Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 502

New worlds to conquer

“A life lesson for me is, how do you muster the courage to take on a new risk? Whether it's starting up a business or taking on a new project or expedition. I think the risks that we take are all relative to the risk-taker.” – Ann Bancroft
One of the fun feature stories I got to write was about Ann and her co-explorer Paul Schurke shortly after they returned from conquering the North Pole via sled dog team (on the Steger-Schurke Expedition).   They came to Northfield, Minn., where we were living, to share stories about their harrowing trek, sign autographs, and do a fund-raiser for a couple more trips each was anticipating.
Ann had become the first woman to cross the ice on foot to the North Pole, and a few years later she would lead the first all-female team across the ice to the South Pole.  She remains the only woman to achieve this.  Since then she’s founded the Ann Bancroft Foundation, “to give girls an opportunity to explore their potential and find their place in the world.” 
On that visit to Northfield, Paul -- whose further explorations have included retracing Theodore Roosevelt's 1914 trek through the Amazon -- brought along his lead sled dog Zap and stopped by our house to ask if Zap could stay overnight in the garage while he and Ann ran around town.  “What do we feed him?  How do we walk him?” I was both shocked and surprised that he would entrust this valuable animal to us, since we’d only just met.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said.  “He’ll let you know when he needs a walk, and you know the old saying ‘What does he eat?’ and the answer is ‘Anything he wants to.’”  It turned out – and part of my story explained – sled dogs only eat a couple times a week, and then they pretty much gorge themselves.  This wasn’t one of those days.  Our kids became the center of the neighborhood universe as other kids dropped by to see Zap, a gentle giant when he wasn’t leading his team.
 [image error]
My time talking with both Paul and Ann was equally amazing and I was mesmerized by the power that Ann exuded – a “giant” in her own right even though she’s only about 5 feet tall.  Today is her 60th birthday and she’s still looking for new worlds to conquer.  “This journey is not over,” she said.  “Our education initiatives have so much momentum, and we're committed to sharing even more stories … when we return.”

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That 'persistence' factor

“The difference between people who believe they have books inside of them and those who actually write books is sheer cussed persistence - the ability to make yourself work at your craft, every day - the belief, even in the face of obstacles, that you've got something worth saying.”– Jennifer Weiner

Born in 1970, Weiner jump-started her writing career by developing a column called  Generation XIII, i.e., Generation X – the generation to which she belongs – at a small Pennsylvania newspaper.  After a stint at the Lexington, KY, Herald-Leader she moved over to the Philadelphia Inquirer where she continued to write her columns, did feature stories, and freelanced for such notable magazines as Mademoiselle and Seventeen.
After earning awards for her newspaper work, she started writing novels in the 2000s and has had great success, including the terrific In Her Shoes  (also made into a feature film). To date, she has authored 9 bestselling books – 8 novels and a collection of short stories – with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.
In addition to writing fiction, Weiner is known for "live-tweeting" episodes of the reality dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette.  In 2011, Time magazine named her to its list of the Top 140 Twitter Feeds "shaping the conversation."
“I don't write literary fiction,” she said.  “I write books that are entertaining, but are also, I hope, well-constructed and thoughtful and funny and have things to say about men and women and families and children and life in America today.”


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Read and reflect on your writing heroes

“My writing improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down.” – Dick Schaap
And, the famed writer added, “I was also in love with the English language.”
Born on this date in 1934, sportswriter, broadcaster and author Schaap was one of my early writing heroes.   I always thought it would be cool to write sports stories like he did and that he must have been a natural at it from the get-go.
But Schaap said he struggled to learn the profession just like the rest of us, even though, unlike the “rest” of us, he began his career at the ripe old age of 14 at the New York City-based Nassau Daily Review-Star, while working for famed writer and editor Jimmy Breslin.  He would later follow Breslin to the Long Island Press and New York Herald Tribune.
After earning degrees from Cornell and the Columbia School of Journalism, he was assistant sports editor for Newsweek, and then moved to television, doing both news and sports for NBC, ABC and ESPN and earning 5 Emmys in the process.  In between he broke into the book world co-authoring the wonderful Instant Replay with Green Bay Packer all-pro guard Jerry Kramer (one of my all-time favorite sports books that came out just as I was finally getting into sports writing myself).  
 [image error] Dick Schaap, shortly before his untimely death from complications in hip surgery in 2001
As a young sportswriter, I had the chance attend a talk by Schaap and afterward ask him for advice on how to write good sports story leads and about writing style in general.   
“Read and reflect on writers you admire,” he told me.  “And then model your writing after theirs.  If writing captures your attention, then don’t you want to write that way yourself?”  It’s hard to fail if you follow advice like that.


