Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
How to make your writing more vivid? One technique is to bring in specific detail that appeals to the senses (smells, sounds, texture…). Another is to toss out imagery (as Zeus might hurl thunderbolts!). Yet another: to manipulate the scansion. One of my favorite techniques, although I rarely employ it myself, is what I like to call “wigged-out exaggeration.” When used sparingly, with taste, I find way-out exaggeration both vivid and funny. And I think most readers do, too. We know it’s too absurd to be true, and yet—we return the author’s wink—it is somehow “true.”
John Steinbeck (1902-1968), who is best known for his novels, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, was a master of this technique. It so happens that recently I reread Travels with Charley (1962), his memoir of a rambling journey across the United States in a custom camper with his poodle. I found Travels with Charley at once charming, expertly-crafted, lightweight, prophetic and peculiar— but I’m not here to serve you up a big fat deep-fried critical essay, but rather, a use-it-now technique for your own writing.
Herewith some examples from Travels with Charley of “wigged-out exaggeration” (page numbers refer to the 2000 Penguin Classic edition):
“Khaki cotton trousers, bought in an army surplus store, covered my shanks, while my upper regions rejoiced in a hunting coat with corduroy cuffs and collar and a game pocket in the rear big enough to smuggle an Indian princess into a Y.M.C.A.” (p.32)
“For George is an old gray cat who has accumulated a hatred of people and things so intense that even hidden upstairs he communicated his prayer that you will go away. If a bomb should fall and wipe out every living thing except Miss Brace, George would be happy.” (pp.40-41)
“The recipes, the herbs, the wine, the preparation that goes into a good venison dish would make an old shoe a gourmet’s delight.” (p.45)
“Charley and I stayed at the grandest auto court we could find that night, a place only the rich could afford, a pleasure dome of ivory and apes and peacocks and moreover with a restaurant, and room service.” (p.69)
“When we get these thruways across the whole country, as we will and must, it will be possible to drive from New York to California without seeing a single thing.” (p.70)
“I cooked improbable dinners in my disposable aluminum pans, made coffee so rich and sturdy it would float a nail…” (p.84)
“No effort had been spared to make the cabins uncomfortable and ugly.” (p.130)
“I was so full of humble gratefulness, I could hardly speak. That happened on a Sunday in Oregon in the rain, and I hope that evil-looking service-station man may live a thousand years and people the earth with his offspring.” (p.142)
“All the food along the way tasted of soup, even the soup.” (p.208)
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
BY C.M. MAYO — July 11, 2022 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
Second Mondays of every other month I devote to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. Welcome! > For the archive of workshop posts click here.
Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
“I say literary memoir-writing is not navel gazing, or conceit, or prostitution, but an offering of truth in a world gone hazy about it. I say we all have a right to our own stories, our own versions of the truth, and the more versions we have the richer we are.”
Ted Conover’sImmersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep is an invaluable guide for any writer who wants to go undercover (and don’t we all, at least a little bit, sometimes?) Conover is the author of several works of unsettlingly original anthropological literary reporting / memoirs of immersion, among them, Coyotes,Whiteout, and Newjack.
“A writer came up to me recently after I gave a talk and asked, ‘When you do these immersions, can you be yourself?’
“Yes, I said. Yes, because who can you be besides yourself?”
— Ted Conover, Immersion
“The best immersive researchers are probably those attentive to social cues, people who are reasonably social and reasonably self-aware. My operating philosophy is that many people are frightened of strangers, so the first thing you want to be is nonthreatening. You want to try to fit in. If you are young and have body piercings and tattoos and hope to sit in on a meeting of your great aunt’s chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, consider leaving studs and hoops at home and covering some of your skin.” — Ted Conover, Immersion
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I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
Please note: The end of March 2022 marks the 16th anniversary of this blog, after which point, until further notice, I will be posting approximately two Mondays a month. The posts on Texas Books, the writing workshop, my own work, and a Q & A with another writer, will continue, each posting every other month and, as ever, when there is a fifth Monday in a given month, that’s for the newsletter.
