typewriter. Asymmetrical styles have been my specialty for many years so this new design stuck and people seem to love them.”

Annette said some of the titles are from books and authors she loves, and others came from classic literature lists. She also does requests, so if you have a favorite book you’d like to have dangling from your earlobes (or maybe your own book), contact her through her Etsy shop, Designs by Annette. (click “contact” on left column)

The Seven Magic Elephants of Creativity ~ Margo LaGattuta

In a crowded coffeehouse 18 years ago, I first heard poet Margo LaGatutta read, and you wouldn’t think a poem titled “I Vacuum, Therefore I Am” could give you goose bumps, but it was an electric moment for me. I had just started writing poetry, and, somehow, I knew she was bound to be an important person in my life. When the short, round-faced woman, dressed in a vividly-colored bohemian frock, made her way to the back to get a coffee, I gushed to her about her marvelous poetry and asked where she taught. She gladly pulled a flyer from her bag with info on classes (an ambassador for the Detroit literary community, Margo always carried flyers on events and classes).

Margo LaGattuta ~ September 18, 1942 - August 22, 2011

She became my first mentor at a 6 week workshop in her home, a hubbub of creativity buzzing with energy. Her walls were a collage of artwork and tapestries, shelves and tables were lined with exotic finds, and nearly every horizontal surface was stacked with poetry books and journals. I was infatuated with her because  nearly everything  that came out of her mouth was poetic, as she talked about language, music, metaphor, creativity, dreams and taking imaginative leaps. I’ll never forget when she passed around a bag of rocks for us to use as writing prompts.

Sadly, Margo passed away from a brief struggle with cancer in August, 2011. I will miss her dearly, as will many others. She had the uncanny ability to find something to praise in anything anyone wrote, and of course, there was always something that needed more work– she opened my eyes as to what a good teacher should do. It was her wisdom and the balance of encouragement and instruction that kept me writing. Her sestina, “I Vacuum, Therefore I Am” (the poem is in comments below) gave writers permission to create magic from the mundane.

Her signature workshop is titled “The Seven Magic Elephants of Creativity.”  I’m not sure where it was first published, but I’d like to share it here because I think Margo would have liked that. Please Do Not Reprint without giving her credit.

The Seven Magic Elephants, by Margo LaGattuta

It’s a new year, and we are given another chance to start our lives anew. We want to be better this year, more creative, more productive. The problem is getting started. Whatever we want to create in our lives can happen if we follow seven easy concepts.

This idea came to me years ago when I saw an ad in a magazine for “Seven Magic Elephants.” For only $3.98 I could have my every wish come true – wealth, health, romance, and happiness. These seven ivory elephants, the ad said, would bring luck to the person who possessed them, so I decided to look for a series of seven elements (or elephants) of the creative process. This way I could remind myself how to be creative when my ideas dry up. Here are the seven empowering concepts I discovered:

 Concept 1 – Intention

Creativity begins with a wish and a plan. There must always be a longing combined with intent to begin any creative idea. Holding the elephants in our hands allows us to begin to name the possibilities. We begin with small choices and a bit of magic. This is the brainstorming stage, the “What do I want in my wildest dreams? elephant. It’s the blank page or canvas, where anything can happen, but it needs a concrete place to begin. So begin by writing down an intention. What do you really want to create?

Concept 2 – Time

 The next elephant is time, and obvious but rarely honored ingredient in creativity. We make time for nearly everything visible in our lives, but this is the invisible. It is the time before any measured outcome. Often we try to take our creative time from what is left when we have accomplished the necessities of life. But we then discover, there is no time left. It helps to commit one day a week, or one weekend a month, for incubation and creative projects, and stick to it. Even if you spend the afternoon staring out the window and doodling, taking the time gives focus, and soon you will have begun.

Concept 3 – Love

Love, particularly self-love, is an elephant of empowerment. It is difficult because with anything that is bold or new there is always risk. The voice of the critic in our head  says, “Who do you think you are?” Creativity takes an act of audacious authority, which can only come from self-esteem. There must also be the desire to make something happen, the love of the idea itself. Believing in ourselves and what we are doing is a paradoxical dance of amazement, a kind of love/fear mambo. It is what drives us on to face the elephants to come.

 Concept 4 – Energy

This elephant is the firecracker that explodes a project into motion, the leap of faith that overcomes all obstacles. It comes in a burst of electricity or a quiet urgency. It is the red cardinal to a bird watcher, who must sit very still to notice its presence. It’s a zoom, a flash of insight, a theatrical drum roll and should be seized and honored.