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Helping 'refine' the language

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But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.”</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> – T.S. Eliot</span></div><div class="bqfqa" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Born Thomas Stearns Eliot on this day in 1888, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">T. S. Eliot</span> was an essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the 20th century's major poets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>He started life as an American and ended it 76 years later as an English citizen and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The award came in 1948 and he lamented that he was almost sad to have the award because “No one has ever done anything after he got it.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Having said that, he promptly wrote his 1949 award-winning play <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Cocktail Party</i>, then went on to author two more plays, dozens of poems, and several highly regarded works of nonfiction before his death in 1965.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">T.S. Eliot<img alt="" src="http://writersmoment.blogspot.com/201..." /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span></b></div><div class="bqfqa" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Eliot first attracted widespread attention for his poem <i>The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock</i> (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including <i>The Waste Land</i> (1922), <i>The Hollow Men</i> (1925), <i>Ash Wednesday</i> (1930), and <i>Four Quartets</i> (1945).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="bqfqa" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="bqfqa" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly,” he said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>“Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; tab-stops: right 6.0in;"><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Share<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> A Writer’s Moment </i>by clicking on the g+1 link below.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /><br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></div>

Make writing 'a regular habit'

“What it takes is to actually write: not to think about it, not to imagine it, not to talk about it, but to actually want to sit down and write. I'm lucky I learned that habit a really long time ago. I credit my mother with that. She was an English teacher, but she was a writer.” – Luanne Rice
Luanne Rice has been a regular on the New York Times’ Bestseller List, but then she’s had lots of opportunities, producing 31 novels so far.    Her work has been translated into 24 languages and 5 have been made into movies – two of which were selected for TV’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame.” 
Many of her novels deal with love and family, although it is about nature and the sea that she truly excels.  Among her works are The Lemon Orchard, Little Night, The Silver Boat, and Sandcastles. Born 60 years ago this day in New Britain, CT, Rice got into writing early and had her first published poem (in the Hartford Courant) at age 11.  Her first short story was published in American Girl magazine when she was 15, and her debut novel, Angels All Over Town, at age 30.
As a just-beginning novelist, Rice was married to a law student and would sit in on lectures on criminal law and evidence, mesmerized by how the cases would unfold and getting ideas for her writing.  From that she developed a research and writing style that have led to her remarkable success.  [image error] Luanne Rice
She said she enjoys doing research, and also writes down her dreams – both of which make up parts of her work.  But, she said, she bases many characters on the real people she has met and is inspired by.  “While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart.”  


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A universal writing 'star'

“My idea is always to reach my generation. The wise writer writes for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Born this day in 1896, Fitzgerald was (and still is) one of the greatest American writers with a remarkable output during his very short life.  In his 44 years his star burned brightly in the writing universe, primarily through brilliant short stories – which many find surprising because of his very well-known novel The Great Gatsby.  But Fitzgerald wrote hundreds of short stories that truly were reflective of what’s known as “The Jazz Age” and the writers who inhabited it, “The Lost Generation.”
A native of St. Paul, Minn., where his childhood home is still open to visitors, Fitzgerald attended Princeton, but dropped out to join the army during World War I.  It was at Princeton that he began his writing and in the early years of the army that he met his future wife Zelda, also a major influence on his writing efforts.  
A few years ago I purchased a set of Fitzgerald’s novels, marketed as key examples of the writings of the Lost Generation.  At the time, I thought these were just four of his many works.  Instead they were THE four of his works – Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tender Is the Night.  He said he kept wanting to write more, but never could generate his earlier enthusiasm.  It led to his famous statement, “There are no second acts in American lives.”
 [image error]F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Francis Scott Fitzgerald was named for his distant cousin, the famous poet Francis Scott Key, and at times said he felt too much pressure to produce.  That, many said, drove him to drink and early death.  But it might just as well have been the pressure to produce that led to his death.  “At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; at 45 they are caves in which we hide,” he wrote in anticipation of that upcoming birthday, which he never reached.
“All good writing,” he said, “is like swimming under water and holding your breath.”



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One 'key' to readability

“Good fiction must be entertaining, but what makes fiction special - and true - is that the realness of a novel allows it to carry a larger message.”– Jerry B. Jenkins
Born on this date in 1949, American novelist and biographer Jenkins is best known as co-author of the Left Behind series of books with Tim LaHaye (also made into a movie).  To say that he’s been a prolific writer would be quite an understatement, since he’s authored or co-authored more than 150 books, including romance novels, mysteries, children's adventures, and non-fiction.

 [image error]Jerry JenkinsJenkins, who lives in Colorado, said he finds it ironic that in today’s marketplace successful nonfiction has to be “unbelievable,” while successful fiction must be “believable.”  Toward that end, he said he loves inventing worlds, characters and scenarios.
As far as for what makes his books “readable,” Jenkins said he leaves that up to each reader and hopes that people form their own images as they go along.  “The theater of the mind is impossible to compete with, and I like the idea that with a few suggestions, each reader forms in his or her own mind what a character or a place looks like.”

