Caroline Bock's Blog: Caroline Anna Bock Writes, page 13

January 4, 2013

HOW TO WRITE MORE in 2013

How to write more in 2013:
 
Write from the heart, life is too short to follow trends, to
chase what’s hot today. Though if from the heart comes the next paranormal,
dystopian, fantasy, erotic bondage adventure, I won’t argue!
 
Return to short stories. Read over the holidays: Object
Lessons-- The Paris Review presents the art of the short story (a great read
for new writers - FREE excerpt available at the Paris Review website);
The Best American Short Stories edited by Tom Perrotta; Dear
Life
by Alice Munro; Astray by Emma Donoghue, and The PEN/O. Henry Prize
Stories 2012
. Plan to re-read some of the classics by Flannery O’Connor and
Sherwood Anderson next. Any other suggestions?  
I love the completeness of short stories – both from the
reader’s perspective and the writer’s. What do I mean by this – a novel is a
marriage, a short story is a date, fun and over at the end of the night. Not
that it doesn’t take a good while to write a good short story, it does.  I am still working at the long-term
marriage, but right now, I need the gratification of a few wild dates.  
Start with a character -- that you know inside and out, that you can
describe from head to toe, whose emotional core you can write about for
pages, and write at least one page on that character. "Character is the
very life of fiction," from John Gardner is a quote I have above my desk.

How to start anything? Don’t obsess. Remember: the first
draft of anything is “shit.” Ernest Hemingway said that. I have it above my
desk too.    
 
Are you ready for 2013? 
And coming in 2014… my new novel from St. Martin’s Press…
BEFORE MY EYES.  
Truly,
Caroline Bock
 
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on January 04, 2013 20:39

January 2, 2013

Do you ever stop reading to write? And other thoughts of a hard-core reader


Do you ever stop reading and start to write? I’ve been
reading a lot of short story collections trying to stretch my writing--attempting
to see what’s new or different out there. Short stories are quicker to read than novels and the writing is often more
telling in short form than long.   
More telling: Tom Perrotta talks about point of view is
switched through many of the short stories in the preface to the 2012
edition of The Best American Short
Stories
– and how this was radical 20 years ago and more going back— and
isn’t anymore. Big check off for me because I like to switch point of views a
lot in longer pieces (see LIE, my debut novel-10 points of view ) but didn’t do
it in the past, wasn’t it against some rule somewhere? But now I’ve tried it in
some new pieces – and it doesn’t hurt at all.  
Not new, uneven, but often exhilarating exploration of
character: The Book of Other People
edited by Zadie Smith. Outstanding
stories include: “Gideon” by ZZ Packer, heart-breaking, about a black-white
romance, and the hilarious stream-of-conscious ranting of Jewish grandmother to
her grandson in “Rhoda” by Jonathan Safran Foer  to the  story I
can’t shake from me: “Puppy” by George Saunders with its two different points
of views – two women at different ends of the economic divide and a disturbed
boy chained to a tree and a puppy. 
    
I’ll admit it. I can’t stop reading. I read to write. I am a
hard-core reader.  
Next story collection: Married
Love,
by Tessa Hadley. What she says in the afterward resonated with this
reader-writer: “I used to be nervous if I didn’t ‘know enough.’ Now I trust, up
to a point, that the best part of “knowing” is imagining. If you can imagine
it, then you’ll probably be able to write it.”     
So here a few of my writing thoughts… notes… from reading
these short story collections.., 
1)  
the rule is there are no rules2)  
we all want something new3)  
even with no rules, wanting something new, we
still want what we’ve always wanted: story, a way into other people’s lives
because we can’t stand our own or a way into our lives to understand anything
at all. 4)  
At the end of day it’s you knowing that you can
trust yourself to       imagine and write. 
More thoughts on reading-writing out there?
Truly,Caroline
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on January 02, 2013 11:23

December 12, 2012

What Were Those Editors Thinking?

