Sunday, July 31, 2011
Fresh Writing: Memoir & Time Travel
When we write memoir, what we are actually doing is taking a journey—with story as our vehicle—into the lost, hidden and/or protected parts of our earlier “selves.” IE: I’m going to tell you about my still born baby, An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken, or the nervous breakdown my mother had when I was little, The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr, or the year I admitted myself to an mental institution, Girl Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, or the years my father molested me and my sisters, Driving with Dead People by Monica Holloway.
Each of these writers, and I would suggest all memoirists, go on a mission into the shadows and indeed relive experiences of the past—it could be the recent past or the far distant past but no matter, unless you are writing about this moment NOW, you are writing about the past and that is a form of time travel.
Equipped with our computers, our courage, pots of tea or coffee and a few hours on the clock each day, we lower ourselves down into the past, sit ourselves down somewhere on the time line and start looking around with a flashlight, or a lamp or perhaps a hearty fire we’ve built at the hearth. We then pull out story telling tools and start describing what we see via written description. EG: what’s in front of you, behind you, over your head, under your feet, what city are you in, what state, what country, what’s going on with nature, what is moving around you (cars, people, butterflies), who are the other people in this place, what are they wearing, carrying, saying, suggesting, what are you wearing, carrying, feeling, tasting, touching, smelling, seeing and saying.
What comes next in our observation is the obvious response to what you are describing or remembering. EG: What the heck do you feel about all that’s going on and what you do, as the observer of all that is going on feel about it now? What is surprising, amazing, stunning, remarkable, revelatory and inspiring? What is scary about what is going on? What is different that what you expected? What is important?
It all sounds simple enough, when written about in this way but memoir writing is hardly simple. In fact, it is one of the hardest things I know because a writer isn’t going back and lowering herself into any old past and sitting on any old timeline with a flashlight, she is going back to her own past and her timeline and as a result reliving an event that was so hard, so heartbreaking, so frightening and/or so challenging, it had to be shut away into the shadows in order that she could carry on with her life.
On her journey back, a writer can forget that she is here, now, telling the story and be caught in the past like one is caught in a terrible dream. The brain, its messages wired into primal places of limbic region will send all manner of signals about how the body should respond because the brain doesn’t know the difference between what has happened and what is happening. A writer will find herself crying, laughing, sweating, frozen with shock and even scared to death as if that rapist is at her back again and about to throw her down to the ground (Lucky by Alice Seabold).
Blink, stand up, shake your arms and your legs and take a walk around the block, but still the writer is likely shaken to the core by what she’s relived in that dark place. As Mary Karr says of writing memoir: “it takes endurance.”
What is most interesting to me in this process of writing about the past, especially about our childhood, is that we will also meet our selves as we were all those years ago. And when this happens, when we come to our former self face to face, we have a surprising, unexpected and glorious opportunity to be quiet and to listen. In fact, I would suggest that this “meeting” is ultimately the goal of what we are doing and the way to find voice in our memoir narrative. The part of ourselves, that lost part in many cases, I believe has been waiting for our return and is eager to reintegrate with the current self. I see this phenomenon a lot like one might think of a split hair.
Imagine, as life happens to us, at age three, four, seven, ten and so on, we have sharp, intense, scary, even life threatening events take place. At each of these junctures, the hair—that is the life energy—splits a little from the central core. A lifetime of these events leaves us with a heedful of split ends. In going back, interacting and learning from our past experience, we smooth the ends back into the central line and bring ourselves to wholeness in a way—gathering up the energy of those split off parts.
Here is where the work gets tricky. When a writer goes back in time, dropping into the past, she sometimes forgets that she is both part and separate from that person of the past. It is also very important to make note that the future person—that time traveling writer—is without the wisdom of that past part of herself and so the writer/future being/time traveler has to do some hard work in order to step down and let the person from the past have some room to speak in her native tongue. It’s a bit like meeting an old friend in the coffee shop and catching up on how things are going.
The reason we split off from ourselves though is because it was too scary to stay and so when we left, we actually abandoned a part of ourselves and that self has a view that is very different than the one who got away.