To me thoughts are things. They have shapes, colors, and movement, and they can morph, and even emit sounds and flavors in unique and sometimes quite fascinating ways. This is perhaps strange to say, but it is not original on my part. Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater wrote about this in a little illustrated book, now over a century old, entitled Thought-forms. When I saw the illustrations of various thoughts as Besant and Leadbeater had perceived them on the astral plane, I recognized them instantly. Perhaps you will, too.
A helpful thought. (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms.)Radiating affection. (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms)Music by Mendelssohn (Screenshot from the archive.org edition of Besant and Leadbeater’s Thought-forms)
For me, as a literary artist (I write poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction), creativity is all about thoughts, corralling, arranging, refining them. And when thoughts appear in my mind that I would describe as shapeless, colorless, silent, still— or moving only in tight, repetitive fashion— the writing has about as much life as a robotic owl in quicksand. On the other hand, when my thoughts have a more fluid, dance-like quality, and shapes and colors that arrange themselves into some form of beauty, the writing is so much easier and fun. (Beauty, by the way, is not necessarily all sweetness, light, rainbows & Kumbaya; there can be intense beauty— and artistic power— in what the poet Federico García Lorca termed duende.)
How to nurture more beautiful and interesting thoughts in service of creative writing? A few reflections:
Firstly, music helps, for thoughts tend to entrain to and emerge from music. In my personal experience, there is no music more nurturing for creativity than Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in D Minor.
Do yourself a favor, grab an hour and twenty minutes, and just listen:
Secondly, when it comes to what I read, I find it helpful, on occasion, to give my ego a metaphorical cookie break. My ego sees Yours Truly as the sort of highly cultured and discerning person who reads Willa Cather novels. Well, after having read My Ántonia, O Pioneers! The Professor’s House, Death Comes for the Archbishop, and most recently, Shadows on the Rock, I pronounce Willa Cather one of the greatest literary artists who ever lived! Reading Cather’s novels has been a wondrous and luxurious experience, and invaluable inspiration for me as a writer. For my ego, a pat on the head and a chocolate cookie!
But hey now, how about that kooky Californian, P. K. Dick? Nobody I hang out with reads Dick. Sci-fi from the 60s?! my ego would have sneered, had it not been off nibbling its cookie. Just as soon as I finished Cather’s exquisite novel of old Quebec, Shadows on the Rock, I grabbed a copy of Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and, zowie! quadruple-charged my batteries.
One of the greatest of all American novels. Best consumed with a large box of hot tamale candies.
(And now I see Mr. Dick sprawled barefoot on the cabbage-roses sofa in Miss Cather’s New York living room, scribbling something mega-duende about a robotic owl in quicksand. “Edith,” she trills, “did you let this person in?”)
Thirdly, I find it useful to rethink the concept of “vacation.” Do I want a status-enhancing signaling opportunity with trophy-photos? Or do I actually want a change of scene / rest / adventure that recharges my creativity? These are not necessarily, nor even probably, same thing. In my experience, the vacations that best nurture my creativity tend to illicit confusion, even disdain, in other people. (Which is so interesting!)
Fourthly, I take long, meditative daily walks, leaving the smartphone at home. When I don’t take walks, I find that thoughts slow and take on a greyish tinge.
Fifthly, laughter, not the fake social stuff, but any genuine confetti burst of it, dislodges creative bottlenecks. There are many different types of humor, but people who lack a sense of one altogether or, infinitely worse, who straight-jacket the God-given one they do have, can be dangerous to themselves and others, including children, helpless elders, and pets.
This is easy to evaluate: check their Twitter. If they lack a Twitter, I assign them a flashing turquoise brownie point on the jumbotron in my mind, and in such case, this meme makes for an excellent litmus test:
More anon.
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
This makes me a popcorn-poppin’ party-pooper, but I’m going to give away the ending of Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 “The Pilgrim,” about an outlaw in stolen priest’s garb— not because this is what I’m saying you’ll find in Mexico, necessarily, but to point to enduring stereotypes that might mislead you.
A still from Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 silent movie “The Pilgrim”
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Speaking of law and order, I did notice, more than a few some nooks and crannies of this world are looking more than a little bit bio-medical police-state-y. Because I have written books on Mexico, a number of readers write, urgently asking, Should I move to Mexico?
