Caroline Bock's Blog: Caroline Anna Bock Writes, page 11

MESS IS IMPORTANT - On Writing

I've thought about this a lot --  how to start. I came across this on Bloom , website for writers, age 40 and over  - from the startling writer of short, flash fiction Meg Pokrass.  I don't think you have to be 40 plus for this advice to resonant: 
"I think you can start by looking at the mess in your room, in your kitchen, or in your life—and writing some words about it. See if the words are as messy as the mess. Those words are important. Mess is important.
Alternatively, look at the orderliness in your room, your kitchen, or your life. Write about the satisfaction or the tyranny in that order. Who does it remind you of? Who do you remind yourself of?

Write about the phone call or e-mail that doesn’t come, the one that you were waiting for your whole life. Write about the call that comes too often.

Write about the call that is strangely just right on time, what the ring sound is like, and what the room temperature is when the phone rings.

Write about what you love as much as what you dislike. Imagine people you despise when they were children, write about an imaginary moment that made them who they are. Lie and create. Deceive your way to the truth. Tell your own story, and then find characters living inside yourself."
Now I'm off to look at my mess -- I have so much more of that than orderliness.

Truly, Caroline
P.S. If you haven't read my debut novel: LIE, read it this summer. New novel, Before My Eyes, coming in February, 2014!

Lions, Rodin, Balzac, John Singer Sargant, Writing Summer So Far

The lion sleeps at the entrance to the Brooklyn Museum. Both
my daughter and I are drawn to him in his stone-cold repose.

On the opposite
side, in the light, are the Rodin’s. My daughter stands in a circle of bronze men. I tell her that these are sculptures of a French writer, Balzac. When
she asks what has she written, I can’t name a book of his (La Comedie humaine or The Human Comedy, I look up later).
 
Upstairs, we visit the watercolors of John Singer Sargent
and I want to dive into one of his paintings the water looks that real. My
daughter says that I’ll get wet.  
She prefers: “The Dinner Party,” by Judy Chicago, feminist installation art.
What is that? She asks. She wants a seat at the table, and I tell her that’s
what it is.

I write lines in my head while walking through the museum.
This is summer so far. 

PRINT vs. DIGITAL BOOKS- MY 7 YEAR OLD WEIGHS IN

My seven-year-old announced that she wants to read ‘real’
books. She doesn’t want to read on any of our multiple electronic devices. Oh,
she is happy to play games on them. She will make her father a digital
cupcake and he will have to pretend to eat it.  
It's July and she she wants to go to our public library . She wants to check
out as many books as she can hold in her outstretched arms. She wants to use
her own library card, which she carries in her own Mickey Mouse wallet. She
wants to check out books that are pictures books and big kid books, which means
books with chapters. She wants books with lots of chapters. She wants to curl
up in my reading chair and ask if someday she can have her own special reading
chair and read. She wants to feel herself going through the pages. She wants to
see how much she’s read by holding the heft of the book in her fingertips. She wants
to turn pages, she says, and see real words. Don't distract her. Don't read over her shoulder or ask if her is she wants a cold drink of water or stroke the top of her head. Don't hum. Especially don't hum old Beach Boy songs. She wants to read not play. She wants to live inside the book.  
She announces every chapter she’s finished. She shows me how
many pages she’s read and my job is to be impressed, and I am.

As a writer who is at
peace with the digital age, who blogs and tweets and posts, I’m absolutely fine
with reading on an electronic device. Except, that I still like books too. I
want to hug her. However, she’s reading her book. 

Truly, author o f LIE and the forthcoming BEFORE MY EYES (St. Martin's Press, February, 2014)

A Very Adult Short Short Story - "Counting Backwards" by Caroline Bock

This is flash fiction - "Counting Backwards" -- less than 750 words-- submitted to Akashic Books,an indie Brooklyn press, infamous publishers of "Go the F--k to Sleep," a parent's classic.
This short short was written after reading another writer's flash and feeling that flush of jealousy-- one of this writer's main motivators, though maybe one shouldn't admit that-- amid the swirling of loneliness, sadness and regret. Maybe one should say that deep thoughts and world disasters motivate me (what motivates you?) and leave it at that.