 Chapter 5 – Fear

Once we’ve processed all the other elephants, this is the big challenge. Fear of failure (or worse, fear of success) can stop any idea cold. This elephant says, “Give up,” and triggers any fear that lingers in the memory bank of loss. This is where most of us stop. Standing up to it takes digging in our proverbial heels. Yet, in this stage of the birth process, the doorway to the delivery room, there is not turning back, no easy way out, and no one else can help. The only way out is through.

 Chapter 6 – Letting Go

This is the nothing elephant – the time when it seems like we’ve failed for sure, and we don’t know what to do. It’s the time of total surrender to the process. If we think we had control before, we are now certain we have none. We need to meditate, or clear our mind of all thought, let go of all agendas. This is a very secret place, where something we never expected can come in. This is where a creative leap can take place. We can make a change that makes it work.

 Chapter 7 – 

The brand new elephant resembles its parents yet has the look of an original. The idea in its infancy still trembles. We need the nothing element to become still enough to even recognize this elephant. We rejoice and stand in awe. The birth of any new project is as painful as it is joyous. And there is hard work ahead, involving wish, time, love, energy, fear and letting go. The circle of elephants goes on into infinity. What a gift to know we hold them all in the palms of our hands.

________________________________________________________

From "The Dream Givers" 1990

Margo LaGattuta’s MFA is from Vermont College. She taught at the University of Michigan–Flint,  Oakland Community College and Baker College. She authored four books and edited numerous anthologies. She won the Midwest Poetry Award twice and a National Federation of State Poetry Societies Founders Award. She was nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. In 2005, she received the Mark Twain Award for her body of work from the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature at Michigan State University. She had her own radio show,  Art in the Air, on an Oakland County station, and wrote a column for a local paper, Community Lifestyles, in Rochester, MI. Her books are A Word in Edgewise. Embracing the Fall, The Dream Givers, Noedgelines and Diversion Road.  She has also edited six new anthologies: Variations on the Ordinary, Almost Touching, Wind Eyes, Up from the Soles of Our Feet, At the Edge of Mirror Lake, and Beyond the Lines.

GRACE  by Margo LaGattuta

trees line up in
stiff rows, bare
in winter, their arms
reach out like
quiet angels, their
gesture delicate, thin
a wire whisper
a winged heart
hope translucent as dust
but silver in
its touching
wish for spring

published in Embracing the Fall.

A Story Best Told in Third Person

Have you ever struggled over what point-of-view  is going to work best for your narrator? I recently changed my novel manuscript from first person POV to third. The narrator is a deeply flawed character, and I feared that, in first person, readers might tire of her.

When studying POV in my MFA program, the book that taught me the most about third person POV was “Belly” by Lisa Selin Davis. He is a truly “bad” character.

The story begins when forty-nine year old Belly O’Leary is released from prison after being incarcerated for four years for illegal gambling. The novel takes place in a week that’s packed with so much mayhem I was afraid to ask What next? Argumentative, belligerent, and in complete denial, Belly is near impossible to empathize with, and Davis made a wise choice to put his narrative in third person POV. Otherwise, the story would have been a hard sell.

Upon his release, Belly finds himself dependent on his three grown daughters. The moment he gets off the bus, he picks up a woman half his age while waiting for his married, pregnant daughter, Nora, and her young boys to come for him. During his first week as a free man, he gets drunk instead of looking for work and flirts with his female parole officer. He argues with everyone for the sake of it, steals cigarettes and money from Nora, who’s graciously given him a room in the attic of her house. He berates his daughters, wanders the town in a stupor, and steals Nora’s truck and wrecks it. He brings his cheap-date girlfriend to his room and fucks her so the entire household (including the boys) hears them. On his first day at a new job, he gets in a fist fight and is fired.

If Belly were to tell me about this week in first or second person POV, I’d want to get as far away from him as possible. I couldn’t stomach him. Readers need distance from a man who, after his daughter tells him the best thing he can do for them is to stop being a terrible father, replies, “‘You know what I’ll do for you? I’ll go downtown and get drunk. Would that help?’”