Note to Parade magazine and the "book editors at amazon.com" who put together their version of this fall's top fiction and nonfiction books in today's Sunday newspapers-- it is the year 2012 -- and on your top ten list you have included only two women writers? Can I say I'm shocked - no - but I am pissed. Of all the books out -- only two, both fiction ( The Round House by the seminal Louise Erdrich and T he Diviners by the young adult author Libba Bray) made the mix.  Could there be that no woman wrote a compelling non fiction book -- oh, go to the front page of the New York Times book review and there you'll find not one, but TWO, newly-released nonfiction books that look like must reads: The End of Men And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin and V agina: a New Biography by Naomi Wolf. Maybe the titles were too scary or shocking for the "book editors at amazon.com?"  Then, also in the New York Times were two new novels by women.  And even more, all the nonfiction and fiction by women were reviewed by women, something I was gratified to see.    There is an organization, VIDA -- Women in Literary Arts, which tracks and publishes stats on this fairness and parity in the literary arena and kudos to them for continuing to point out that women read, women buy books, but women writers are published less and reviewed less. But I didn't need anyone this Sunday morning to tell me that too often the deck is stacked, the fix in, and yes,  the bias often without malice but bias nevertheless. I wish 'amazon' would remember that one definition of their name is strong woman -- and think of this next time they publish a list like this.   

 
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

When My Daughter Didn't Get Off the School Bus... and ZOMBIES

I like literary novels and short stories and poetry.  Right now I’m reading Junot Diaz’ incredible new
collection of short stories: “This is How You Lose Her” and Lionel Shriver’s devastatingly thought-provoking “We
Need to Talk About Kevin.”
I’ve written a literary, realistic young
adult novel: LIE.

 
But I also like end of the world, we-are-all-at-risk,
flesh-eating zombie stories.  I
think it makes me less afraid of the day–to-day fears (today, my 7-year-old daughter
didn’t get off the bus today, was she kidnapped? Is she hurt? Is she crying out
for mommy – no, they didn’t announce her bus and she’s waiting in the main
office with a half a dozen other kids who didn’t hear their bus being called.  I can go calmly pick her up. I can do this.).   
I didn’t once think: did
zombies attack her?
It would almost have been a relief to focus on zombies
because everything else could have been an option.  In the celluloid/digital world we watch in horror as the
innocents go into the dark doublewide trailer or into the bucolic woods – and
you know-- and everyone but that person knows – THAT’S WHERE THE ZOMBIES ARE.   When there are flesh-eating
zombies on the screen, somehow my world, with my day-to-day fears seem
somewhat manageable.  The zeitgeist
of zombies is that they are unpredictable, driven by base passion and not by
reason. Zombies are the Zen of our
time. I can put all my irrational fear into them – and be calm -- except when my daughter isn't on her school bus and she should be.     
Of course, this love of zombies makes me a fan of AMC’s The Walking Dead
and on an upbeat thing to share: I just noticed that they are right now running a sweepstakes-- a trip for two to the
Walking Dead Set – co-sponsored in a weird bit of promotion by the Red
Cross (Use Your Brains, Give Blood is the tagline - go to www.amctv.com).  
 
Truly, 
Author of LIECritically-acclaimed YA for adults…and teens.
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

WNBA Great Group Reads 2012

Are you looking for a book club selection?  Did you know that October is officially National Reading Group Month (did you ever wonder who is in charge of assigning what events to what day or month?) I had a terrific opportunity through the WNBA (not the women's basketball association -- but the Women's National BOOK Association) to read a slew of books this summer and participate in the selection of their 2012 Great Group Reads. Here's the final list, which was just announced this week:
Great Group ReadsNational Reading Group Month SelectsGreat Group Reads
2012 Selections
The Absolutist by John Boyne*An Age of Madness by David Maine*The Art of Fielding by Chad HarbachThe Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan‐Philipp Sendker*Blue Asylum by Kathy HepinstallBoleto by Alyson HagyThe Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman*Equal of the Sun by Anita AmirrezvaniFaith by Jennifer HaighA Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley CashI Married You for Happiness by Lily TuckIn the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey RatnerThe O'Briens by Peter BehrensThe Orchardist by Amanda Coplin*The Right-Hand Shore by Christopher TilghmanRunning the Rift by Naomi BenaronSalvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward*The Snow Child by Eowyn IveyWhat Alice Forgot by Liane MoriartyWhy Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson
I didn't read all these books -- we were divded into reading groups --but the books I starred* I did read and wholeheartedly recommend for a thought-provoking book club selection.  More about all the selections, including reading guides for book clubs can be found at www.nationalreadinggroupmonth.org
 
Happy reading!!
Truly, Carolineauthor of LIEYA for adults


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

National Bullying Prevention Month -and THE GIRL IN THE HAT

I hate bullies -- even though, if you ask my brothers or sister they may describe me as one on occasion. Still, in the spirit of National Bullying Prevention Month I was asked by the wonderful Lady Reader's Book Stuff to write a short piece on bullying... what I wrote about was long-buried in my memory and even so many years later painful to recall.  