Warning: this is Very Adult Fiction. Here's the link: http://www.akashicbooks.com/

The Writer is the Person Who Stays In The Room and Other Writing Insights

I was feeling like I couldn’t write – it doesn’t really
matter why – it was one of those days: sticky hot, rife with pollen and undone
dishes and dreams drifting, uncomfortably unattainable—  so I picked up Ron Carlson Writes a Story
From the First Glimmer of An Idea to the Final Sentence (he actually
includes his entire short story: “The Govenor’s Ball” at the end). This slim
book is a mini-MFA semester with this head of the MFA program in fiction at the
University of California, Irvine. The biggest lesson: stay at your desk.
Keep writing. Stay twenty minutes more. And twenty after that. Finish.I loved this advice (of course I was reading not writing it). But I do believe that the hardest thing is to finish, to get the first draft done, to let the words out.
 
But there is more. Here are the top five writing insights that I culled from Ron Carlson Writes A Story. I hope he writes many more.   
“When people ask me the personal-experience question, my
response is that I write my personal experiences, whether I’ve had them or
not…Having a feeling for my materials means sending myself on each journey,
whether I’ve actually been there or not, and it involves the powerful act of
the imagination that good writing requires: empathy.” 
“I’m constantly looking for things that are going to help me
find the next sentence, survive the story.” 
“The most important thing a writer can do after completing a
sentence is to stay in the room.  The writer is the person who stays in the
room.” (Carlson’s italics throughout, but I agree!) 
“The single thing I say the most to writers of dialogue is
slow down. I actually don’t see much clunky dialogue, but I see a lot of scenes
that are too brisk., to summarily done…And in the process of writing dialogue,
remember: your characters can’t advance the story because they may not know it yet. That is a reason to slow down, to listen,
find out.” 
“Our mission is to write the physical scene as closely as we
can, knowing that our intentions lie just beyond our knowing. Write, don’t
think.”  
So we begin again. We turn toward autumn, toward possibility;
we return to writing.
Look for my new novel: BEFORE MY EYES (St. Martin's Press) in February of 2014 .
 

A Very Adult Flash Fiction Short Story

My flash fiction short story "Counting Backwards" was selected by Akashic Press for their weekly web series: Thursdaze. Check it out at http://www.akashicbooks.com

It's very different from anything I've written in the past.

--Caroline
Look for my new novel:
BEFORE MY EYES
coming in February
from St. Martin's Press
www.carolinebock.com

Caroline Bock

Guilty Pleasures - Spy Masters

Israeli spy master Gabriel Allon returns - and well - the first third of this new installment is slow-going for this fan of Daniel Silva's series. This international series is this writer-reader's guilty pleasure. However, this installment -- set in Corsica, London, south of France and Moscow (and of course Israel) and tracking the story of Russian oil oligarch's feels more like Allon's denouement than any set up for future stories. Perhaps it's time for retirement or a move out of the playing field for one intense and complex spy master?

In case I need a new guilty pleasure: favorite literary spies out there?

Truly, author of LIE and forthcoming BEFORE MY EYES www.carolinebock.com

FREEDOM... To Write on the 4th of July

I just finished a new book about writing, GOOD PROSE: The Art of Nonfiction by Tracy Kidder and his editor Richard Todd. This is worth a read for new writers and more established ones. Some of its gems include a chapter on point of view in creative nonfiction as well as a chapter on “Being Edited and Editing.” The work ends with an insightful chapter on usage and grammar, which includes a warning against medical, political and digital age clichés including my own pet peeve—use of “mega” and “giga” and “nano” as prefixes.

The back and forth between the writer and the editor is what delighted this writer the most. We live inside our heads as writers and good editors help us take what’s inside out – freely, unwieldy at times, wildly at other times.