In case you were wondering about my sympathies: I stand for respecting and defending the rights enshrined in the constitution of the United States, of which I am a citizen. Rights are not “privileges,” I didn’t buy that switcheroo. I could give you my screed on civil and human rights, enriched with quotes by Thomas Jefferson and Hannah Arendt, but I’m sure you didn’t come here for that, so I’ll vacuum-pack it down to the memes:
That said, in this literary blog I do not purvey (a) individual personal advice; (b) medical advice; (c) commentary on contemporary national or international politics; nor (d) natter on about the arcana of public health policy (many other people can do that much better than I can— to take but one example, Dr. Martin Kulldorff).
This is, after all, the second Monday of the month, when I post something for my writing workshop students. Normally on a winter month’s second Monday, such as this one, I might be reporting on the San Miguel Writers Conference in San Miguel de Allende, that enchanting bougainvillea-bedecked (if increasingly traffic-clogged) colonial town some three hours north of Mexico City. Because of concerns about the-virus-that-shall-not-be-named, however, that conference has been bumped out to February 2023.
Hint: Maybe Mexico—or at least the nook or cranny of Mexico that you, as a foreigner, might happen to land in— isn’t quite the free-for-all that some of you imagine.
And there are, as there always have been, many Mexicos— to borrow the title of Lesley Byrd Simpson’s landmark history.
This is my “armchair sociologist” hat. Because I write fiction I spend a lot of time observing and noodling about human society, which is to say, being a sociologist. By “armchair” I mean, I don’t have a degree in the subject. (What’s with the “Meat Science”? I got it when attended a weekend BBQ workshop there at Texas A & M University. My inner “armchair sociologist” finds people’s reactions to this hat endlessly interesting!)
But to begin to address your concerns: Putting on my hat as an armchair sociologist— (that would be the baseball cap I also use for dog-walking that says MEAT SCIENCE)— I would point to a strong presence at the San Miguel Writers Conference of both Mexican writers and US, Canadian, and other English-speaking writers living in Mexico, but also many writers winging in from tonier parts of the US East Coast and US Southwest. Some writers dig that scene (there are agents! and editors!). The last time I attended, I chaired a panel on Global Migration: People and Their Stories (with Elizabeth Hay, Lisa See, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Juan Villoro. Best-selling author Naomi Wolf, down from New York City, was a standing room-only keynote speaker (here we are in March 2022, but oh my, how things have changed, I’d be surprised to see her on the mainstream media again anytime soon.)
My inner armchair sociologist will suffice, before dropping the curtain on all of this— and hanging my TEXAS A & M MEAT SCIENCE baseball cap back on its hook— to note that the other day I received an invitation to a reading in Mexico by a writer, one closely associated with the above-mentioned writers conference, that was for “vaccinated only.” Those among the un- who might wish to hear that speaker (a speaker outspoken on the need for more freedom, I am not making this up) are to be segregated into that pathogen-free zone known as Zoomlandia. Just an anecdote, for your sociological edification.
As I write this, in March 2022, that I know of, the Mexican government has not imposed jab mandates, nor health passports. In the future, what will Mexican policymakers do, or not do, you ask, in regards to public health policy and public policy generally?
Sorry, but in the winter of 2020 my Aztec obsidian scrying mirror crack-a-doodled.
I’m not being flippant. Seriously, honestly, I have no idea what to expect when, after the winter of 2020, all over the world, including in Mexico, so many strange things have happened that I never could have imagined. And hey, I write fiction.
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Oh, there’s Mexico! A still from Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 movie “The Great Dictator.”
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Writing in Mexico— that’s something I can confidently say more about. For now, March 2022, while I don’t know of any upcoming writers conferences other than the San Miguel Writers Conference scheduled for February 2023, if you can get to Mexico, and if you have a pencil and paper, no one can stop you! Write that novel! Scribble out that memoir! You might station yourself at a table under a palapa, by the sounds of the sea… (and if you could use any writing prompts, you’ll find 365 of them here).
No worries, you do not need documents attesting to your medical history for entry into Mexico, just a valid passport.
However, as of March 2022, attending the above-mentioned literary event— or, say, certain Mexican weddings, or other social gatherings among certain groups in certain places— might be a dicey proposition if you are not prepared ***and willing*** to present at the door documents confirming that you have been injected with the number and nature of medical treatments that satisfy your hosts’ definition of “vaccinated.”