An example I would supply is from my own writing in Blackbird where I went back on the timeline to my earliest memory of about five years of age. I dropped down on the time line and very quickly met little Jenny—age five—full of vitality, energy, story and sadness. My goodness could that child talk and I had forgotten that part of my lost self. Talk, talk, chat, chat, so much to say. Like most children. God love them.
Little Jenny, like a child would be, was also busy. She was nervous. She darted around and changed the subject quite a bit. Jenny of 1968 was like a moth that didn’t want to be caught, all beating wings and dust. And I, in meeting this little one, was thirty-four years old with a baby napping for just two hours. I was, I hate to say, a taskmaster on a mission to “write a book, sell that book, earn a living and prove to my husband I’m was a dead beat.” In short, I was not much for indulging little Jenny and her evasive ways. Once I found this remarkable little being, I wanted the girl to talk and talk NOW.
In response to my demands, Jenny didn’t settle down. No. She just vanished. Poof. Child gone.
Intially, furious that I had found her and then lost her, I shrugged Jenny off. What did I care? I told myself, as a former reporter I was smart and knew how to tell a story. I didn’t need her, I reasoned and preceded to write about my life (and my memory) as a detached, smart, know-it-all adult who was busy and full of herself.
My writing teacher (and all writers of this kind of craft need a teacher along the way) told me that I was very smart and knew how to tell a story but that was simply not good enough. “Get closer,” he insisted. “Show me your heart.”
That hurt.
My teacher was telling me that I had no heart and eventually I realized that my truest heart was in that chest of Jenny, that worried, frightened, wide eyed, busy little dear.
This was a brutal but important lesson. I could not bully my smaller self, not without becoming the very thing that Jenny feared the most—another untrustworthy adult. I had to become humble, deeply humble and offer myself as her servant. I brought Jenny what she craved—M&M’s and my typewriter. She talked and I typed. That’s how it worked.
Little Jenny spoke to me, oh yes, she spoke plenty, but it wasn’t my on my terms, it was on hers.
She taught me what was important to a child, what was really important and this was a lesson that served me well in mothering my children too. For children really do have a magical perspective and a point of view that is often tossed to the side by the more cynical and jaded adult.
In paying attention to Jenny (and this took a good deal of time and re-learning and patience on my part) I discovered the power of present tense writing and heavy attention to detail and the senses. Children live in the moment, they are wrapped up in their senses of taste, touch, smell, sound and sight and they are entranced by the smallest details that most adults would barely notice.
If you don’t know what children are like, because you don’t have them or don’t spend time with them, go watch kids. Go talk to them. Go ask them what is important and soon, they will tell you. A child’s parents are very important, her room, her stuffed animals, her toys, her siblings and her favorite (and least favorite) foods. All very important.
In writing Blackbird from the voice of Jenny, I asked her questions and talked to her about what mattered. From my questions came the stories of cats winding around each other in the hallway, warm banana nut bread dripping with melted pats of butter, That Man cologne, snarling big brothers, wide warm shafts of sunlight over shag carpet and the fast slap of an embrace as I ran to greet my cousin Tracy in her big house.
I relived my past with Jenny as my guide and for eighteen months walked through the dark halls and deep losses and worrisome nights. When she cried, I cried. When she worried, I worried. When she asked questions, I asked questions. When she needed to rest, I rested. When she needed a cookie, I needed a cookie. And when she was done, I was done.
I gathered little Jenny up into my arms to took her forward in time so that she could live with me and continue to inform my life with her unique and important perspective.
So often I work with writers who are furious about their inability to capture the right “voice” in their story. I have worked with writers, for years, who cannot seem to nail down the sound of their story teller and it is always the case that this writer has not surrendered to herself at the age that the story took place. That is a shame. Many writers will actually attempt to abuse the child they want to learn about abuse from. They will be filled with fear and outrage and make demands and not listen as well as they should.
A writer is not serving her life energy in this way and she is not paying attention to what needs to be seen. This kind of writer is hungry for the meat of the story, in hopes she’ll return with some great body of writing but in the process she is doing the same harm to herself that was done long ago. It’s a kind crazy cannibalism.
