Carol Newman Cronin's Blog, page 42

Book Review: Go, Went, Gone

I stumbled onto Go, Went, Gone, a novel by Jenny Erpenbeck (and translated from German by Susan Bernofsky), thanks to a review in the New Yorker, and I’m so glad I did. The unassuming but important story dropped me into a world I’d heard about only on the news and made it personal, something fiction can do so well in the right hands.

The narrator, Richard, is a recently retired academic. He lives in Berlin, east of a wall that is no longer there. His wife has died, and retirement brings nothing but loneliness; “As of today, he has time—plain and simple.” A few pages later, we learn that “Richard really will have to be careful not to lose his marbles.” Trivial details paint a picture of a mind desperate for a new focus—a lawnmower blade sharpened, an unwavering breakfast and dinner routine—until his curiosity leads him to interview African asylum-seekers who are camped out on the Alexanderplatz, a square in the middle of Berlin.

Like Richard, the refugees want to work but can’t. They are stuck in a limbo caused by European Union law, which states that refugees can only work in the country where they first register. For these men, that’s Italy, where there are no jobs. Germany needs workers, but they are not allowed to register there.

As the story unfolds, Richard discovers more and more commonalities between himself and these men, despite all the superficial differences (country of origin, skin color, financial status). He also discovers how far apart their worlds are when he tries to explain to one of the men about the Berlin wall.

“Did you know that this used to be the East?”

Osarobo shakes his head. “East?”

Probably this isn’t the right way to ask this question when speaking to a person from Niger.

“Did you know that there used to be a wall in Berlin that separated one half of the city from the other?” he asks.

“I don’t know.”

“It was built a few years after the war. Did you know there was a war here?”

“No.”

“A world war?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear the name Hitler?”

“Who?”

“Hitler. He started the war and killed all the Jewish people.”

“He killed people?”

“Yes, he killed people—but only a few,” Richard says quickly, because he’s already feeling bad about getting carried away almost to the point of telling this boy, who’s just fled the slaughter in Libya, about slaughter that happened here. No, Richard, will never tell him that less than a lifetime ago, Germany systematically murdered so many human beings. All at once he feels deeply ashamed, as if this thing that everyone here in Europe knows is his own personal secret would be unreasonable to burden someone else with. And an instant later, just as forcefully, Richard is seized by the hope that this young man’s innocence might transport him once more to the Germany of before, to the land already lost forever by the time he was born.

I’ve added quote marks for clarity here, but the lack of them in the novel removes barriers between speech and thought. It’s easy to follow Richard’s rambling mind as it jumps from past to present and back again.

My only criticism is Richard’s obsession with a former lover, which doesn’t seem important to the story, but perhaps it is a way of showing Richard as flawed right from the beginning. All the characters are imperfect, but somehow hope shines through the quiet desperation and inhuman treatment of the immigrants’ lives. It is a peek into a Germany I had never seen before.

I’d also never heard of Jenny Erpenbeck, so now I’m going to seek out her previous books—if only for the inspiration to make every word and sentence and scene of my own books carry as much weight as her translated ones. As reviewer James Wood wrote in A Novelist’s Powerful Response to the Refugee Crisis, Erpenbeck’s “task is comprehension rather than replication, and she uses a measured, lyrically austere prose, whose even tread barely betrays the considerable passion that drives it onward. (Susan Bernofsky deserves immense credit for bringing this prose to us in English.)” Agreed.

Writing Award: Gold Medal Interview

Time to crow a little! The Trump Card just won first place in Boating Issues, News and Analysis, one of 17 categories in Boating Writer’s International’s annual writing contest. The article was the second in a bi-annual series that follows double gold medalist Malcolm Page and his leadership of the US Sailing Team; reading through it again six months later, I can see that it also contains a surprising amount of me (as well as a pinch of politics).

I’m proud of both the award and the judge’s quote about it: “A lesson all elected leaders or politicians should be required to read before running for office, after their election, and before going to bed each night. Delightful honesty while showing the sailing community there is a steady hand on the tiller.” (See who won second, third, and an honorable mention in the BWI press release.)

