Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 498

Sharing those 'experiences of living'

“In real life we don't know what's going to happen next. So how can you be that way on a stage? Being alive to the possibility of not knowing exactly how everything is going to happen next - if you can find places to have that happen onstage, it can resonate with an experience of living.” – Sam Shepard
Playwright, actor, and television and film director, the multi-dimensional and multi-talented Shepard is the only playwright to ever be nominated for an Academy Award – for his acting (portraying pilot Chuck Yeager in the movie The Right Stuff).  Shepard also won a Pulitzer Prize for playwriting – for Buried Child – and has been nominated for or won every major award for his screenwriting and theatrical productions, including an incredible 10 Obies, the highest award for Broadway productions.
More than willing to share his time and expertise, Shepard has done a considerable amount of teaching on how to do playwriting and other aspects of theatre. His classes and seminars have occurred at various theatre workshops, festivals, and universities.  He’s been honored for his work with election to The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and as a Fellow of the American            Academy of Arts and Sciences.  The PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation named him for[image error]Sam Shepardits Master American Dramatist Award in 2009.                                                                                                                                             A “November child,” Shepard turned 72 a couple days back and shows no signs of slowing down, not only continuing his writing, directing and acting, but also authoring short stories, essays and memoirs.  But, he says, a novel probably isn’t on the agenda.
“To sing a song is quite different than to write a poem,” he said.  “I'm not and never will be a novelist, but to write a novel is not the same thing as writing a play. There is a difference in form, but essentially what you're after is the same thing.”



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Write what you like to read

“I want readers turning pages until three o'clock in the morning. I want the themes of books to stick around for a reader. I'm always trying to find a way to balance characters and theme.” – Guy Gavriel Kay
Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay, born this day in 1954, has had a knack for creating what is commonly known as “page turner” books, writing historical fantasy fiction with a flair that has distinguished his writing over several decades. He cut his teeth on fantasy writing by traveling to Oxford to assist Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, with editing J.R.R.’s unpublished work The Silmarillion.  With that experience as inspiration he began his own career with the 1984 book The Summer Tree. 
Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I, or Spain during the time of El Cid.   He has authored a dozen best-selling novels, now translated into some 25 languages, most recently focused on Middle Ages China, although his settings and lead characters have come from almost every era.
Not afraid to mix eras and genres, he has won multiple awards, including The World Fantasy Award for the book Ysabel, set in modern day France but bringing his teenage lead into direct contact with characters from both the distant past and another “parallel” world to ours.    “I have always argued,” he said, “(that) in a good novel, interesting things happen to interesting people, no matter [image error]who they are or where they are from.”
And, as for how he sets up a book, he said he just thinks of the things he, himself, likes to read.  “After a while,” he said,  “you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.”



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Words and music intertwined

“His work tells it like it is and in plain English. No flowery, sugary words here, but words stripped to their core.” – From an interview titled “ESU’s Poet in Residence”
A delightful add-on to our recent trip to Emporia, Kansas, was getting to meet and talk with the subject of that story Kevin Rabas, poet, playwright, short story author and co-director of Emporia State University’s creative writing program.   Rabas shared terrific thoughts about collections of stories, poetry and books he had enjoyed, and about both his “growing up” years and early adult years as a reporter and photographer.  
In that same article referenced above, Rabas said that his passion for words began as a 10 year old when he would carry a heavy tape recorder strapped around his neck for his mother as she, a newspaper reporter, ran to fires that lit up the night sky.  She inspired him to become a writer, and he kept journals of his experiences.
As a native Kansan, he commonly strives to depict ordinary and extraordinary Kansans and Kansas Citians in his own award-winning poetry (the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry), which has appeared in many national literary magazines, including Nimrod, The Malahat Review, and The Mid-America Poetry Review.   [image error][image error]Kevin RabasAlso is a jazz musician (percussion and drums) Rabas performs regularly, often combining his lyric poetry with jazz and funk, and citing music as a constant source of inspiration.   You can find numerous examples of Rabas performing on YouTube and other on-line sources. 
Here’s Rabas’ short poem,

DRYLANDS, GRASSLANDS Cross-Kansas road home, marked
by stretches of heather
and skeletal shelter belts; winter
on the prairie, and I'm driving
that gray band, I-35, up.
Hawks rise from roadside posts, hover,
talons out, cut air, and the I-70
pumpjacks supplicate, bend and pray
to a grey sky that stretches
endless, out and up, as in the view
from an ocean-going ship. But here
not water, but tallgrasses crest, wave.
We were all underwater once.




