Susan Barrett Price's Blog, page 60
November 10, 2009
Work In Progress: Grand Exits
I actually did some writing today -- strung together 1000 words. Let's see, if I do that every day for 50 days, I'll have the first draft of a memoir. That brings us to... maybe I should say Christmas.As I said yesterday, I'm working the theme of Grand Exits, which will be either Part I or Volume I of an overall theme of Wrestling with Discontent.
My Grand Exit theme page is here>>> It's just a list of old entries for now -- my source material. A work in progress (known in the writer biz, I discovered, as WIP). My navigational innovation is putting a button on each of those pages that returns the reader to Grand Exits, as opposed to Memoir Contents or Family History. Woo.
I'm also pulling some books off the shelf to read up on how other essayists and memoirists shape their material. Writing from real life can be delicate. While I'd like to point out that sometimes we're more influenced by demons than angels, I really don't need to air my grievances -- at least not in a way that wounds people who were only trying to find their own angels or succumbing to their own demons.
November 9, 2009
"Grand Exits" As A Favorite Theme
I'm honing in on subjects to develop. Various themes meander through my writing. Exiles and expatriates cropped up after I retired from the Institution. And more recently there have been explorations of God, Zen, & Other Things "Beyond Me."Grand Exits may have the most laughs, maybe a tear or two, and possibly a few yikes. Quitting jobs. Quitting people. Leaving home. That edge between flight and fight. That big decision about going versus staying. About knuckling down or packing up. Hanging in or shipping out.
I can include my immigrant ancestors -- some more restless than others.
I can include that WWII story about my dad going awol from his hospital bed on a winter's night in Wisconsin, standing in the train station in the snow -- but he decided to go back and stick it out.
Naturally, I'm circling around, starting with organizing entries on my website, deciding on graphics. Using right brain to stimulate left brain -- that's what I'm calling it,anyway. (Others may call in procrastination.)
November 8, 2009
Restlessness Manifesto. And Memoir Piece Licensed.
"Remembering Charlotte, In the Rain" was licensed today for broadcast by KRCB, a public radio station in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. "Charlotte" is my short memoir piece about a grade-school friend Charlotte, who wanted to be called "Chuck" and who later committed suicide. The 3-minute piece has been played many times on my station in Chicago, but this is the first time it's been licensed elsewhere (and I will get paid a royalty... at least a buck). Yay.
I've been copying old journal files from one place to another and found this manifesto I wrote 7 or 8 years ago. It fits with this week's discontent theme... and my occasional role as revolutionary. I wrote it while contemplating an online magazine devoted to Restlessness, mostly but not exclusively for women.
* Restlessness of the mind, heart, and spirit should be translated into action
* But new lives begin in the mind… write it down, play it out.
* Men have historically been able to do this more easily… time for women to learn
* People who are content and self-satisfied: go elsewhere. If you think you’ve discovered the secret of happiness, go away.
* Restless women, women in transition need a space for exploration, for figuring out how to turn anxiety into action
* But men can’t be excluded (men in transition need compassion, too)
* Trying on alternate identities and new personas is fair -- to nurture the exploration.
* To those who would have us waiting for them, to those who want us to believe their lives are so much more important than ours: Sorry. Gotta go.
You gotta love a manifesto.
I've been copying old journal files from one place to another and found this manifesto I wrote 7 or 8 years ago. It fits with this week's discontent theme... and my occasional role as revolutionary. I wrote it while contemplating an online magazine devoted to Restlessness, mostly but not exclusively for women.
* Restlessness of the mind, heart, and spirit should be translated into action
* But new lives begin in the mind… write it down, play it out.
* Men have historically been able to do this more easily… time for women to learn
* People who are content and self-satisfied: go elsewhere. If you think you’ve discovered the secret of happiness, go away.
* Restless women, women in transition need a space for exploration, for figuring out how to turn anxiety into action
* But men can’t be excluded (men in transition need compassion, too)
* Trying on alternate identities and new personas is fair -- to nurture the exploration.
