Averil Dean's Blog, page 19

Creation Story

When they became writers, from The Writer’s Book of Days:

M.F.K. Fisher said she became a writer when she was four. It was her way of screaming and yelling, the primal scream.

Madeleine L’Engle knew she was going to be a writer from the moment she wrote her first story. “I was five and it was called ‘G-R-U-L.’ I didn’t know how to spell girl. My father got a new typewriter when I was ten and gave me his old one. I immediately wrote my first novel.”

James Michener didn’t start writing until he wa...

Puppet House

Damn, I’m making a lot of mistakes right now. I spent the weekend dissecting a collection of movies and novels, desperately in search of a story. I seem to have arrived at the idea that I can simply cobble together a series of plot elements from other people’s work and plunk my characters into the mix and voilà! Insta-novel! As if the characters have nothing to do with what happens to them, as if they exist apart from the world I’m building instead of in it.

Deep breath. This is what happens w...

Chaos

“The problem for people today is confusion, in a world that should make sense. A world in which you have more communication than ever, makes less and less sense than ever – and so you need storytellers, to make sense out of that chaos. But as I said, it’s a chaos of a very different kind today, and the writer struggles.” – Robert McKee

How do you see your role as a writer? Do you aim to serve a societal purpose with your writing or are you simply trying to manage the chaos in your head?

15 Inches

“All stories have to at least try to explain some small portion of the meaning of life.You can do that in 20 minutes, and 15 inches.I still remember a piece that the great Barry Bearak did in The Miami Herald some 30 years ago.It was a nothingstory, really:Some high school kid was leading a campaign to ban books he found offensive from the school library.Bearak didn’t even have an interview with the kid, who was ducking him.The story was short, mostly about the issue. But Bearak had a fact th...

Johnny Bingo

Gillian Flynn is in the Times today, talking books. One of the questions she answered:

What kind of reader were you as a child? And what were your favorite childhood books?

This got me thinking about long-ago collections from my own bookshelf. Agatha Christie was there in force. Still is, actually. From where I sit this morning I can see fourteen paperbacks bearing her name. I loved horsey books when I was really young, especially the CW Andersons with those delicate pencil illustrations. My fa...

What We Keep

Oh, Elizabeth. You’ve charmed me again.

What are you reading? What do you think of it?

Mean

Tell us about the nicest meanest thing you’ve ever done.

Photo by Ellen Von Unwerth

Fuck nice, fuck the back-patting. I once fired somebody because she annoyed me. There were other reasons but they were excuses. I was looking for anything, because the girl was obsequious and snivelly and I disliked her, and when I got the upper hand in the work environment, I fired her. Her husband was out of a job at the time, and the girl cried and begged, and I fired her anyway. I still can see her in that f...

Gilligan

A classic question, revisited: what are the five items you must have on a deserted island?

Is a man an item? No? Well, I suppose I won’t have any jars that need opening anyway.

A trunk full of notebooks and pens.
Deck of cards.
Pocketknife.
Book of collected poetry.
Volume of photographs by my favorite photographers.

Blade

Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

Of course it’s possible. Society would crumble if we all went around spilling the contents of our heads indiscriminately, with no concern for the situation or the feelings of the other party. Imagine telling your mother-in-law that blouse makes her look like a turnip. Or admitting to your boss what you really did over the weekend, or to your lover that size certainly does matter. If you want those people in your life, you’d...

Inkling

Where do you begin?

I’ve got an idea for a story and it’s the desperate kind, the book you have to write, the kind that nags and teases and finally consumes every waking hour, that tightens your throat and makes your nose prickle with tears. I long to get in there and start writing, but I don’t have all the elements yet. Though the characters are bright in my mind, the landscape is dim, and the story—the inciting event or situation—only exists as a vague shape, an unlit house in heavy fog. I...