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The courage to share our stories

“To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it.”– Joyce Maynard
Born on this date in 1952, Joyce Maynard is known for writing with candor about her life, as well as for her works of fiction and hundreds of essays and newspaper columns, often about parenting and family.  She has distinguished herself for a number of critically acclaimed books in several different genres ranging from young adult, to crime and general fiction, to nonfiction memoirs, and she has had considerable success as a screenwriter.  
Her memoir At Home In The World about her years living with reclusive author J.D. Salinger drew both praise and scorn from the literary world.  “I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?”

The daughter of a journalist (Fredelle Bruser) and sister of a writer/journalist (Rona Maynard), Joyce said, “You write about what you know, and you also write about what you want to know.” [image error]Joyce Maynard
As for her works about parenting, she said that raising three kids not only influenced those writings but also helped that writing become stronger. “It's not only children who grow. Parents do too,” she said.  “As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it myself.”



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'Historic' is a state of mind

“I've never been very attached to genre labels and never set out intentionally to write historic fiction. Besides, what you consider historic depends on how far back your memory extends.” – Charles Frazier
Born on this date in 1950, Frazier none-the-less has been one of the historic fiction genre’s top writers, including winning the National Book Award for his masterpiece Cold Mountain – a Civil War tale of a wounded Confederate deserter.  The book, adapted for the big screen, also won a handful of Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Renee Zellwinger.
“While writing Cold Mountain, I held maps of two geographies, two worlds, in my mind as I wrote. One was an early map of North Carolina. Overlaying it, though, was an imagined map of the landscape Jack travels in the southern Appalachian folktales. He's much the same Jack [image error]who climbs the beanstalk, vulnerable and clever ... and opportunistic,” Frazier said.
Frazier’s writing is rich in the culture and sensibilities of the North Carolina mountains where he sets most of his work based on local history and stories.  He also likes to include music from the area and the era in which he writes – another feature that sets it apart.     “It always helps me connect with characters, to think about what music they respond to,” Frazier said.  “I love music.  If I had to give up reading or give up listening to music, I suspect I'd stick with the music.”  Thankfully, for those of us who enjoy history, historical fiction and great writing, he doesn’t have to choose.


 
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Just 'hear' people talking

“When people ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do. I hear a certain type of individual, I decide this is what he should be, whatever it is, and then I hear him. Well, I don't hear anybody that I can't make talk.” – Elmore Leonard
Whenever I’m seeking inspiration on “How” to write, I like to turn to Leonard, who was, indeed, a master at the process, especially in the way he had his characters converse.
Novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter, Leonard started down the writing path in the 1950s as the author of such iconic Westerns as 3:10 to Yuma.  But he really hit his stride and style with Crime and Suspense Thrillers like Get Shorty and Out of Sight, and many others that had double success – first in written form and then as adaptations for the screen.  A remarkable 17 of his novels became either movies or television series (one of my favorites which, unfortunately, ended this year was the gritty “Justified).”
Elmore Leonard[image error]
Many producers who took Leonard’s work to the movies said his dialogue was so good that they didn’t have to change a word – just write the background scene to fit around it.  Shortly before his death in 2013, Leonard was asked the secret to writing good dialogue.  “I think the best advice I give is to try not to overwrite; try not to make it sound too good,” he said.  “Just use your own voice. Use your own style of putting it down.”
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'Discovering' your book

“For me, writing is more a process of ‘discovering’ the book than planning it.”Lois McMaster Bujold
 In 1947, the year I was born, science fiction writer Robert Heinlein coined the term “speculative fiction” in an editorial essay about writing science fiction and fantasy.  Many authors were quick to adopt it as a way to tell about the characters and ideas that they were creating from the other worlds in their imaginations.
But few authors, other than Heinlein of course, have been as successful in speculative fiction development as Lois McMaster Bujold, who even eclipsed the great Heinlein in both her use of speculative fiction and her awards and honors for those uses.
One of the most acclaimed writers in her field, she won Science Fiction’s Hugo Award for best novel four times.  Her novel Paladin of Souls and her novella The Mountains of Mourning both “doubled,” winning both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. And, in the fantasy genre, her Curse of Chalion won the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for best novel.
A longtime resident of Ohio, she now makes her home in Minnesota where she is celebrating her 66thbirthday today and, of course, continuing to work on what she [image error]playfully calls “escapist literature.”
“Escapist literature gets a bad rap,” she said.  “But I think escape is important for a lot of people in a lot of places.” 

