Jeannine Atkins's Blog, page 18

Zadie Smith on “Why I Write”

Yesterday I joined others in the packed Student Union Ballroom at UMass to hear Zadie Smith, whose novels include WHITE TEETH, ON BEAUTY, and most recently NW, give the Troy lecture, which was titled “Why I Write.” She spent quite a bit of time on the historical context of that question, which she says can plague her students in the writing program at NYU, some of whom feel so much has been said already. She assures them that the question goes back before the Internet surrounded us with words at the touch of our fingertips. She made the eighteenth century lit professors happy by talking about Jonathan Swift, and teaching me something, and spoke about how George Orwell addressed the question, and her responses to his four reasons.

She advocated for the way a novel can become “an intimate encounter with truth in a world that frequently only sees us as consumers.” She spoke of how while writing may look like freedom to those looking in, it rarely feels like that when she’s in the process, because she feels beholden to the reality of her characters, though she welcomes “the chance to get out of my corner. I can be anyone in fiction.” She likes to think of writing as more of craft than an art, likening it to making a chair that some may like, and some not, and she reduces her anxiety by thinking about writing sentence by sentence. Making one sentence as good as she can make it, “and then maybe the next one, too.”

Wally Lamb Reading We Are Water at the Odyssey Bookshop

Last night I heard Wally Lamb talk about and read from his new novel, WE ARE WATER, at the Odyssey Bookshop, which is celebrating its fiftieth birthday with readings from fifty authors, which is pretty magnificent. And so was the author, who seemed genuinely happy to be there, though he’s at the end of what sounded like a strenuous tour, including an afternoon at Costco which he told us about, and included lots of solitude amid the hubub and a fight between a woman who wanted to linger and her husband who heard there were free meatballs in another aisle.

He read brief passages from three different points of view and told us some about the book’s origins from historic events in his hometown, changing the genders and other features of the people involved. He wrote with an eye to how two events from different times would come together in his mind. His method, he said, is to write a sentence, revise it, write another sentence, go back and revise the first – or something like that, working from about eight in the morning until one or two in the afternoon. He said that he doesn’t know where he’ll end up, though at some point he’s made big graphs with index cards to see everything as a whole. While he begins with bits of stories and characters that touch or preoccupy him, he said that it’s a daily and long term discovery to find and show what the story means to him, acknowledging that it may mean something different to every reader.

I’m excited to read this book!

(The photo is taken from the Odyssey’s facebook page; signed books are available in the shop and through the mail).

Some Thoughts on Self Publishing

First off, what do we call keeping a manuscript in our own authorly hands, deciding on pictures, paperback sizes, and print runs? Over the years, I’ve heard people refer to self publishing with respect, contempt, or confusion. Some people think it’s cool, while others think, Gosh, couldn’t you find a single editor who liked your work? Or, couldn’t you stand a series of rejections?

Now some people call it independent publishing, which pushes up the respect angle with an emphasis on freedom instead of an ego-ridden self. But it’s also got four syllables instead of one and doesn’t exactly flow.  I tend to stick with “self” as modifier, even while finding the lightness we associate with independence, the pride of claiming some power, and a sense of completion gained from moving beyond the words to the cover, style of chapter headings, spacing, and things I’d never considered all chosen by me.

VIEWS FROM A WINDOW SEAT: THOUGHTS ON WRITING AND LIFE is my book from beginning to end and inside to out. I obsessed about, compared, then selected a font. I chose a title and stuck with it. I played with various cover images, then chose a picture I took that brings me back to a happy summer day.

It was good to make something I can look at, hold, and smell, like a knitted scarf or loaf of banana bread, but not quite. I liked getting my senses involved beyond the chosen words, and happy by those who’ve exclaimed, “This doesn’t look self published,” though I realize I can’t exactly use that as a blurb.  And it was fun to work with the designer and tech person, aka my husband, who’s patiently suggested I try self publishing for a long time. Lo and behold, it was neither quite as scary, hard, time-consuming or embarrassing as I feared it would be. I developed ideas of how things should look, and just as I do when writing, I found a balance between holding standards and remembering that there’s no such place as perfect. I read a few manuals, stalked help forums, and asked for opinions. I also remembered I’m a writer before I’m a publisher, and stayed alert for signs of when I should let go.

