Thierry Sagnier's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

I've never considered myself particularly smart. I have a head full of largely useless information (what's a reluctant flyer? Know about the divine proportion? Who is Исаак Озимов?) but I've never had the conventional shrewdness that knows how to make money, produce worthwhile investments that work, or purchase properties that accrue in value. In fact, as I've stated in earlier blogs, my motto is "Buy high, sell low." I'm often good at starting projects but find it difficult to finish them; my initiatives have a pretty high burn-out rate. I have never mastered the piano, learned to ride a unicycle, climbed a real mountain or learned to speak Esperanto.

My ambitions have been relatively limited: I’ve always wanted to write. Then I wanted to get read, and achieve a small measure of fame. Now, I’d like to not worry overly about money, or health, both of which in my case are shaky. So basically, I don't think I'm dumb, far from it. I’ve come to accept (and happily so) that what I have is an often unfocused curiosity, perhaps an inquisitiveness that is simply focused on the wrong thing. I write about stuff few people want to read about and have been told more than once that I don’t see the forest for the trees.
What I find interesting seldom is, to most people. Have you ever considered, for example, the speed at which we process remembered information and segue from one thought to another? This has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. For what it's worth, according to Johns Hopkins University, the speed of one thought broaching another is around 300 milliseconds, which is how long it took a volunteer to begin to understand a pictured object. Add to that another 250 to 450 milliseconds to fully comprehend what it was. Total speed of thought: between 550 and 750 milliseconds.
More interesting, even, is how our minds (or at least mine) begin by pondering the recipe for Grandma's pineapple upside down cake and, in mere flashes of time, go through a series of steps and thoughts without our volition to end up contemplating Stalin’s politics, and whether the Beatles' Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds lyrics were drafted when John was stoned or indeed did have something to do with Julian Lennon's favorite schoolmate.
How do we do this, and why? What possible reason can be found for this aimless leapfrogging of notions, one after the either, with no apparent rhyme or logic? Practitioners of kundalini yoga would tell you that thoughts freed of intellect represent the first step towards a liberation of the being. Buddhists might echo this in their own way with the concept of ‘mindfulness’ which, if I understand it correctly (no guarantees there) is a very brief state of awareness that exists just before conceptualization. In other words, we enter this state before we focus our mind on an issue or thing, before we objectify it and segregate it from the rest of existence.
This, I think, is good. It does not necessarily lead to productive inspirations, useful notions or wisdom of any type. In fact, it may do the exact opposite by creating a small, formless universe where our brain gets a chance to rest, to have fun, to flex its neuronal muscles. Or perhaps it's just a sign that I am suffering from a pleasant form of Attention Deficit Disorder.
There's a story told, possibly apocryphal, of Albert Einstein and a lesser known physicist talking at a cocktail party. In the middle of their conversation, the physicist whips out a small notebook and scribbles a few words, then turns to the already famous scientists and says, "You really should carry a notebook as I do, Professor. I use it to note down good ideas I may have during the day." Einstein looks at his colleague sadly, shakes his head. "It wouldn't work for me," he replies, “in my entire life I've only had one or two good ideas."
So that's it. I'm like Einstein.

NEWSFLASH!! I have a new website, www.sagnier.com, and to paraphrase a memorable Seinfeld quote, it’s real, and it’s spectacular.

The new site is important because it really does represent what I do and have done, where I come from, what my influences have been, and, hopefully, where I’m heading. It has all sorts of modern (to a Luddite like me) gizmos, such as a 45-second embedded video of me expounding on how I write; there are links to writers I admire, to my family--I am the least creative of a truly classically creative bunch--and to avocations outside of writing and reading. Music, for example, and bands I’ve played and recorded with. There are photos, quotes, excerpts from books I’ve done, and even a couple of laudatory comments about my écritures.

I should add here that a secondary yet important function of this website is to allay the terminal embarrassment I have suffered from my prior website, a thing I banged together about 15 years ago and have never, ever, updated. The old website has been banished to the Great Ether Out There, and hopefully will never be downloaded or seen again.

My friend and writing colleague Vicki VanArsdale put it together. Yes, that is her real name, without the space between the Van and Arsdale, and I suspect that at some point in the future, someone will want to buy her name and put it on a brand of cosmetics, or maybe a line of baked goods and brownies. Should you need help putting a site together, check hers out at www.vickivanarsdale.com. This is a shameless plug for a talented lady and I am not ill at ease making it. Vicki and I were in close email contact during the entire creative process. I provided as much data as possible, and we both dug around the net to find additional bits of info that would enliven the site. Plans are to make it a flowing thing, easily up-datable and as full of information as possible; in other words, it will be an ongoing work-in-progress.