I can only tell a writer this. Be careful with yourself when you are in that past. Speak the language of your former self. Listen closely and write down every damn detail that former part of your self offers up. Become the secretary. Only in the most humble of place, as the writer who nods and types and keeps her mouth sealed in the process, can we get the story we search for and nail the “voice.”
I’ve often suggested writers even perform rituals with the former parts of themselves, taking themselves out to a meal or for a sundae or writing a letter. It’s always good to get out photos of that former self, perhaps make a little alter to your former self that is close to where you write so you can look, with a revert and sacred eye, at your self as you were so long ago. It all helps
Memoir is simple task but also a complexity. It is time travel and it is voice driven. If you cannot find the voice, you cannot tell the tale in a way that holds any kind of real interest or attention.
When you cannot find your voice, you know it in your gut. It’s this twisting, panicked feeling of “not rightness” and your words are stiff and whiny and hard to hear. Your teacher will tell you this, in more gentle terms, but she will (or should tell you) and that is the time for the writer to go back down into the past, once again, sit down on the time line and look with even more care.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Manuscript Review Service
A writer needs help! It's hard to go at your art alone. But who do you trust? Who can you count on? Where will you get the best advice on your writing?
I am here to help you write the best book you can write. Part of what I offer is a manuscript review service that helps give you a sense of where your writing is at and if I can help escort you to an agent who can take you to the next step. Here is how this service works.
Phase I: Contact me at jennifer@jenniferlauck.com, send a note of interest and include an overview of the book as well as a personal bio.
I'll let you know my availability and will provide a contract which lays out what I will do in my initial read, including my fee and the deadline that I will meet to get back to you. (I usually take about thirty days to review a manuscript. The reading fee is $500 plus printing costs if I print myself.) After signing our contract, sending me a check or a payment via PayPal, you send your manuscript, with a SASE to my offices in Portland. You can alternatively send a PDF and a .doc of your book which I will print the PDF and that cost will be added to the reading fee.
If your book needs attention, I will submit a report about why and what I suggest. If it is good to go, I'll tell you where to send it with my blessing (and a $250.00 refund).
Phase II: If I can help you refocus, reframe and revise your book, I will propose an expanded reading with my team who will also read your book. Together we will create a full report, 8-10 pages long, which assesses the strengths of your book and gives advice on how to bring those strengths out. We'll also provide you with a questionnaire that gives us deeper insights into your process and your goals.
This expanded service is an additional $1000-$2000.00. If I include extensive line edits, the fee will move to the higher end of the range. Rest assured, you and I always agree on all costs prior to any being incurred.
Phase II takes about three weeks and is followed up with a meeting where you can ask questions that arise after you have read the report and looked through the edits.
Final Thoughts: There are a lot of people out there who offer to read your manuscript and who make a lot of promises. I put my word in writing and give you 150% of my attention--my best attention--to help you create the best book possible. I provide the highest quality review and service and to assure this, will provide you with a list of recommendations. Your money is important. Your book is important. I am here to take you and your writing seriously and give you a high quality response.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
What the Hell Happened to Jennifer?
According to experts in the field of "weblog" study, if you do not post, on your site, at least four days a week--your blog is "dead."
Is it true? Is there some all knowing "blog-God" who comes along to state the time of death and put the final stats of your blog demise in a record book?
Well, I'm here to testify (if it's true), there has been a miracle. This blog is alive, resuscitated and full of breath.
Now for the debrief.
Where have I been?
Over at the new teaching site. That is where I have been. Do you note there are now "two" weblogs. Can you imagine? Two? Talk about pressure.
Suffice to say I have been busy, busy, busy with obligations/teachings/speaking and working up to my eyeballs and I have a house and I am a wife and I am the Go-To Point Girl for Mr. 14 and Ms. 9 and their summer break is in full swing hot hot go go whew.
Here is a little good news. I perused the web and bring you--writer you--this amazing advice on your craft. Read carefully, apply advice, send me your pages and let's make your writing shine that much brighter.