The Girl in a Hat - a Memoir excerpt

I once had a hat.              This
was a hat I wore all the time – to bed, to school, when I got home, when my
father asked me, ‘why the hell are you wearing a hat inside?’ and after asking
once or twice stopped and just let me be.
            Of
course you are wondering what kind of hat? I wish I could say that this hat had
magical properties – that it could, like the talking hat in the Harry Potter stories, tell me what
“house” I should be in. Then I would know where I belonged. For certainly, I
didn’t belong in the house at the end of the block, the one with six-inch high
crabgrass, the one with shouts and screams from four kids jabbing out the open
windows, the one without a mother.
            Unfortunately,
this hat was knitted by my grandmother in a fury of clacking needles on her
regular visits when my father was at work. She was our mother’s mother and in a
constant battle with him. Made from leftover yarn, a rough muddy grey and navy
blue wool, the knots on the inside of the hat were the size of bullets and left
dents in my forehead. Once or twice my grandmother tried to teach me to knit
and pronounced me careless and useless and good for nothing but those books I
was always reading. It was a relief to be such a poor student— at knitting and
crocheting and sewing – because then I could go back to reading when I wasn’t
cooking dinner or doing the laundry. I was in sixth grade, eleven-years-old,
when I wore this hat all the time.
            The
only place I wasn’t allowed to wear my hat was in Mrs. Abrahamson’s class. She
was old school strict. We sat in rows of desks, unlike in fourth and fifth
grade where we had been part of an experiment in “open classes.” I spent two
years huddling in the corner reading books or at least that’s how I remember
that blur of time. However, I remember Mrs. Abrahamson classroom – we had
textbooks and lessons on the blackboard and homework – and a musty smell of wet
wool through the winter days. It was a relief to find myself in that quiet
classroom. All the rest of my life was in chaos but I had a desk in which to
place my notebook and pencils and hat. 
   
            As
soon as the bell rang and we were let outside for recess, I reached for that
hat and pulled it down over my stringy brown hair and high forehead. Maybe, I
thought I could disappear, vanish, and become the invisible person I felt I
truly was. I had no friends except for one other girl, whose divorcing parents during
the winter break would pull her out of public school in New Rochelle, New York and
send her out of state to boarding school.    
            I
wore that hat no matter the weather: cold, rainy, snowy and into the days that lengthened
and warmed. One rainy spring day there was a class bus trip – I don’t know
remember to where— but I do recall that my friend wasn’t on that trip and I was
sitting by myself with the excuse of a book on my lap, when a hand drilled down
on my head. I reached up as my hat was snatched off my head – by Brent or Evan
or Karen or Debbie—I don’t know who to this day, but those where the kids who led
the tormenting of others. Everyone knew they were the untouchable popular kids.
Brent or Karen ripped my hat off and tossed it from one seat to another. I
screamed – too late—a window had been wedged open for my hat.       
            Now,
I could end this on a fairy tale note: those kids were punished or at least
said they were sorry; my grandmother knitted me a new, nicer hat; I was
suddenly popular with shiny hair smelling of lavender shampoo -- but none of
those things happened. My grandmother stated that I shouldn’t have lost the hat,
which is what I told her: I lost my hat. My father said that I would lose my
head too if that wasn’t screwed on.
            Stacy,
a friend of Karen and Debbie, did inform me that she had her mother drive along
the roadside where my hat had been flung out the bus window. But couldn’t find my
hat in the mud and muck. And I said that it was okay. “It was time for the hat
to go,” as if I knew even then that most things in our lives bring us only
temporary comfort, that life is about a continuing re-arranging and re-imaging
from loss, that we have to reach within ourselves to find the strength to persevere,
to believe in ourselves when others would be so quick to throw us or our hat out
the window. 
            Some
things you don’t forget. You take them with you and over time, you let the
anger and the sadness at being the girl in the hat form its own story, just one
of many, because you are determined not to have any one story define you. You
are committed to write many stories and end up the master of your fate.