I particularly enjoyed putting together the list of favored writers, and it struck me as I was drafting it that I’ll never be able to voice my thanks to such luminaries as John Updike, Vance Bourjaily, Honoré de Balzac or Earl Thompson. Thompson, in particular, was a major influence. I read his Garden of Sands, Tattoo and Devil to Pay trilogy at least six times. The story of Jack MacDeramid, a boy growing up in the Dustbowl and coming of age in New York, should be--but sadly is not--a classic. Thompson never garnered the fame of a Capote or Mailer, and his later life is shrouded in mystery. He was 47 when he died in Sausalito, and though he’s almost forgotten now and his books are out of print, they’re well worth finding.

I’m hoping the site will encourage some readers to look into the works of writers no longer in fashion. Few people, at least in the States, are familiar with Francois Villon, a poet of the Middle Ages who vanished mysteriously when he was 32. Or Guy de Maupassant, reputed to have invented the short story and still occasionally reviled for having the temerity to write La Maison Teyllier, the tale of a small-town brothel and its amiable workers and clients.

The website put me in touch with my past. My late sister, Florence Aboulker, was a noted French novelist and feminist. My surviving sister, Isabelle, writes children’s operas that are produced all over the world; my late uncle was a friend of the composers Ravel and Poulenc, and possibly the best interpreter of their works. Researching the website allowed me to find them again, and for that I’m grateful.

You read it here first, and it’s pithy enough to be remembered. Writing, by being interpretive, can’t be anything but an invention, not matter how well-researched or objective.
I came by this realization recently at a used book store in Philadelphia. More than ten thousand books, many with obsessive footnoting and references to other, earlier works. Now certainly, had I been willing to do some research, I could have found the referenced works and inspected their footnotes, which would have led me to more fanatical and neurotic explorations... ad nauseam. But every single word written by all the authors and their sources were their words, the ones they thought best described the situation. And no two writers will ever see the exact same thing and describe it in the same manner. What is a bright fall day for me is the beginning of a dismal winter for you. So it’s all fiction.
And think of this: What, if the research assumed to be correct is wrong? More fiction. So what we have is a basic fact: every biography, investigative or history book, every scientific tome and learned volume purporting to tell us anything at all, is basically a work of fiction. We cannot write, or paint or sculpt absolutes.
To me, this is magnificently entertaining because I like subjectivity. I am much more interested in how things are perceived than how they really are, and anyway, I have a pretty strong suspicion that no one has a clue as to what really is. We just like to think we do...
How amazing. Rene Magritte was right. It wasn’t a pipe at all, just one man’s idea of what a pipe is supposed to look like. That makes my day.

And while we're talking about writers, I'll tell you that I know a lot of them--novelists; tech folks who put out those incredibly complex computer manuals; and others who write and edit the legislation of the land. There are a screenwriter or two, a playwright specializing in children's theater, a couple of poets. I know one splendid young woman whose books are so amazing and beautiful that she should be a household name but isn't. One good friend is the British author of historical romances that have sold in the millions. There are Pulitzer Prize winners from the old days at The Washington Post, and a science fiction author who has won the top prizes in the genre. I even know one lady who writes dirty limericks, though the buyers' market for that is pretty slim. The most widely distributed—if not read—of them all, though, is probably the author of the safety warning found on every can of Duron paint manufactured and sold throughout the North American hemisphere.
Some write by the pound, others specialize in haiku-like brevity. Every writer I know follows some rite of creation. The woman whose fiction I so admire sits among orchids, wearing earplugs. A few must be hungry; one has to just have been fed. A novelist friend can only write in his bathrobe. It is old and needs replacing, but he is persuaded that his talents will vanish if the bathrobe disappears. When he washes it—he does so twice a year—he will stand by the washing machine until the cycles are done. He dries it outside because he wants the terrycloth to benefit from the sun's Vitamin D. My friend C does a set of calisthenics, running in place, followed by deep breathing and stretching exercises before hitting the keyboard. Interestingly enough, none of the writers I know smoke, though a lot drink and do other drugs.
All in all, writing is the height of self-centeredness. One of my books comes in at 389 pages, and contains 112,742 words. Another novel I recently finished is set in Paris just after World War I. It is 456 pages long after editing.
I look at such numbers and think of the conceit necessary to produce a book. I am amazed by the fact that I believe, really believe, readers might spend several hours over several days wandering through a world I invented and peopled. Who the hell do I think I am? A writer, I guess.