Print on demand means I don’t have to look at or avoid boxes of unsold books. I can order them as needed without worrying as much about sales figures as I do as an author of traditionally published books, when I feel bound to shoulder someone else’s expectations, disappointments, or even pleasure, which we know, humans being what we are, is never enough. Instead of fretting about letting down people at my publisher, my focus can be on one reader at a time. After reading a large-print copy my husband made for her, my mother-in-law said, “Jeannine, there were a lot of flowers in that book. I know lupine, but what is trillium, and how did you know that? That part about you and Emily getting lost in Boston was pretty funny. And why in the world would anyone ever want to be a writer?” That wasn’t meant as my take-away question, but there you go. Any reader is pretty great.

I need to write some letters, send out some press releases and copies, smooth my book’s way into the world. I hope readers will slowly find it, and tell their friends in person, or in reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, or blogs. I’m so grateful for everyone who is taking the time to tweet, facebook, or simply read my book. All of that matters. I particularly love hearing about people who shut the book and picked up a pen or returned to their keyboard.

Meanwhile, I do what I can while writing another book or two or three, a process that reminds me of all the ways we can control a small world, and all the ways those worlds we create can astonish or trip us. Will I publish these books myself? I don’t know, but it’s good to have choices. And trying to pay attention and enjoy every kind word and last surprise.

Words and the World

When I started writing in college, I was lucky that a more experienced writer I shyly showed work to told me that the process of finding words for what I felt and saw was more important than getting them in print. This wasn’t something I heard in my fiction workshops or at the literary magazine where I had a work-study job. Writing seemed like a path in which you got better, then won the prize of publication. Or you didn’t, and might quietly disappear, though looking back I can see evidence that such a path was going to be a lot more twisted. I took the words about process being more important than publication to heart because I needed them. Like many a timid person, writing was a way to give shape to what I witnessed.

My process then, as it remains, was to write down ragged rows of words or images. It takes me some time to get to sentences, so it was clear that writing would be layering and un-layering, and I wasn’t tempted to show early drafts. And I felt toward myself as I did toward those drafts. One day this might be presentable, but it wouldn’t be wicked soon.

Since UMass was and is part of a five college system, I could take a writing class at Amherst College, which had just opened to female students. The instructor was a novelist I admired, and she liked the stories I submitted enough so that she took me aside and suggested she submit one to a slick magazine whose editor she knew, this being back when women’s magazines published fiction. I can kind of remember the stiffness as my jaw opened, and I said, “No, thanks.” I kind of remember her jaw sort of falling.

Sometimes I’ve looked back and wanted to give that student a kick, and say, “Were you crazy?” She might have handled the invitation with more grace, but mostly I stick by her. Maybe my writing career would have gotten a quicker start. Or maybe something would have happened to make me step back. I don’t know. But there was some wisdom in protecting the sense that the story my professor liked wasn’t quite finished, and neither was I, ready to take my ground as a published writer.

Many of us have heard how the path may matters more than the product. In a recent interview in The Writer’s Almanac, Pulitzer prize-winning poet Mary Oliver says, “Write for whatever holy thing you believe in … The main thing is to know that your craving to write is the big thing and will continue, and is more valuable than the finished poem.” And my friend Deb recently blogged in Reflections on a Life in Motion about the place of the critic within her life as both book reviewer and creative writer. “So maybe everybody is better than me. Who cares? I can still try and delight in the trying. That is something no one can take away: the decision to try.”

So does publishing matter? Yes, I think so, when we’re ready. It completes the circle of shaping what we know by sharing it with the world, or a tiny part of it. The idea of publishing asks us to finish what we began, which is almost always a good idea, if only so we can find a new, if related obsession. We hope most gardeners enjoy getting their hands into dirt, but we don’t expect them to be satisfied without some good vegetables or colorful perennials, though we will also listen to their woes dealing with uncooperative weather or critters. Most of us who tout the goodness of the work itself do so with a conviction that that’s the part we can somewhat control. How something will or won’t be received can’t be entirely in our hands.

There’s a time to mull and forgive, and a time to think about how others might see what we’re doing and get down to deciding if what’s under our hands is really good enough. There’s a time to let the prose be mushy or thick and a time to get serious about the texture. No one needs to measure on a first draft, but there comes a time to get out the measuring tape, even if we wave it around more than we hold it straight. There comes a time to say, “This is as good as it can be,” and publish. In my next blog, I’ll write about how it felt to enter the self-publishing waters with VIEWS FROM A WINDOW SEAT: THOUGHTS ON WRITING AND LIFE.