            Though
I do have to admit, I don’t like to wear hats any more.    
                                                                    ###   ©  Caroline Bock, 2012




Now, if you go to Lady Reader's blog-- she is doing a giveaway of a signed edition of LIE, my debut young adult novel, which is also appropriate for this month.  Inspired by real events, LIE is the story of a brutal hate crime and extreme bullying. If you haven't read it yet, enter the giveaway!
Truly,
Caroline

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

More on NATIONAL BULLYING PREVENTION MONTH

This wonderful writing friend made this comment on my last post. .. for National Bullying Prevention Month...and I feel compelled to share it widely because, honestly, I wish I had made it!  But this is a reason for insightful readers and editors like Debbie Vilardi, they see into your writing as much as your soul: 

"The hats you wear today have so much more power than the one you lost. If only the child you were could have known."
 --Debbie Vilardi.
Thank you, Debbie! 
Truly,
author of LIE
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

JACK GILBERT. REFUSING HEAVEN. R.I.P. November 13, 2012

At Syracuse University, on a sparkling cold winter night, at the Hall of Languages, top floor, I listened to my poetry teacher, Jack Gilbert, read and I cried and cried. His words and the passion in which he read them filled this undergraduate with emotion and possibility -- and I remember thinking: this is what it means to be in college, to write, to be alive.
I also recall one of his first workshop exercises -- to read Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird by Wallace Stevens and to write our own thirteen ways of looking by  seeing the world as it is not as we wish it could be.
This magnificent poet died today at age 87. One of his last collection of poems I re-read now, Refusing Heaven (his "Collected Poems" have just been released this year). In the title poem, the voice says at the end, as he refuses heaven, "He is like an old ferry dragged onto the shore,/ a home in its smashed grandeur, with the giant beams/ and joist.  Like a wooden ocean out of control./ A beached heart.  A cauldron of cooling melt."  Rest in peace, old teacher. Sail on.
Truly,
Caroline Bock

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

TWENTY YEARS BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND PART...

Did you ever find something old--a poem-- and decide to finish it twenty years after you started it? Of course, you're a different person. Or are you? Here's my poem that I found and finished...

Twenty Years Between
the First and Second Part
 
We come to it late this love late at nightafter the argument about the kids that aren’t born yet to us— we are preparing ourarguments ahead of time like we preparedcheat notes for tests in college we makeready our lives for children then come back tolove after we’ve decided nothing—the children will come when they come andwe’ll let them be born. What a thing to have to decide—when to let something be born and when other things like moneymatter more.   
Twenty entangled years later,making love late again.No arguments before or after, onlyour son and daughter’s sleeping breaths,what a thing we’ve decided—nothing matters more.  
          ©Caroline Bock
2012
Consider giving your teen a novel that will make them think differently about the meaning of love -- and hate -- my debut novel: LIE.
Truly,
Caroline
 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:15

12.12.12 and 12.21.12 and Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Why I don’t believe the world is ending on 12.21.12 or
anytime soon:
 
-Because my library books are due that day. I couldn’t be so
lucky as the world to end that day.  
-Because my father said only two things are guaranteed death
and taxes – and the latter are going off the fiscal cliff a week or so later or
at least are not due to April 15.   
-Because every Jewish holiday comes down to this classic Alan
Ladd quip: “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.” We are still hungry
– the world can’t end until we are all fed. 
-Because on my 30 birthday (a few years ago!) a
psychic took my drunken palm and told me I’d live to be at least 86. I believe
this Times Square psychic more than the Mayans.  
-Lastly, the world will not end on 12.21.12 because I still
need to dance at my son’s and daughter’s weddings and they are only 12 and 7,
because I still need to write my adult novel, because I still need to see Rome
and Jerusalem and the Grand Tetons.  And because I have miles to go before I sleep. And miles to
go before I sleep.
 
Your thoughts on 12.21.12??

Truly,
author of LIEand because LIE still needs to be
promoted, bought, read.

 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on December 12, 2012 21:02

Caroline Anna Bock Writes

Caroline Bock
Here's to a 2018 with

-stories that matter

-time to read those stories

-drive to write (and finish) my own stories.

Here's a happy, healthy world for all!

--Caroline

...more
Follow Caroline Bock's blog with rss.