- Here's how to work together.
- Here is where you go to listen to those fantastic free teleseminars.
- And click right here for a link to get you all set up in the Beach Intensive.
- Want to take a Master Class this fall? Well, click here.
And if you are eager to learn more about your craft as a writer, read on. This is a post well worth your time. HEY...do be a huge favor and leave me a comment so I know this site still has a pulse.
Writerisms and other Sins: A Writer’s Shortcut to Stronger WritingCopyright © 1995 by C.J. Cherryh
Writerisms: overused and misused language. In more direct words: find ‘em, root ‘em out, and look at your prose without the underbrush.
1. am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with “by” or with “by … someone” implied but not stated. Such structures are passives. In general, limit passive verb use to one or two per book. The word “by” followed by a person is an easy flag for passives.
2. am, is, are, was, were, being, be, been … combined with an adjective. “He was sad as he walked about the apartment.” “He moped about the apartment.” A single colorful verb is stronger than any was + adjective; but don’t slide to the polar opposite and overuse colorful verbs. There are writers that vastly overuse the “be” verb; if you are one, fix it. If you aren’t one—don’t, because overfixing it will commit the next error.
3. florid verbs. “The car grumbled its way to the curb” is on the verge of being so colorful it’s distracting. {Florid fr. Lat. floreo, to flower.}If a manuscript looks as if it’s sprouted leaves and branches, if every verb is “unusual,” if the vocabulary is more interesting than the story … fix it by going to more ordinary verbs. There are vocabulary-addicts who will praise your prose for this but not many who can simultaneously admire your verbs as verbs and follow your story, especially if it has content. The car is not a main actor and not one you necessarily need to make into a character. If its action should be more ordinary and transparent, don’t use an odd expression. This is prose.This statement also goes for unusual descriptions and odd adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.
4. odd connectives. Some writers overuse “as” and “then” in an attempt to avoid “and” or “but,” which themselves can become a tic. But “as” is only for truly simultaneous action. The common deck of conjunctions available is:
* when (temporal)
* if (conditional)
* since (ambiguous between temporal and causal)
* although (concessive)
* because (causal)
* and (connective)
* but (contrasting)
* as (contemporaneous action or sub for “because”) while (roughly equal to “as”)
These are the ones I can think of. If you use some too much and others practically never, be more even-handed. Then, BTW, is originally more of an adverb than a proper conjunction, although it seems to be drifting toward use as a conjunction. However is really a peculiar conjunction, demanding in most finicky usage to be placed *after* the subject of the clause.
Don’t forget the correlatives, either … or, neither … nor, and “not only … but also.”
And “so that,” “in order that,” and the far shorter and occasionally merciful infinitive: “to … {verb}something.”
5. Descriptive writerisms. Things that have become “conventions of prose” that personally stop me cold in text.
* “framed by” followed by hair, tresses, curls, or most anything cute.
* “swelling bosom”
* “heart-shaped face”
* “set off by”: see “framed by”
* “revealed” or “revealed by”: see “framed by.” Too precious for words when followed by a fashion statement.
* Mirrors … avoid mirrors, as a basic rule of your life. You get to use them once during your writing career. Save them for more experience. But it doesn’t count if they don’t reflect … by which I mean see the list above. If you haven’t read enough unpublished fiction to have met the infamous mirror scenes in which Our Hero admires his steely blue eyes and manly chin, you can scarcely imagine how bad they can get.
* limpid pools and farm ponds: I don’t care what it is, if it reflects your hero and occasions a description of his manly dimple, it’s a mirror.As a general rule … your viewpoint characters should have less, rather than more, description than anyone else: a reader of different skin or hair color ought to be able to sink into this persona without being continually jolted by contrary information.Stick to what your observer can observe. One’s own blushes can be felt, but not seen, unless one is facing … .a mirror. See above.
* “as he turned, then stepped aside from the descending blow … ” First of all, it takes longer to read than to happen: pacing fault. Second, the “then” places action #2 sequentially after #1, which makes the whole evasion sequence a 1-2 which won’t work. This guy is dead or the opponent was telegraphing his moves in a panel-by-panel comic book style which won’t do for regular prose. Clunky. Slow. Fatally slow.