FYI, your European “recovered-from-covid” genesen certificate doesn’t count with many of these folks. (Then again, Mexico is renowned for its culture of flexibility. You might try it and see.)
As I write this in March 2022—the situation, of course, is evolving— for many Mexicans, as for many foreigners resident in Mexico, “fully-vaccinated” means that you’ve had your two, plus your booster, for a total of three injections. My inner “armchair sociologist” notes that “vaccinated” (without the “fully”) seems to be employed a little more loosely.
In Mexico, a Sputnik jab will pass muster, but puts you perilously low in the pecking order.
Ditto anything Chinese.
AstraZeneca is a notch up, then J & J.
Prime are the mRNA vaccines (the word “vaccine” having been legally redefined to encompass what was previously known in the pharmaceutical industry as “gene therapy”), made available in 2020 under the US FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization, for which, early on, many Mexicans and many foreigners resident in Mexico traveled to the US to roll up their sleeves. I refer to Moderna and Pfizer.
Moderna or Pfizer? In some places in Mexico, it’s the conversation. Be prepared.
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Dear writerly readers who have been so urgently writing to me, as you may already be aware, in its storied past, Mexico has given refuge to those fleeing slavery, pogroms in Russia, the Russian Revolution (most famously, Leon Trotsky) the tumult of the post-Weimar Republic (B. Traven), Spanish fascism under Franco, German fascism and the Holocaust under Hitler, Communist witch-hunts of the 1950s in Hollywood, Cuba of the 1960s, Argentina and Chile of the 1970s, & etc., so, yes, if you are fleeing something, it might stand to reason that Mexico might arise on your horizon as a possibility.
Moreover, true it is that many Mexicans, as well as many foreigners resident in Mexico, have wholly different ideas about the virus-that-shall-not-be-namedthan the ones retailed by the vaccinators. There are those who have a variety of religious and/or other objections to taking the jabs. Vaccinators might dismiss most of these people as, shall we say, rustic characters, but that could not be said of those who follow the likes of el gato malo, Eugyppius, Steve Kirsch, realnotrare.com reports (this one’s a doozy), and watch censored and shadow-banned videos, such as the latest in mind-furniture-rearranging from Oracle Films. (And if you were heretofore unaware, and happen to be curious, está Usted servido.)
As it could be said of opinions about and attitudes towards the topic-at-hand in many other countries, from stringent Australia to strictest Austria, in relatively laissez-faire Mexico there appears to be a profound divide between urban and rural populations, and between the higher and the lower social classes, with many exceptions sprinkled all about.
Ahoy, sociologists, and that includes you novelists!
I have many hats. This is my “armchair modern art critic” hat. I will be wearing it often in 2022-2023 as I write about Donald Judd (and maybe also about Dada).
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As for whether you should or should not go live in Mexico, I would not presume to say. Like I said, I cannot see the future, and I don’t dispense individual personal advice.
What I can tell you, after some three decades of living in Mexico City, and traveling all around Baja California, and elsewhere throughout Mexico, and writing several books about Mexico, and also translating oodles of Mexican fiction and poetry, is that I love Mexico, and I find it endlessly fascinating. Moving there in 1986, which I did for personal reasons, was one of the best decisions of my life.
However, as you might guess, my years there (interspersed with some spells abroad) have not always been a stroll with an ice-cream cone on a sunny morning in the park.
As for questions along the lines of, what’s it like to live in Mexico, is Mexico safe, what do I think of (insert name of prominent politician), in all seriousness, humbly, and in all compassion, my wish for you being that you take the best decision for yourself as possible, I toss these questions back to you—
What is it like to live in your country?
Seriously: How would you answer that? What is your full knowledge base, which are your areas of ignorance, what aspects of life there most concern you, and whom are you addressing?
Is your country safe? How quickly, and how accurately, could you answer that?
What do you think of (insert name of prominent politician in your country whom you are very upset about)? And where, exactly, do you get your information about (insert name of prominent politician in your country whom you are very upset about)? And upon reflection— reflection lasting more than 11 seconds— how genuinely objective and reliable do you think that source information might actually be?