It’s been more than a decade since I hung up my Olympic boots, but the US Sailing Team is still so near to my heart (and Malcolm such a charmer) that it’s hard to remain objective. Here’s the thing—remember the power of personal story? The previous BWI awards I won were definitely personal; as I put it in My First Two Writing Awards, “both are great examples of ‘stories with heart,’ the ones that get those many extra hours of editing, the careful word choices, and (maybe most importantly of all), a lot of late night/early morning woolgathering, long after the first draft has been completed.” I spend more time on the stories I really care about, and whether I realize it or not, that shines through.

I couldn’t make it to the Miami Boat Show this year to collect my award in person, but I’m grateful to BWI for giving me an annual incentive to keep striving for excellence—and to Malcolm for being so easy to interview. I”m writing our next semi-annual Seahorse update, so stay tuned!

Photo courtesy Will Ricketson/USSailing

Listen To Your Teammate(s)

At a recent Snipe regatta, Kim Couranz and I counted up the number of lines we each control. Her total? Sixteen (eight on port tack, eight on starboard). My total?

One.

Really, we’re having fun! Photo: Ted Morgan

Giving Kim all the controls except the mainsheet allows me to concentrate on steering and trimming, without the distraction of the many other adjustments required to keep the boat going fast as wind and waves increase or decrease. Of course, that means I trust her completely. So why is it still so hard to listen to her excellent advice about what to do next on the race course?

I’ve been dodging the answer for years, because the truth is a dirty word: ego. Even as a former crew with attitude, I have trouble taking input from the front of the boat. Taking over the tiller gave me the same irrational belief in my own abilities that every skipper I’ve ever sailed with has. And that can wreak havoc with my listening skills.

The same applies to any team: at work, at home, at play. Being “in charge” imparts a sense of importance, and the less sure we are that we deserve to be in a position of authority, the harder it is to take input from the rest of the team. It was easier for me to learn the mechanics of steering than it was to truly believe I should be doing so. As one of my Olympic coaches told me more than a decade ago, to truly succeed at the world level I needed to “take on the mantle” of skippering. What he meant, I realize now, was that my ego hadn’t expanded enough to truly embrace that role.

It would be impossible to work up the courage to approach a crowded starting line or call for room while planing into the leeward mark without the basic belief that I can do this. Performing well requires confidence in our own abilities, and that stems from the same egotistical root as not-listening. We can’t excel without ego. The trick is to sip from that intoxicating nectar, because too big a gulp closes our ears.

The best teams make their best decisions after everyone weighs in. Yes, the idiot in control of the tiller gets to make the final call, but that doesn’t mean making that call alone.

Great teams don’t just happen. It takes a mysterious blend of ability, trust, and open communication, sprinkled with a dusting of ego, to create that magic—whether it’s at a salt-sprayed finish line, in a wood-paneled boardroom, or on the couch at home. No matter how many lines we each control, there’s a lot of great information coming in from our teammates. All we have to do is open our ears.

PS: Kim’s husband Ted Morgan captured the photo of our “game faces” at the 2017 Colonial Cup in Annapolis. For more great pics (birds, faces, travels) visit Ted’s Flickr page.

Readers: Results May Vary

Island Books, my favorite local bookstore, hosts a regular book group based on the choices of our fearless leader, Pat. Each month we read her selection and then get together at the store to talk about it, fortified by a themed homemade sweet of some sort. For January it was Korean cookies, because we read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (a five hundred page family epic about Koreans living in Japan, which covers most of the 20th century).

I won’t get into the details of what was said, because what happens in book group stays, yanno, in book group. What I want to explore is the wide variety of opinions readers can have about the same story. We usually agreed if a character was “good” or “bad” or (best of all), a mix of both. Everything else wasn’t so easy, like how much to read into hints and foreshadowing; what wasn’t quite on the page was dismissed by some, latched onto fiercely by others. Motivations, themes. What made us mad at characters; what parts we liked best. It was a respectful and at times amusing conversation, but the only consensus we came to was this: reading the book was a great way to learn about a culture that was very foreign to most of us.