* “Again” or worse “once again.” Established writers don’t tend to overuse this one: it seems like a neo fault, possibly a mental writerly stammer—lacking a next thing to do, our hero does it “again” or “once again” or “even yet.” Toss “still” and “yet” onto the pile and use them sparingly.
6. Dead verbs. Colorless verbs.
* walked
* turned
* crossed
* run, ran
* go, went, gone
* leave, left
* have, had
* get, got
You can add your own often used colorless verbs: these are verbs that convey an action but don’t add any other information. A verb you’ve had to modify (change) with an adverb is likely inadequate to the job you assigned it to do.
7. Colorless verb with inadequate adverb: “He walked slowly across the room.”More informative verb with no adverb: “He trudged across the room,” “He paced across the room,” “He stalked across the room,” each one a different meaning, different situation. But please see problem 3, above, and don’t go overboard.
8. Themely English With apologies to hard-working English teachers, school English is not fiction English.Understand that the meticulous English style you labored over in school, including the use of complete sentences and the structure of classic theme-sentence paragraphs, was directed toward the production of non-fiction reports, resumes, and other non-fiction applications.The first thing you have to do to write fiction? Suspect all the English style you learned in school and violate rules at need. Many of those rules will turn out to apply; many won’t.{Be ready to defend your choices. If you are lucky, you will be copyedited. Occasionally the copyeditor will be technically right but fictionally wrong and you will have to tell your editor why you want that particular expression left alone.}
9. Scaffolding and spaghetti. Words the sole function of which is to hold up other words. For application only if you are floundering in too many “which” clauses. Do not carry this or any other advice to extremes.”What it was upon close examination was a mass the center of which was suffused with a glow which appeared rubescent to the observers who were amazed and confounded by this untoward manifestation.” Flowery and overstructured. “What they found was a mass, the center of which glowed faintly red. They’d never seen anything like it.” The second isn’t great lit, but it gets the job done: the first drowns in “which” and “who” clauses.In other words—be suspicious any time you have to support one needed word (rubescent) with a creaking framework of “which” and “what” and “who.” Dump the “which-what-who” and take the single descriptive word. Plant it as an adjective in the main sentence.
10. A short cut to “who” and “whom.”
* Nominative: who
* Possessive: whose
* Objective: whom
The rule:
1. treat the “who-clause” as a mini-sentence.If you could substitute “he” for the who-whom, it’s a “who.” If you could substitute “him” for the who-whom it’s a “whom.”The trick is where ellipsis has occurred … or where parentheticals have been inserted … and the number of people in important and memorable places who get it wrong. “Who … do I see?” Wrong: I see he? No. I see “him.” Whom do I see?
2. “Who” never changes case to match an antecedent. (word to which it refers)
* I blame them who made the unjust law. CORRECT.
* It is she whom they blame. CORRECT: The who-clause is WHOM THEY BLAME.
* They blame HER=him, =whom.
* I am the one WHO is at fault. CORRECT.
* I am the one WHOM they blame. CORRECT.
* They took him WHOM they blamed. CORRECT—but not because WHOM matches
HIM: that doesn’t matter: correct because “they” is the subject of “blamed” and “whom” is the object.
* I am he WHOM THEY BLAME. CORRECT. Whom is the “object” of “they blame.”
Back to rule one: “who” clauses are completely independent in case from the rest of the sentence. The case of “who” in its clause changes by the internal logic of the clause and by NO influence outside the clause. Repeat to yourself: there is no connection, there is no connection 3 x and you will never mistake for whom the bell tolls.
The examples above probably grate over your nerves. That’s why “that” is gaining in popularity in the vernacular and why a lot of copyeditors will correct you incorrectly on this point. I’m beginning to believe that nine tenths of the English-speaking universe can’t handle these little clauses.
11. -ing.