 Not an easy door to open, but Jenkins seems to have located the right key.
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Stories to 'excite' the imagination

“I'm attracted to stories that excite my imagination, stories that, as I'm reading the script, I feel it, I can see it, I can hear the characters. I'm attracted to characters that are real, that tap into something inside me that I haven't explored yet.” – Tatiana Maslany
I think Maslany, who grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada, is one of the most interesting young actresses working today.  And to read her quote about what makes a script “real” is a direct correlation to what makes any type of writing interesting and worthy of a reader’s time.
If you haven’t seen Maslany (who’s 30thbirthday is today), I highly commend to you the BBC America program “Orphan Black.”  To say that she carries off an amazing transformation in this show is a vast understatement.  And, after watching the Emmy Awards a couple days ago (for which she was nominated for the 3rd straight year as Best Actress) I remain shocked that she has not won multiple awards for her acting.  In it she portrays not one, two or even three characters, but an incredible seven different roles.  And while watching it you are absolutely convinced that these are different people on the screen.  [image error]
But, as she rightly says, it’s the terrific writing, by Graeme Manson, that also makes this such an interesting and unusual show.  Both Manson and director John Fawcett – along with Maslany of course – deserve every accolade and award it has received.
“'Orphan Black' allows for people to have debates and theories and allegiances to different characters - to trust characters and hate other characters - but it doesn't tell you who is good or bad or right or wrong,” Tatiana commented.   “That's the most exciting storytelling, in my book.”   Words to chew on – and enjoy.



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Telling the story fairly & squarely

“A journalist enjoys a privileged position. In exchange for not being able to participate in the rough-and-tumble issues of a community, we are given license to observe it all, based on the understanding that we'll tell everyone what happens fairly and squarely. That's harder than it sounds.” – Bill Kurtis
If you’re a fan of National Public Radio and more specifically the weekly “News Quiz” show called “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” then you know that Bill Kurtis’s voice is one of the most recognizable on the air.  There, he is the announcer and scorekeeper (yes, they really have a scorekeeper) on the show. Today, he celebrates his 75thbirthday.
Prior to this current gig, it wasn’t as if Kurtis was hiding his light under a bushel.  For years he was the longtime anchor of WBBM-TV in Chicago and also served as anchor of “CBS Morning News.”  When he wasn’t doing the news – either as a journalist, producer, narrator or anchor, he was the host of a number of the A&E Network’s crime and news documentary shows, including Investigative Reports, American Justice, and Cold Case Files.  [image error]Kurtis began broadcasting at age 16 and continued doing it part-time while working his way through college and then law school in Kansas.  After finishing his law degree he was weighing options in the legal field while still working part time at a Topeka station when one of the nation’s biggest storms struck the region.  As a fill-in reporter and anchor he ended up staying on air for 24 straight hours.  His broadcast work that night was lauded throughout the nation, and he was snapped up by WBBM where he spent 30 years at the CBS affiliate before going to CBS nationally.
While many are lamenting the fact that today’s youth seem ambivalent about journalism and the news, he said he believes that young people are looking for answers to the big questions just like everyone else.  “(I think) that they respect intelligent comment to help guide them through tough times.”  He sees a bright and shining opportunity ahead for the news business.

“Think of it: television producers joining with newspapers to tell stories. It's journalism of the future.”   Look for the tireless Kurtis to continue playing a key role in how it all shapes up.


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A writer, of course

“I just love writing. It's magical, it's somewhere else to go, it's somewhere much more dreadful, somewhere much more exciting. Somewhere I feel I belong, possibly more than in the so-called real world.” – Tanith Lee
I’ve been meaning to say a few words about Lee since her death this past May, so when I saw this quote by her I decided to get it done.   The prolific British writer, who was just 67 when she died, authored nearly 100 novels, 300 short stories, 1 children's picture book (Animal Castle), and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake's 7 and was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel for her book Death's Master – the second novel in her “Flat Earth” series.
Lee's descriptive style first captured my attention when I picked up one of her books on a trip to England.  Vibrant and exotic are often words used by critics when writing about her works, and I would definitely concur.  But perhaps the best thing that might be said about her style is that it can’t be categorized, something that definitely helped her broad readership base.   
Once when asked, she said she was greatly influenced by the historical novelist Mary Renault, (who wrote some terrific works on Ancient Greece), but then she quickly added “Oh, and C.S. Lewis.  Actually,” she said, “I love writers all across the board, so I’ve been influenced by many.”  She said her own vivid imagination also shaped her writing career.
“At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be.  But what I was, of course, was a writer.”
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