 P.S.  November is national novel writing month.  Happy writing!
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That all-important reader holds the key

“Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.” – Katherine Paterson

Katherine Paterson is a Chinese-born American author of dozens of children’s and young adult novels, most of which have won some sort of award.  In fact, for four different books published in the 5-year period from 1975-1980 she won two Newbery Medals (Bridge to Terabithia and Jacob Have I Loved) and two National Book Awards (The Great Gilly Hopkins and The Master Puppeteer), one of just 3 people ever to win the two major awards and the only one to do it twice.
Her lifetime body of work was recognized with both the Hans Christian Andersen Award (1998), [image error]and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal (2013).
Paterson's youthful protagonists often face crises by which they learn to triumph through self-sacrifice.  And, unlike many authors of young adult novels, her books often have “adult-like” themes, including death, jealousy and dire situations.  At the same time, her writing is noted for its compassion and empathy interlaced with wry wit and understated humor.   And she loves a wide variety of settings. 
“Obviously, I love to do both contemporary and historical fiction,” she said.  “When a hint of a story grabs me, I try to go with it to see where it will take me whatever the setting.  A story is open-ended. A story invites you into it to make your own meaning.”
 

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That Halloween candy ritual

 [image error]
“I'm a great lover of visual art and I will happily discuss the color and texture of Van Gogh's Starry Night. But I can think of nothing on earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night, which, for me, was . . . pounds of candy, a riot of colored wrappers and hopeful fonts, snub-nosed chocolate bars and SweeTARTS, the seductive rattle of Jujyfruits and Good & Plenty and lollipop sticks all akimbo, the foil ends of mini LifeSavers packs twinkling like dimes, and a thick sugary perfume rising up from the pillowcase.[image error]
     “And more so, the pleasure of pouring out the contents onto the rug in the TV room . . . calling for all chocolate products to be immediately quarantined, sorted, and closely guarded, with higher-quality fruit chews and caramels next, then hard candies, and last of all anything organic (the loathsome raisins).  A brief period of barter with my brothers might ensue. For the most part, I simply lay amid my trove and occasionally massed the candy into a pile which I could sort of dive into, à la Scrooge McDuck and his gold ducats.” – Steve Almond
And so are writer’s moments begun.  Happy Halloween – and happy writing – everyone.
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Nerve-wracking, but satisfying

“Writing one's first novel, getting it sold, and shepherding it through the labyrinths of editing, production, marketing, journalism, and social media is an arduous and nerve-wracking process.” – Paul Di Filippo
Di Filippo – whose 61stbirthday was yesterday – is the author of hundreds of short stories and numerous novels and “collections.”   Unlike some authors who find second or third novels to be problematical, Di Filippo believes that once you master the labyrinth of “processes” in getting that first book out there, it becomes easier in subsequent efforts.   And as his “process” has grown so have his awards and rewards for those efforts.  In the past 15 years he’s been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, BSFA, Philip K. Dick, Wired Magazine, and World Fantasy awards.
Born and raised in Rhode Island, Di Filippo has not only become one of America’s leading science fiction and fantasy writers but also a highly respected reviewer, writing for such magazines as Asimov's Science Fiction, The New York Review of Science Fiction and the online Science Fiction Weekly.  He also is co-author (with Damien Broderick) of Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010.  Paul Di Filippo[image error]
While he has had success with series' of books, including the highly praised Steampunk Trilogy, he said readers and writers alike shouldn’t always expect a repeat of what a writer first produces, because it’s usually not possible.  Although, he noted wryly, “The impossibility of a sequel ever recapturing everything - or anything - about its ancestor never stopped legions of writers from trying, or hordes of readers and publishers from demanding more of what they previously enjoyed.”

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