I spend most of my waking hours thinking about writing; how to get across the story I’m trying to tell. Reading is mostly a bedtime escape from heavy thinking—though I do notice when other writers do something that seems effortless, but isn’t. In the case of Pachinko, it was the seamlessly shifting points of view. In the middle of a scene we’d move from one perspective to another, a technique called “head-jumping” that is considered an absolute no-no (at least for beginners). Somehow this author made each transition work, without distracting from the story.

We never talked about that at book group, because for most readers technique that doesn’t bog down a book is pretty much invisible. It was an excellent reminder that it’s too easy to get focused on the process of writing, losing sight of the audience we’re trying to reach. If we do our jobs well, readers will remain happily oblivious to pacing, exposition, and other writerly tools. They are worthy of our trust, and the time we invest. And it will be simply impossible to please all of them.

Now, on to the next book.

Find out more about Island Books

Read more about Min Jin Lee and Pachinko, which was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award.

Freelance Juggling: All in a Day’s Work

I have a friend who recently joined the freelancing ranks after a successful career as an employee. One of his biggest surprises has been how much juggling is required—which makes me realize how much I take that juggling for granted.

I do remember how luxurious it seemed to focus on only one “client” during my three years as an official employee. No more trying to remember numerous names, style guide details, or office layouts… I could focus on a single marketing plan, one voice, one set of office politics. A real time-savings.

(Of course this savings was more than offset by the time wasted in meetings, but I digress.)

Freelancing means constantly watching over your own shoulder. Am I billing enough, too much, just right? What job needs to be completed today, and do I need to let another client know I won’t complete their job until the end of the week? Should I spend a half hour trying to answer this question myself, or ask for help? I don’t want to make anyone feel I’m taking up more time than I’m saving.

Longer term clients will sometimes provide feedback on what works best for them, but there’s no ongoing perspective or annual review. We have to be our own judges of what time is valuable enough to bill for and what should be tossed into the wastebin of overhead; when to follow our creative noses, and when to press those noses to the grindstone and get the client’s request done without embellishment. Whether to lighten the moment with a personal story, or stick to the task at hand.

As one memorable fortune cookie declared: “Your instincts are excellent, but another opinion could be helpful.” When in doubt, I find the courage to ask a client (or a friendly fellow freelancer) for feedback, understanding that the right answer may be completely wrong for a similar situation in the future. And I always, always try to make my fumbles look like part of the act.

What She Wants: Agent Search Update

One of my college professors started off the first class of the semester with a five minute overview of “What She Wants.” Despite her air quotes, it wasn’t until the third repetition of the phrase that I figured out she was making a joke at her own expense, while also acknowledging a basic fact: each professor wants something a little bit different, and part of a good grade is figuring out how to deliver it.

Thirty-plus years later, I find myself yet again pondering “What She Wants,” this time for the literary agents I’m approaching to find a publishing home for Island Shell Game. Most agents are female, and (like college professors) each is looking for something a little different in a query letter (the one page sales pitch that entices an agent to read more). One agent specified on her website exactly what should be included in each paragraph. Another must’ve spent almost as much time creating and polishing her wish list as I did writing and editing an entire novel. At the opposite end of the spectrum are the agents who use stock industry language to describe the books they represent; presumably they are too busy making deals to waste any time on personalization.

Though no one has offered me representation yet, I have received several requests for the full manuscript—a large compliment, considering how much of a reading time commitment that is. Two of these agents have already told me, regretfully, that they just “don’t love it enough.” I’m still waiting to hear from the others, which requires quite a bit of patience as I’m not the only one in their queue.

Friends who have dated online say it all sounds quite familiar, which makes sense; I’m trying to find someone to fall in love with my book. And whether a particular agent will tumble head over heels depends on more variables than how she finishes “I’d like the next ______.” She might be having a bad day. Maybe a story about a ferry captain on a small island story doesn’t seem timely enough. Or maybe she just hates em dashes. The number of writers querying is much, much greater than the number of available publishing slots, so agents can afford to wait for that special book to tap them on the shoulder and say, “I’m the one!”