* To those who would have us waiting for them, to those who want us to believe their lives are so much more important than ours: Sorry. Gotta go.
You gotta love a manifesto.
November 7, 2009
Creative Process in Action
Coach Pat called last night to weigh in on my next book project: novel, bleh; "Lily Nash," nah -- just be Susan. Write a book of first person "revelations" called Mad in Pursuit: Wrestling with Discontent. Illuminate life from a new angle -- give people a different perspective on things. Cover: photo of me with the angel-genius and monkey-demons on my shoulders.We hammered away at her ideas vs my ideas. She was approaching from "self-help." I was approaching from "literature." We both like the insights that discontent brings. I sort of outlined it in my head today during yoga class.
Did I start writing? No. I decided to draw a little picture (above). What is it with me and pink? Darn Irish complexion.
(Five ebay sales this afternoon, so I'm working.)
Childhood Confessions of Lily Nash
"Lily Nash" -- that would be me. Susan is an old Hebrew name meaning "pure as a lily" (heh). Nash is a family name that joined the gene pool around 1840 in the Midlands of England.
Yesterday, as I was dangling between writing a gripping international thriller and a sweeping tattletale memoir, a Tweet directed me to this article on why you shouldn't publish your book of short stories. It recommended giving away your short story collection as a promotional freebie for your longer masterpieces.
I hadn't been thinking about short stories at all. But then I thought of those short essays that I turned into 3-minute radio programs last year. Those youthful memories got to a lot of ears. So why not gather them up with a similar bunch of K-through-12 short-shorts and make an e-book?
Ernest Hemingway had his alter-ego Nick Adams, so I invented Lily Nash. Third person feels more literary than me, myself, and I. Gives me a little distance, allows me a little artistic license.
So this morning I gathered my files and the revisions flowed. But gosh, that Lily Nash was kind of a restless, disgruntled child, not always privately successful at living up to her public reputation for goodness. Wednesday's child. Scorpio. Deciding early on that she needed to be completely Nancy-Drew independent (as only a well-loved child can be).
Yesterday, as I was dangling between writing a gripping international thriller and a sweeping tattletale memoir, a Tweet directed me to this article on why you shouldn't publish your book of short stories. It recommended giving away your short story collection as a promotional freebie for your longer masterpieces.
I hadn't been thinking about short stories at all. But then I thought of those short essays that I turned into 3-minute radio programs last year. Those youthful memories got to a lot of ears. So why not gather them up with a similar bunch of K-through-12 short-shorts and make an e-book?
Ernest Hemingway had his alter-ego Nick Adams, so I invented Lily Nash. Third person feels more literary than me, myself, and I. Gives me a little distance, allows me a little artistic license.
So this morning I gathered my files and the revisions flowed. But gosh, that Lily Nash was kind of a restless, disgruntled child, not always privately successful at living up to her public reputation for goodness. Wednesday's child. Scorpio. Deciding early on that she needed to be completely Nancy-Drew independent (as only a well-loved child can be).
October 12, 2009
Dithering: Next Writing Project
I signed up to participate in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and have a general outline for a project. But since I'm back from vacation, it doesn't hold the same magic for me.
But I like the theme: how an ambitious career woman, longing for adventure, slips over to the Dark Side, then has to figure her way out. More of the art world underground. Another exotic setting: Thailand.
But hmmm... I keep being pulled back into memoir stuff. My "true adventures."
And I think I'm having literary pretensions. Don't want to be a "mere" genre-writer, crafting well-plotted thrillers. Oh no, not me. I want to be Virginia Woolf or Graham Greene or Jonathan Franzen.
Today I pulled out an old "chronology" of journal entries and other observations laying out the tick-tock around the decision to abandon my career at Hillside for a new life. It was a serious effort to sort out how I went from organizational darling to a malcontent. How much could I blame others? How much responsibility do I have to own? When I wrote it originally, it revealed to me that the "winter of my discontent" went in tandem with a very pleasing springtime of my creativity, as I pursued writing, video-making... and fishing.