Third person POV also helped assure me there’s a reason for this story other than shock value. Even though readers hear Belly’s caustic voice through his limited POV, Davis highlights the distance that third person gives us by separating his inner monologue from the narrative. This allows the reader to be an observer, yet still stay close. When he sees his ex-wife after years of separation at his grandsons’ confirmation, he stares at her, thinking she’s his dead daughter, Shannon. We are witness to this comic, drunken scene, yet privy to his inner thoughts:

Belly put his hand over his mouth—to cover a scream or a laugh he didn’t know.  “Holy Shit,” he said, “You’re my wife.”…He leaned back against the dining room table. He felt the world shift beneath him, a hole opened in the earth and everything was falling in. He heard a shout and a few yelps around him, and he thought, the house is falling in. The world is falling in. Where are my grandchildren? Where are my daughters? And he raised himself up, turned to look for them, saw he was covered in something, paint, or gravy, and he heard Nora yell, “Jesus, Belly, you knocked over the whole table,” and he fell.  He fell all the way to the floor and lay with his back against the tipped-over table like it was a lawn chair, and he saw the whole ocean moving toward him, the world has fallen in, the Florida ocean, the gulf coast, and his wife in the lawn chair next to him with her umbrella drink, and his three daughters burying the fourth up to her neck in sand.

When reading first person POV, readers are more apt to ask ourselves Why is he telling us this story?—and it’s clear that Belly is a man who’d never confide. He doesn’t verbalize his feelings, much less make conversation, so first person is not a good fit for this character.

Third person POV also allows Davis to tell the story without Belly getting in the way of some stunning writing. In this scene, he openly grieves, but is so out of touch with his emotions that he doesn’t understand what’s happening:

 He turned and looked at his youngest child, her pale stringy hair and her pale eyes, everything about her light against the darkening sky and he felt  something strange, some foreign object clogging his throat, I’m giving birth to an egg out my mouth, he thought, and then he coughed and made a sound and he thought, What is happening to me, what is this? and Eliza put her skinny little arms around him and said, “It’s okay, it’s okay Daddy,” and he still didn’t know, he could not see out his left eye and he let his head hang down on her bony shoulder and he shook and her shoulder was wet. It was all over in a minute. Then the sky was dark.

It’s beautiful, but if it was written in first person, it would have been over the top for Belly.

Third person POV created enough distance to get to know Belly without getting in bed with him. The third person narrative also fits well with his character, and gives the author, Davis, room to do more with the story and writing. I began to empathize with this lost soul when I read about the self-loathing he learned at the cruel hand of his father, the pain and loss in his life, and the accidental death of his favorite daughter; Belly even hates himself for liking her the best. He has no tools to handle or label his emotions, yet he wants to be good. In the end, when things begin to turn around, I admired his hard won honesty.

If you’re interested studying POV, or nasty lead characters, I recommend “Belly.” It’s out of print, but used copies are for sale on Amazon, and it’s also available on Kindle.

To squee or not to squee…

Acronyms and abbreviations have their uses in online communication, just as a worn cliché makes a point that any half wit will understand.

Sometimes a smiley is necessary to add context to a playful or sarcastic response that may otherwise be read as mean. Never mind that sarcasm is an insult in disguise.

I vacillate over using LOL, unless  I actually did laugh out loud, but I’d rather write “Ha ha!” A long string, as Erin Enberg points out, can be especially effective, as in Hahahahahahahahaha. Lorrie Moore wrote an entire page of hahaha in a short story (the title escapes me. Lorrie is also great at turning a cliché on its head). On rare occasions I have used ROFL, but I much prefer LSHIPMP, because I actually have laughed so hard I peed my pants, whereas I have never rolled on the floor laughing.

On twitter, u have 2 use a weird sort of shorthand 2 make th most of ur 140 characters. This is the norm, although it takes time to get accustomed to it. Outside of twitter, its use is just plain weird. More likely it’s a sign of laziness.

But I have a hard time taking anyone who uses the word “squee” seriously.

I’ve seen it many times in tweets and blogs, and its popularity seems to be growing. Gag me, please. I suppose it’s a cutesy way of saying that one squealed in happiness, as in “I just couldn’t believe it! Squee!” Personally, I can’t imagine anyone over the age of three squealing. Letting out a yippee, maybe. Giving a whoop of hooray, okay. Squeeing, no.

The real Squee

My friend Jason McCarty wrote to me, “If you listen to Jhonen Vasquez, squee is actually a sound made in fear.” So I did an internet search (no better use of time in the afternoon for a writer), and according to Wikipedia, Vasquez’ character, Todd Casil, is known as Squee after the noise he makes when frightened. This is from a comic titled Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Squee also carries around a small teddy bear that he named Shmee. Shmee tells Squee that all his fears and nightmares are inside him in a dream.

In this sense, squee is an onomatopoeia, a word that that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. Think hiccup or chickadee.

That’s precisely why I have a hard time taking anyone who uses squee seriously. Come on. Who makes a sound like that? No one I know.