Poetry and Plot

As I try to arrange bad poems, not-quite-there poems, and almost-poems, I’m still thinking about issues I wrote in my post last Friday about balancing verse and story to fit in one book set in the past. Now instead of replacing words to see if I can unlock images, I’m looking at the big picture. I printed out a sixty page draft of one section, and am drawing bold lines between poems which must also be scenes. Do I sense some muscle behind a pretty enough complexion? When I set chopped-apart pages on the floor to walk around, can I imagine being ankle-deep in the river and feeling the current? Can I conjure a bout of Herculean strength, enough to twist around the river?

Emailing a friend about her attempt to impose some plot on a quiet story, I questioned whether plot is the best word to use, even though I believe I’d been the one to bring it up. Some of us who’ve been labeled “quiet” can tend to take on the role of being plot-challenged, when we might better think about pacing: are there places that sag, that can be cut for perhaps less detail but more adventure? Spending a long time on something, we can forget that readers may not need to know what we know, so I consider snatching back what one draft carefully set forward. I’m not writing an action packed novel, but within my chosen scale, there must be movement, something like the sound of brisk footsteps or turning pages. There must be feeling, and often it can get ramped up. I peer into what I’d gently set out happening, then lean back and ask: Wouldn’t my character be angry here? Could perhaps something be flung through the air? Or is it time to leap or twirl? It’s great to all objective-correlative-y and let things stand for feelings, but sometimes we want a wail or a whoop.

I get out my scissors again to clip pages and look for spaces that happily end with suspense, and leave them be. I say goodbye to description that seems indulgent, trading detail for a swifter pace. Where can my character and readers be surprised? What wrong turns can I add in? How can I put a sense of mystery into a life now that I have a draft and know where people are going?

There’s some fun, especially when I play with different colors of ink to orchestrate themes. It’s important to ask: What happens here? What’s the impact and feeling? But once I’ve got a structure, I invite the poet back. Now I sit with those places where I jotted down, “needs more mysterious phrasing,” or more succinctly, “bleh.” I settle in with each rough poem, holding each like a cocoon, and wait to see what will break out.

Today at Live Your Poem … I’m elated that Irene Latham talks about my new book, Views from a Window Seat: Thoughts on Writing and Life and quotes me on my experience self publishing, which I’ll write more about here next week. She’s also generously offering a chance to win a copy, just by leaving a comment by midnight tomorrow, so please head on over!

And please visit my dear friend Jama at Alphabet Soup, where she’s not only hosting Poetry Friday, with a recipe for apple pumpkin muffins, but wrote a lovely tribute to my book. Do I love our blogging community? Yes, I do.

 

Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life

I just heard Marta McDowell talk about her new book, BEATRIX POTTER’S GARDENING LIFE, at the Odyssey Bookshop (which just celebrated its fiftieth anniversary). Marta McDowell, who wrote an earlier book about Emily Dickinson’s gardens, spoke about how she grew up without reading about Peter Rabbit or Jemima Puddle-duck, but hearing intriguing bits of her biography as an adult, and stopping to see Potter’s Hill Top farm on a trip to the Lake Country, was drawn in. She focused on the backgrounds of many of Beatrix Potter’s illustrations to identify the particular vines on walls or vegetables in characters’ baskets, showing us slides of illustrations beside photographs from actual plots and pathways. She pointed out things a less botany-focused person would miss. For instance, while looking at a photograph of Beatrix Potter holding her pet rabbit, I noted dress, posture, and expression, while Marta McDowell pointed out the wire mesh protecting the plants behind them. She inventoried Mr. McGregor’s shed.  Throughout her talk about a book that was clearly a labor of love, we got a sense of how the scarcity of gardens in Potter’s childhood reflected some bleakness, while she finally found joy as an adult buying property where she could not only garden but farm. There would be plenty of fruit trees.

I’ve only dipped into the book I brought home, but I can see the focus on garden is kept with a sentence such as “The garden that they might have planted together was not to be.” This is in reference to Beatrix Potter’s first editor and first love, Norman Warne, who is shown lined up with four smiling siblings, all balancing on bicycles with arms criss-crossing to hold the other’s handlebars. I look forward to reading, but am riveted by the generous amount of astonishing pictures in this book  – many of Beatrix Potter’s watercolors (Marta McDowell said she painted the backgrounds for the books first, then added the animal characters) and photographs of places where she lived. This colorful book can get gardeners, or anyone, through a winter (and, local friends, signed copies are available at the Odyssey). I want to show you all the gorgeously reproduced preliminary and finished sketches executed with Potter’s delicate but certain hand, and photographs of blackberries, gates, snowdrops, roses, robins, frost, sheep, mushrooms, and much more, but until you have the book in hand can only suggest you take a peek at some from this blog from a National Trust team. The photograph by Dayve Ward with the rainbow and birds over Hill Top is shown in the book as a dazzling two page spread.