Why does this matter on the 4th of July? In too many places around the world, people are denied basic freedoms of expression – they cannot assembly, speak or write freely. In the United States of America, our Founding Fathers thought it critical to write down what we as Americans are guaranteed in exchange for our good citizenship, our allegiance. "... in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We, the People, wrote our Constitution down and have been debating different aspects of it ever since—but the Constitution of the United States still stands 237 years later. And we need to remain vigilant about our freedoms, especially in an age of easy electronic surveillance. Today, on the 4th of July, we celebrate our freedom, and I write. Do you?

Truly, Caroline
www.carolinebock.com


Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction

Why Can't I Write Happy? A WONDER of a novel

I just finished an inspiring book -- WONDER by R. J. Palacio -- a middle grade novel about a young boy, Auggie Pullman, with a rare genetic facial deformity and his first year in middle school -- and spoiler alert -- it all turns out okay.  There are cool inspirational quotes along the way such as "You're gonna reach the sky..Fly... Beautiful child," from the Eurythmics "Beautiful Child." Different characters struggle with his deformity -- his own, his sister's, his best friend's -- and except for a handful of stock bullying bad kids -- they all turn out to be good, kind kids and see past what is obvious -- and to the inner self of Auggie. I envied his parents -- hard-working, caring, decent people -- a mother who said all the right things. At the end, his class gives him a standing ovation at the graduation ceremonies. Auggie soars. I loved this novel. I cried. I cheered. It's a novel to read with your kids. But I could never write it -- never, ever.
I think to write a happy novel -- one with characters that are essentially good people with decent values--one had to live a life filled with people who are essentially good. For the most part, I didn't have those kind of people in my life growing up except for my Pop. He was a good father, a good man,  too often overwhelmed with being a single parent. His words of wisdom were blunt: the way you make your bed is the way you'll sleep in it. I love him still for trying.
I don't know if R. J. Palacio had a happy life or not -- but I know that mine was broken. One way I've put it back it back together is writing. Even so, the pieces are never as happy as WONDER. But I'm thankful there are writers like her that can write 'happy' -- a wonder to me. Caroline look for my new novel: BEFORE MY EYES coming out in February, 2014from St. Martin's Press

WNBA 2013 Great Group Reads

Great Group Reads 2013!
Great Groups Reads 2013 are carefully vetted books by book lovers for book clubs everywhere via the wonderful Women's National Book Association . Last year, I was part of the selection committee; this year, I am was not able to join in the fun of reading and selecting these books, but I am thrilled to share this list:  
Americanah by Chimamanda
Ngozi Adichie (Knopf)  Beautiful Ruins by Jess
Walter (Harper Perennial)*   Big Brother by Lionel
Shriver (Harper)*  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
by Anthony Marra (Hogarth) David by Ray Robertson
(Biblioasis) The House Girl by Tara
Conklin (William Morrow) How It All Began by Penelope
Lively (Penguin Books) Is This Tomorrow by Caroline
Leavitt (Algonquin Books) Life After Life by Kate
Atkinson (Reagan Arthur Books) Margot by Jillian Cantor
(Riverhead Books) Mary Coin by Marisa Silver
(Blue Rider Press) The Middlesteins by Jami
Attenberg (Grand Central Publishing) Nowhere Is a Place by
Bernice L. McFadden (Akashic Books) The One-Way Bridge by Cathie
Pelletier (Sourcebooks Landmark) Ordinary Grace by William
Kent Krueger (Atria Books) The Other Typist by Suzanne
Rindell (Amy Einhorn Books) The Round House by Louise
Erdrich (Harper Perennial) Schroder by Amity Gaige
(Twelve) Sparta by Roxana Robinson
(Sarah Crichton Books) Wash by Margaret Wrinkle
(Atlantic Monthly Press) The Yellow Birds by Kevin
Powers (Back Bay Books) 
 
*Even though I wasn’t part of the official ‘Great Group
Reads 2013’ review committee this year, I have read these two novels and highly
recommend them for book clubs. I look forward to reading more on this list with my book club. 

And look for: BEFORE MY EYES, my new novel, coming out in February, 2014 from St. Martin's Pres  -- a terrific book club read!  Caroline