Thirty years ago, I didn’t realize that “What She Wants” was so subjective—even after my college prof tried to air-quote exactly that point to a classroom full of sleepy sophomores. Now I understand that the process is not the point, but I still have to send each agent exactly what she asks for; to do otherwise is to hand-deliver an excuse to say “no.” So I jump through their hoops, and then I move on to the next. Because there’s always another agent profile to read, and that next one might just fall in love.

 

The Confidence of Quiet

This morning’s yoga class started off with what some teachers would call “yogi’s choice.” Instead of any strict direction (bend here, raise your arm like this) we were told, “listen to your body, and take any pose it needs.”

I lose all sense of time during class, so I don’t know how long this opening free-for-all lasted: two minutes, maybe three? But it wasn’t very long before I realized how much courage it took to start off that way. The teacher had to have enough self-confidence to believe her students wouldn’t see it as a cop-out. She also had to trust each one of us to know how to find our own best path. By letting us wake up our bodies to our own rhythms, she gave us the gift of self-discovery.

This same approach applies to writing. Stories that allow the reader to reach his own conclusions show trust. And trusting the reader to make connections—rather than bogging down the flow with too much detail—isn’t shirking my duty to explain; it’s showing writerly confidence, quietly.

If I do my writing job well, readers will lose their own sense of time—while remaining anchored within the story. They will discover, on their own, what I intended to put on the page—or perhaps they will see something completely different. That magic of interpretation is the best reason I know for picking up a book in the first place.

Truly courageous and confident people (real or imagined, writers or yogis) don’t wave their arms, screaming “look at me;” they allow each of us to listen to our own needs and then meet us where we are. And that’s the best way to find our own paths, heading toward wherever it is we need to go next.

Looking for some quiet yoga confidence of your own? Give The Island Heron in Jamestown a try.

Three January Goals (that may not lead anywhere at all)

A recent post about baby steps toward big dreams hit home with many of you. One challenge of living life forward is that we can’t always be right about which changes will turn out to be worthwhile. Here are three items I’ve added my January calendar that may have absolutely no significance by the end of 2018… there’s only one way to find out.

1. In-person writing seminar

I signed up for a mid-month seminar on pacing in novels. The three hour session should help tweak my writing skills without requiring an overwhelming time commitment.

2. Data logging tweaks

The timesheet where I track my work is a weekly kaleidoscope of client projects, fiction writing and research, and personal improvement. Last week, when I looked back at hourly and weekly totals for 2017, I realized I needed to do a better job tracking what I jokingly call my “overhead” (which can include anything from that writing seminar to a regatta or SUP workout). Same system, just more detail.

3. New musical challenge

Since first singing A Ceremony of Carols as a pre-teen, I’ve always wanted to learn to play the harp. Apparently I’m not the only one; there is an entire nine minute video dedicated to answering that burning question: Is it too late to learn to play the harp? (The twenty-something narrator says no, over and over.) I’m starting with an instrument rental, and I’ll keep you posted about how it goes.

New experiences always take us to unexpected places, if we make the leap of discipline required to start. Maybe one of these three baby steps will make my best of 2018 list—but maybe not. Right now, all that matters is balancing bigger picture focus with continuous self-improvement, even when the rewards may not be immediate or obvious.

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments what new challenges you’ve planned for January.

12 Lessons from 2017

2017 was a full year of writing accomplishments: I finished my WIP, published several magazine stories, and wrote over fifty blogs. Thassalotta words. A year ago, I wrote 12 Months, 12 Freelancing Lessons about what I’d learned in 2016. This year I’d like to share 12 lessons from a writer’s life that might be helpful to non-writers as well.

 

Patience counts

Writing and revision take more time than I expect. So does reading, especially the comprehensive not-just-skimming kind. Editors and agents expect writers to meet tight deadlines, but their own time frames usually slip; it’s just part of the process. I’ve learned not to take it personally, and to refocus on a passion project rather than thumb-twiddling.