“Shouldering his pack and setting forth, he crossed the river … “
No, he didn’t. Not unless his pack was in the river. Implies simultaneity. The participles are just like any other verbal form. They aren’t a substitute legal everywhere, or a quick fix for a complex sequence of motions. Write them on the fly if you like, but once imbedded in text they’re hard to search out when you want to get rid of their repetitive cadence, because -ing is part of so many fully constructed verbs {am going, etc.}
12. -ness A substitute for thinking of the right word. “Darkness,” “unhappiness,” and such come of tacking -ness (or occasionally – ion) onto words. There’s often a better answer. Use it as needed.As a general rule, use a major or stand-out vocabulary word only once a paragraph, maybe twice a page, and if truly outre, only once per book. Parallels are clear and proper exceptions to this, and don’t vary your word choice to the point of silliness: see error 3.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Wed: Writing Tip #4 Character Matters
This from the site Terrible Minds and I highly recommend you go read the whole post. It's fantastic!
The author, Chuck Wendig writes: Without character, you have nothing. Great plot? Robust storyworld? Potent themes? Elegant font? Matters little if your character is a dud. The punch might be delicious, but not if someone threw up in it. The character is why we come to the table. The character is our way through all those other things. We engage with stories because we relate to them: they are mirrors. Characters are the mirror-side version of “us” staring back. Twisted, warped, uncertain — but still us through and through.
This is a fantastic tip, for fiction writers and for all writers and certianly, without exception, the memoir writer. I will say it to writers again and again, "you must make your narrator someone we want to take a journey with." And yet writers are more concerned with telling the truth or backfilling a ton of tragic details or telling everything but the story of the narrator (ie: THEMSELVES). And here were go! It's not what happens to you (or your character, if you write fiction). What matters is that you write your well developed take of what happened. Your insight, as a questing, lost and even cynical soul--this is what makes you human on the page and what will have us travel with you through the complexity of your journey.
Enjoy Wendig's tips. He's a bright bulb-even if he swears a lot!
Friday, July 01, 2011
Book Talk: Me Talk Pretty by David Sedaris
By Anne Gudger
Sun, heat and my garden which bursts with cherry tomatoes and herbs. Summer! My favorite time of year. Just like I store my sweaters during BBQ season, I also tend to tuck away my heavier reading which means Marcel Proust’s Swann’s Way (a novel in 7 volumes) will have to wait for cooler, shorter days and shorter books take the stage.
Another joy of summer is that my my daughter is home from college and as soon as she was unpacked, we had a chance to swapped good summer books. As part of this exchange, she excavated Me Talk Pretty One Day from her room and handed it over. We both love David Sedaris for his wit, his sadness and his honesty. I love him so much, I've carried him on family vacations and read him out loud to my husband and kids. At Christmas one year my daughter read Holidays on Ice out loud and we laughed the whole way through. Something about Sedaris and his writing captures "family" for us. He tells the sad, funny and wicked truth.
If you are not familiar with him, Sedaris’ books are collections of essays and some short stories. And, they’re little glimpses into his life which ooze self-deprecation. He writes about his middle class upbringing, his Greek Heritage, his jobs, his education, his drug use, his homosexuality and all about life in France and London with his partner.
The man is damn funny. Not your Family Circus kind of ha-ha but the kind of humor you have to laugh with so you don’t cry.
In Me Talk Pretty he writes:
For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it’s funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I’d squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I’m now told that this is not called ‘going to sleep’ but rather ‘passing out,’ a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.
Or later he writes about learning French and via his honesty, I feel the reader gets a real person who messes around our with real language. It’s easy to picture him asking the butcher for lamb chops:
On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned ‘Lie down,’ ‘Shut up,’ and ‘Who shit on this carpet?’ The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. ‘Is thems the thoughts of cows?’ I’d ask the butcher, pointing to the calves’ brains displayed in the front window. ‘I want me some lamb chop with handles on ‘em.’
Besides his humor, Sedaris is a fabulous storyteller. Read him for a laugh. Read him to see how he moves a piece along with strong dialogue. Read him to be reminded that if you survived your childhood, you have a ton of material to write about.