I was thinking it might make an interesting novella/memoir, published as a short e-book for career women to read on their Blackberries in airport....
Stay tuned...
But I like the theme: how an ambitious career woman, longing for adventure, slips over to the Dark Side, then has to figure her way out. More of the art world underground. Another exotic setting: Thailand.
But hmmm... I keep being pulled back into memoir stuff. My "true adventures."
And I think I'm having literary pretensions. Don't want to be a "mere" genre-writer, crafting well-plotted thrillers. Oh no, not me. I want to be Virginia Woolf or Graham Greene or Jonathan Franzen.
Today I pulled out an old "chronology" of journal entries and other observations laying out the tick-tock around the decision to abandon my career at Hillside for a new life. It was a serious effort to sort out how I went from organizational darling to a malcontent. How much could I blame others? How much responsibility do I have to own? When I wrote it originally, it revealed to me that the "winter of my discontent" went in tandem with a very pleasing springtime of my creativity, as I pursued writing, video-making... and fishing.
I was thinking it might make an interesting novella/memoir, published as a short e-book for career women to read on their Blackberries in airport....
Stay tuned...
October 2, 2009
Muck of My Own Mind
Back from vacation, I'm poised to start in on a writing project but having a hard time crossing the threshold. Dithering. Do I really want to launch into the international thriller I have outlined? Or should I try something more literary? A memoir? A novel based on my own coming of age? I started jotting down notes about dorm life in 1967, but then it was way more fun to actually go out and find two of my ex-roommates on Facebook.
So many possibilities, so little audience.
But to everything there is a season, right? A time to wrestle with the muse; a time to market the product. A time to receive the gift; a time to give it away.
Advice from Allen Ginsberg:
Or maybe I should take a walk... dust... organize some more stuff for Ebay... pick up some groceries...
So many possibilities, so little audience.
But to everything there is a season, right? A time to wrestle with the muse; a time to market the product. A time to receive the gift; a time to give it away.
Advice from Allen Ginsberg:
The cure for [being embarrassed by your spontaneous writing:] is to write things down which you will not publish and which you won't show people. To write secretly... so you can actually be free to say anything you want...
It means abandoning being a poet [or author:], abandoning your careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing any poetry [or prose:], really abandoning, giving up as hopeless -- abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the idea of being a prophet with honor and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry [or prose:] and just settling down in the muck of your own mind... You really have to make a resolution just to write for yourself..., in the sense of not writing to impress yourself, but just writing what your self is saying. [quoted in The Gift by Lewis Hyde:]
Or maybe I should take a walk... dust... organize some more stuff for Ebay... pick up some groceries...
September 4, 2009
Smashwords Ebook On Way to Barnes & Noble
Just got word that the Smashwords edition of "Passion and Peril on the Silk Road" (http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...) made the cut to be sold in the first wave of their juggernaut at Barnes & Noble. This selection is less about how well I write, but more about how good I look -- just like life!
Ok, actually, this means I got a thumbs-up for being able to follow Style Guide instructions exactly without any creative reinterpretation whatsoever. Just like life (or third grade).
I am getting to love e-books. I've made a commitment to read more Great Novels, as well as lots of indie author-published novels. Reading in ebook format is perfect: cheaper and no bookshelf requirements.
I have a Kindle, but I enjoy reading just fine on my iPhone, with Kindle, Barnes & Nobel, Stanza, GoodReader, and Eucalyptus apps. I can lie in bed, take off my glasses, and hold it about 10 inches from my face. (Kindle and other e-ink devices are a must, however, for sunlight reading.)
I do love paper books -- own thousands of them -- but I'm just not sentimental about fiction on paper. Novels to me aren't about tactile; they're about mental.
Ok, actually, this means I got a thumbs-up for being able to follow Style Guide instructions exactly without any creative reinterpretation whatsoever. Just like life (or third grade).
I am getting to love e-books. I've made a commitment to read more Great Novels, as well as lots of indie author-published novels. Reading in ebook format is perfect: cheaper and no bookshelf requirements.