Revision is my friend

How many times have I walked away from a conversation only to think of the perfect witty retort? My characters aren’t usually that witty either when they first speak up, but once I know what they’re trying to say I can tweak and improve and hone their dialogue—right up until the moment I push the magic send button. (The same applies to description and plot, but somehow dialogue improvements are more satisfying.)

Fiction or fact, it’s all about the story

Regardless of format, length, or how much suspension of belief is required, readers will set down anything that veers too far off the expected path. Avoid data dumps and blind alleys.

No experience is wasted

The work of writing is stringing words together, but those words are inspired by getting out into the world. I never know how a particular adventure will play into my work; I just know that I have my best ideas away from my desk.

There’s always room for improvement

Most stories don’t get enough editing before they are sent out into the world, due to the limits of time, money, and patience. No matter how many revisions I’ve already done, I can almost always make a story better (though it may take a few sprinkles of outside perspective). Which means…

It’s probably not finished yet

When I finished the first draft of my WIP, I thought the book was finished because I knew what it was “about.” Four months and three revisions later, I really finished it—though I’m sure it could be tweaked even more.

Enjoy the process

When I sit down to write a story, I always think I’m writing the final draft—probably a trick my brain plays to get me to started. Floundering and struggling with ideas is part of the process, and every piece I’m proud of started as a very rough version of its finished self.

“Hopefully” I’ll get edited by someone else

I’m pretty good at cleaning up my own writing, but it took an outside editor to see that I like to start sentences with the word “hopefully.” I’m sure there are other tics and habits I’ll discover in 2018.

Make every word count

Don’t explain what happens more than once. As a fictitious ten year old says, that would be “bo-ring!” Every word should propel the story forward.

Only I can tell my story

Word choice, details, descriptions; my best writing is unmistakably my own. Embrace that difference!

Listen and learn

Whether interviewing or just chatting, active listening helps me fine tune the voices inside my head by teaching me about accent, word choice, phrasing, characterization… I could go on and on.

Creativity is queen

Imagination makes it possible to spot a leaf blowing down the street and turn it into a story (or two) about a young boy blown back in time. The more distinctive my voice, the more valuable it will remain as I forge ahead into the brave new world of 2018—and beyond.

Thanks for following along on this journey!

 

 

Baby Steps Toward Big Dreams

As we stretch toward 2018, I’ve been remembering an offhand remark made by a rigging customer thirty-plus years ago. He was a developer who thought big and followed through on significant and very visible “improvements” to our physical world. When I asked how he tackled such enormous building projects, he shrugged and said “do something toward it every day.” As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

 

I’ve since heard a variation on this same basic advice from pretty much everyone who dreamed big and then followed through, across a wide range of fields. It’s a basic tenet of Personal Planning for business and freelance projects. Anne Lamott, the author of a fantastic book about writing called Bird by Bird, tweets, “How to write: Butt in chair. Start each day anywhere. Let yourself do it badly. Just take one passage at a time. Get butt back in chair.” A blogger I follow has even turned this baby-steps approach into an entire course; Srini Rao says, “The quickest and most risk-free way to make real progress on the things that matter to you is to build it into your days, just like brushing your teeth.” (Learn more on Unmistakeable Creative.)

It’s easy to scoff at small progress, failing to see its significance—until we look back, months later, at the cumulative effect. That’s why we pin our yearly resolutions on big changes, which seldom make it to February. My brother-in-law said once: “Everyone can have great ideas. It’s the rare person who follows them through to completion.”

Here’s my resolution for 2018. Instead of “I will write another novel next year,” I promise to keep writing at least five hundred words a day, five days a week. Many of those thoughts and images might eventually end up in the word-dumpster, but when I look back next December I will have completed another boatload of blogs, articles and stories—and maybe even have made a start on the next WIP.

We all have things we want to change or improve or create. It doesn’t matter whether we dream of building the next skyscraper, writing a novel, or something else altogether; divvying up big dreams into digestible morsels is the only way to make consistent progress toward a long term goal. Even if those morsels are as easy and basic as sitting my butt down at my desk every morning and writing.

Happy New Year to all, and may 2018 bring you a few baby steps closer to your own dreams!