I know writers who write well. I also know writers whose works are, at least to me, barely readable. I know broke writers and wealthy writers, writers of novels, historical romances, science fiction and fantasy. I know a poet or two, and song writers and journalists, and flash writers whose stories are never more than a few lines at most.
Writing, I believe, is nothing more than a craft. We work with words rather than, say, wood. We learn the basic rules and apply them.
Grammar is important, as are sentence structure and clarity. We find ways not to overburden the prose and after a while we come to realize that very good writing often depends on what is not written or even alluded to. Good writing promises and delivers. Bad writing promises and does not.
Excellent writing, which is much rarer, has windows and doors that allow the reader to become part of the story being told. Excellent writing invites you into the house, serves tea and madeleines, and then, as you’re inspecting the art work on the walls, it delivers the knockout punch. You don’t see the punch coming, nor do you feel it. You simply and suddenly find yourself knocked flat on your butt, almost breathless, certainly stunned, and grateful for it.
It’s only after you know most of the guiding principles of your craft that you can begin to take liberties, and you’ll do this at great risks.
I once had the pleasure of meeting Hunter Thompson, the creator and best purveyor of gonzo journalism. Thompson, despite his massive success, would say he never felt totally comfortable bending the rules of reporting. He did it anyway because he had to. The traditional media, he thought, was largely spineless, uninspired, and seldom really interested in reporting facts. Thompson believed the only way to write and to pass on the passion he felt was to put himself inexorably in the epicenter of his story. He would become part and parcel of the tale, grab its audience by the scruff of neck and drag the readers—sometime as they kicked and screamed—into his writing.
He appeared to be an easy read but wasn’t. What occasionally seemed like the ravings of a deranged man was actually wonderfully composed and powerful prose. He stirred a new generation of writers, none of whom to date have even come close to achieving his level of sagacity.
At the other end of the spectrum are good writers who have dumbed themselves down to please a greater readership. That’s an art as well, though perhaps a less satisfying one.
Me, I’m nowhere near the level where I can go off the beaten track and establish anything totally my own. I still ape writers better than I am, and I still struggle with some of the most basic rules.
That’s okay. I’ll get there or maybe not.
Progress, not perfection.

So I’ve been sick the last few days. Nothing serious, but enough to get me to the doctor’s who tells me there’s something going around. I tell her that on top of the sniffling and sneezing and coughing and tearing eyes, my right elbow and forearm really have been hurting for the past few weeks. Tendonitis, she says, and asks, “What have you been doing lately?”
Writing, I say.
Ah. She says, that explains it.
It’s true. I’ve been spending between six and ten hours a day at the computer. In bed yesterday and debating on taking Theraflu or antihistamines, or both, I suddenly realized I was working on eight books at the same time. This is seriously taxing my ADD.
Eight, you ask.
Yes.
How did that happen?
I have no idea.
My crime novel Thirst is out, but I spend at least an hour a day hyping it on Goodreads, Amazon, Book Bubs and other websites designed to promote ebooks.
Dope is the sequel to Thirst. Colin Marsh investigates why so many addicts are suddenly overdosing. Bikers, politicians, dealers and hit men… I’ve just started writing it and I’m not totally sure where it’s going. I know I like the characters. They’ve got legs; I always enjoy it when characters get a life of their own. That happens with books.
Two novels just came back from the copy editors.
Lurid Tales, Desperate People will be going out to agents within a week or so. It deals with the repercussions of a woman’s half-million-dollar elective surgeries on her neighbors. What happens when mousy Marcia returns a transformed woman after a month in India’s best plastic surgery hospital? By the way, it’s funny. Really. I wrote it and sometimes I laugh aloud when I reread it…
Montparnasse will also be going to the agents soon. This is the story of a young American couple honeymooning in Paris in 1919, when the Montparnasse neighborhood was the epicenter of Western culture. Modigliani, Renoir, Cocteau, Brancusi, and opium addiction. And Landru, France’s first documented serial killer is lurking in the shadows.
L’Amérique is the first book in a trilogy about a French family’s decision to move to America in the mid-1950s. That one is finished too and needs only a last read-over.
The First Few Years is the working title of the second book in the trilogy. I have about 200 pages written.
The Few and the Fortunate—IVS Volunteers from Asia to the Andes. This is a book I was commissioned to write about International Volunteer Services, the precursor to the Peace Corp. More than 100 former IVS volunteers contributed stories about their years in the field. Anyone interested in development issue should read this. It’s at the designers and should be out within a month or two.
Lastly, I am going to do a revival of one of my earlier books, The IFO Report. I figure if Auntie Mame and Cabaret can be revived every few years, why not a book?
And of course there are a couple of ideas percolating. I try to stay away from those.
Eight is enough.