And now I’m going to read.

Nudging Up the Volume Control

Choosing the genre of poetry and the history of science as a subject means I’m not working on a voice that wallops and whoops across the page. I’m not chronicling Star Trek-ish voyages through space with aliens, enemy galaxies, and big bangs, but trying for baby steps forward that reflect most scientists’ un-dramatic commitment, quiet camaraderie, and the rare Eureka. Living a pretty quiet life has given me a place to note the changes within the small, and giving such attention in my manuscript. I’m not envisioning a huge audience, who might go for a book that bounces and pops and uses only a few attention-grabbing words, but a special one, the kind of readers who can get overlooked by adults tending to drama, while  the quieter kids manage or stew.

Not now, though within the quiet arena I’ve chosen, I want movement. I don’t want to neglect plot. I start out with research that calls for caffeine, skimming for images that shine from the page.  I collect those rare gems and look for what they have in common to build scenes, or ways they contrast to make a scene or two clash. Then it’s time for herbal tea, and slowly building lines and stanzas. When I come back to revise, I try to be as brisk and ruthless as I was when I hunted for information, cutting where eyelids might take the chance to droop.

Can I make a poem like a painting that provokes a gasp at a glance, yet still reveal more for those who linger? Can each poem within my book be complete in itself while moving the way a chapter should, advancing the story? I’m trying to shape work that doesn’t ask readers to squint to see how the end differs from the beginning. Taking small steps that urge readers to take leaps or ask big questions.

For more Poetry Friday posts, please visit Diane Mayr at Random Noodling.

 

First Words

I remember way back to being a child and given an occasional assignment to write a story or poem. I stared at my desk or the kitchen table feeling as empty as the paper by my hands. Thankfully, many instructors now use prompts that nudge without restricting much. One word or question may bash through the fear of the empty page with the tension of a challenge or the delight of possibility. Those first words with their sense of loneliness and reminders of past failures can be the hardest, but now we’ve made it through.

Right now I’m in the end stage of writing a picture book about animals that uses rhyme, a sound challenge that sets its own directions every few lines. I play with matches for words that may snap the line into humor, spin around the direction of the story, snag a new connection, or confound me enough to go back and find another word. Rhyme marks the edges of lines and sets boundaries that budge or bounce. They take me from what I know to what I don’t know. Rhymes don’t just limit but move, reminding me that I’m not alone, but interacting with the page that’s my world for the present.

Some of us who’ve been working a long time on long projects fit in writing in parking lots, on bleachers, or in between jobs and chores. We may forget that it was the world we now duck away from that first inspired us.  When those other demands step back we can notice too much empty space, even if we still long for more of the lightness we call time. This is when it’s good to practice free writing, moving our pens quickly and without judgment. The empty page is filled again and we remember our commitment, even if it’s initially just going to mean lots of crossing out of what we put down. We’re grateful for any words on the page.

Writing is always some kind of conversation with the world, or a sort of dance that engages not only our own minds but what’s around us. Once we make a mark, we can follow it to another. Most words have a life of their own, with memories that are personal or shared which we might tease out during the next round of the dance we call revision. To swap similes, language stretches like a sweater that feels more comfortable every time we swing or spread our arms. Try it on again. Maybe it’s a little scruffier, loose at the elbows, but the color is still a favorite. Possible metaphors are all around us. What can we learn from what’s different and the same? Can we notice something new within the old, the ways the tangible informs the abstract, and write a brand new line?

For more Poetry Friday posts please visit Linda at TeacherDance.

 

It’s a Book! Views from a Window Seat: Thoughts on Writing and Life

After a few weeks of ripping open envelopes to find book proofs that were just a bit off, and had to be tweaked, on Saturday morning the fourth sample copy was waiting at the post office, and this time the cover looked right. Through summer and fall, I’d been following the instructions offered on CreateSpace to publish VIEWS FROM A WINDOW SEAT: THOUGHTS ON WRITING AND LIFE, stepping forward, then taking several steps back. They give checklists that seem simple, but I found some were like the lines at Disneyworld – just when you thought you were in, there was a new and winding line. But at last I pressed “Proof approved,” and up popped something like, “Your book is now available.” Really? Really. No more buttons to push.