I have a Kindle, but I enjoy reading just fine on my iPhone, with Kindle, Barnes & Nobel, Stanza, GoodReader, and Eucalyptus apps. I can lie in bed, take off my glasses, and hold it about 10 inches from my face. (Kindle and other e-ink devices are a must, however, for sunlight reading.)
I do love paper books -- own thousands of them -- but I'm just not sentimental about fiction on paper. Novels to me aren't about tactile; they're about mental.
September 3, 2009
Tackling New Writing Project
Today I’m ready to feel my fingers fly along the keyboard, inventing a new world of conflict for a new set of characters. This time I’m going to write the last scene… the last sentence first.
There are two schools of thought when it comes to plotting a novel: get it all planned out in advance vs. let it unfold organically. Some writers have to know the ending; others need to have the ending revealed to them somewhere along the way.
The fiction-writing I did in the 90’s was organic, revelatory. I see the same approach on lots of writer’s blogs and forums. The result of this process either requires an enormous commitment to multiple revisions (to tame the rambling) or a willingness to call it “experimental” or “postmodern” (very dangerous territory for a DIY author-publisher).
On the other hand, I’m noticing that successful, productive writers (e.g., John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates) claim to start with a specific end in mind and work toward it. I’m impressed. This sounds more disciplined, less self-indulgent, less “fun” and more craftsmanlike. John Irving claims to do the last line first, but then may spend a year exploring the characters and writing notes before he writes the first sentence.
I feel like I’m too old to ramble. I feel like I’ve come to a point in life where I ought to know what I want to say, then build a story around it. Also, if I know where I want to end up, I can have lots of complicated fun getting there.
As of this morning my last line is DON’T LOOK BACK. My heroine Stella Kelly says:
“You hold on to me, Harry, hear me now? And don’t look back.”
I’m reading a lot of Graham Greene — Catholic writer (The Third Man, The Power and the Glory) — he’s into sin. Maybe I’m thinking of Lot’s wife, who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s of possibilities, dontcha think?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to plotting a novel: get it all planned out in advance vs. let it unfold organically. Some writers have to know the ending; others need to have the ending revealed to them somewhere along the way.
The fiction-writing I did in the 90’s was organic, revelatory. I see the same approach on lots of writer’s blogs and forums. The result of this process either requires an enormous commitment to multiple revisions (to tame the rambling) or a willingness to call it “experimental” or “postmodern” (very dangerous territory for a DIY author-publisher).
On the other hand, I’m noticing that successful, productive writers (e.g., John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates) claim to start with a specific end in mind and work toward it. I’m impressed. This sounds more disciplined, less self-indulgent, less “fun” and more craftsmanlike. John Irving claims to do the last line first, but then may spend a year exploring the characters and writing notes before he writes the first sentence.
I feel like I’m too old to ramble. I feel like I’ve come to a point in life where I ought to know what I want to say, then build a story around it. Also, if I know where I want to end up, I can have lots of complicated fun getting there.
As of this morning my last line is DON’T LOOK BACK. My heroine Stella Kelly says:
“You hold on to me, Harry, hear me now? And don’t look back.”
I’m reading a lot of Graham Greene — Catholic writer (The Third Man, The Power and the Glory) — he’s into sin. Maybe I’m thinking of Lot’s wife, who looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s of possibilities, dontcha think?
August 29, 2009
Faith of a Writer: Joyce Carol Oates
The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol OatesMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fast, inspiring reflections on writing, not only from Oates but from her study of other writers.
I was particularly struck by her essay on Failure and how writers inhabit their failure. Failure is agony; failure is important; good writers build on failure. Struck a chord with me. Seems particularly relevant to authors who (1) get rejected and give up or (2) choose self-publishing as a way of postponing failure or (3) think their precious inspirations should stand unedited or (4) need reminding that the worst of their work is the platform for the best to come.
Read on my iPhone, ebook downloaded from Barnes & Noble.
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