Yikes. I mean Yay! Even with print-on-demand, I’d expected more lag time to check off a few more things on my pre-pub to do list. Feeling giddy, I posted a link on Facebook. Five minutes later I thought, that’s not very professional, and I’m not quite ready.  Just for one thing, I haven’t yet gotten this on Kindle, though hope to in a few days. So I logged back on and already found love or looking-forward-to-it-ness I couldn’t delete.  I’m so grateful. This book came about because of people who’ve read my blog, a few of whom who’ve told me they’d like to see some of these entries collected in a book. I changed a lot, but I hope kept the flavor of writing that comes from the warm connections I’ve enjoyed online, though without the insightful and delicious comments I get here on the blog.

The self-publishing part was fun and frustrating, with the fun going first, especially in memory, because of the technical, artistic, and emotional support of my husband, Peter. As a long time self-publishing advocate he’s urged me on for decades. Luckily, he’s a patient guy, who also copy-edited the text, designed the book, coached me through technical crisis, and created the logo for Stone Door Press. I chose the name because I want my writing to have both a sense of permanence and that it can be opened and changed by readers.

I learned a lot and would self publish again, going about some things differently. When I decided to put together this collection of thoughts on writing, it was a relief knowing I wouldn’t go through the waiting and rejections that have marked my publishing life these past few years. I enjoyed playing with ideas for covers, then choosing a different one when I posted a picture I took of day lilies, and my brother-in-law, Bruce, commented that it would make a good book cover. Not much later, I heard him say those very words to someone else about a photo, and asked his wife if he always said that. Catherine nodded. Never mind. I like it.

Self publishing brought up aches I’ve felt while writing, too, such as considering readers, while struggling to trust my own judgments. It seems there are a lot of fonts and shades of yellow to choose from. Raising and lowering bars, and then trying to give them one last lift without going crazy. Testing the boundaries of perfectionism and being laissez-faire-ish. Choosing when to grit my teeth and when to shrug, and finding who I am in between. This time around there’s no second guessing re what will my editor think of responses, not necessarily a bad thing, but it feels cleaner not to get involved in such deflection. I already feel closer to the fact that every book is held by one person at a time. There’s the joy.

Rhymes on the Closet Floor

I generally write more free verse than formal, since I like working with the facts of history, which give me some structure, and the needs of narrative, with most of my poems following another as they build a world on the page. These poems are shaped by images, which echo through repetition. The echoing sounds of words we call rhyme would be too much.

Off and on for years I’ve been working on a picture book with a science-based theme. I love the subject, but something has always been off, maybe particularly my stiff voice. It finally dawned on me that I wanted something more like song, which would invite readers to join in. And with a theme of the ways that animals who look different behave in similar ways, rhyme, which uses sound to bring together two different things, seems perfect. It took me a long time to see past my habits to get that.

While I continue to gather material and trim, trim, trim, I haven’t yet decided on what poetic form I’ll use. I’m reading some ghazals, sestinas, and pantoums, and will decide if I want to work in couplets, triplets, or four-line stanzas as I decide on how much information is best. Meanwhile, I’m noting some pairs of sounds and possible refrains.

Rhyme and meter set up expectations that can feel as comfortable as in a chair where we feel coziest, but it might also knock us off that seat. The rhythm sets us up to wait for that last word, but it should surprise us, too. In poetry fro children, often that surprise is a joke, but it can be any kind of startling, waking up, and might first have an element of Really? or Wow! followed by: Why didn’t I ever see that? Readers should feel both balanced and tipping over.

It’s fun to let words knock against each other, with rhyme calling out its own needs, setting my mind to thoughts I wouldn’t have without its demands. But in this particular picture book, I can’t let it run into nonsense, but keep the lines trimmed to actual animal behavior. Fortunately, I’ve got lots of movement to enjoy, not to mention snuffling, snorting, nickering, neighing, whooshing, huffing, and RhymeZone, which is a lovely place to play.

Rhyme is a sort of cousin to metaphor, bringing together two different things, but its shirtsleeves are made of sound. Or does that shirt quite fit? Trying out rhymes is like putting on a shirt, taking it off, and pulling another off a hanger.  Just how comfortable should it be? I want a little tension, but not so much the seams threaten to tear. I don’t want it to be saggy. The closet floor is getting covered, but that’s a good thing, full of bright possibilities. I’m going to be letting shirts fall and kicking them around for a while.

For more Poetry Friday posts, please visit Laura Purdie Salas at Writing the World for Kids (where there’s a special bustle of pantoum joy today).