My point: a penthouse in Manhattan is not an off-the-grid farm in Idaho is not a modernist house in the historic district of San Antonio is not a 4th floor walk-up in Milwaukee with a view of the railroad tracks and a den-o’-nefarious-activities next door. What it’s like to live in the US? That depends on where you are in the US —among many other factors, including your history, your social network, financial resources, your own attitudes, and, I would venture to suggest, most crucially, the stories you tell yourself. Which can change.
I’m telling you, while I know some things about living in Mexico that might help you if you are considering moving there—and I gladly share them with you below— I am not the oracle for all questions about Mexico.
Mexico, too, is a large and extremely heterogeneous country— ethnically, culturally, geographically. It has some 130 million people and borders all sorts of oceans and three different countries, not counting Texas.
Speaking of Texas, I hear things are a little different there, than in, oh, say, California. And in Texas, as in California, if you’re on the ground here, you’ll observe important differences from one county to the next. Santa Clara County, California, Placer County, California: different planets.
Same story in Mexico. Coahuila isn’t Oaxaca isn’t Veracruz. Torreón isn’t Tijuana isn’t Monterrey isn’t Mexico City. And it so happens, I haven’t set foot in Oaxaca, Veracruz, Tijuana, Torreón or Monterrey in many years.
This is my “armchair baseball expert” hat. It’s from El Paso, Texas.
As for how safe living in one place or another place in Mexico might or might not be, sometimes you can have a gander at some data, if you make the effort to find it; mostly you’ll have to go by feeling “the vibes” and hearsay, and the closer to your target, the better, of course. This is true in the US, and this is especially true in Mexico.
The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico. Please read this again: The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico.
Now, I’m going to be annoying and say it a third time:
The news, and the entertainments currently showing on TV or Netflix, could at times be, but generally, probably, are not your best orienting resource about Mexico.
Ninety-nine percent of them will give you about as much information as the still from last scene in Charlie Chaplin’s 1923 “The Pilgrim.”It’s not much, and it’s almost a hundred years old.And you’ve already seen it.
For the most part, books are a far better resource than popular visual media for learning about Mexico. Nonetheless, there too, clichés and time-wasters abound. I get to recommended books below.
But a lot of journalists have been getting killed in Mexico, you say. Yes, tragically. And there’s a lot of narcotrafficking. Yes, alas. But a question for you: In your own country, where the murder of a journalist might be only very rare an occurrence, might this rarity possibly be because certain persons’ acts of engagement in certain nefarious activities generating important cash flows are not deemed “news”? I cannot say I know the answer to this question in all its florid details. But, really, do you?
(Did the drugs arrive north of the border to be distributed by faeries waving wands? And, hmmm, might there be other nefarious activities generating important cash flows that are not deemed “news”?)
As for what I can say about safety in my own little barrio in Mexico City I would compare it to my experience living on the South Side of Chicago in the ’80s in that, you need to use your street sense, or get some, like, yesterday. Otherwise, usually, it’s a fine place to live. But Mexico City, a megalopolis of some 20 million people, has a lot of neighborhoods; some are more dangerous than mine, others safer. There’s a lot I simply don’t know.
As for (insert name of prominent politician you are very concerned about), different Mexicans have different opinions about him, ranging from his being Jesucristo reencarnado to something, um, better wear your garlic necklace! In short, the answer you get will depend on whom you put the question to, and that may well, might I shyly suggest, depend on what you might, maybe a little bit subconsciously, like to hear. Or what that person you have queried imagines you might want, or might be willing, to hear.
Who knows, they might just make sh*t up to yank your chain.
I cannot say I haven’t seen that happen.
Politics in Mexico, like politics in the US, or anywhere else, is pretty much a lucha libre. It’s a lot of show, and tougher than unshelled Brazil nuts to know what’s really going on. I can also tell you this: In years past, when I was in-the-know on a sliver of what was actually going on, and then read about it in the press, I just rolled my eyes and laughed, if I didn’t want to cry. Or just spit. I stopped reading or watching “news” a long time ago. I much prefer Willa Cather novels.
This is LUUUUUUCHA LIIIIIBRE!
But! There’s More! Six Questions for You About Moving To Mexico That Might Be Helpful For You To Noodle On Some More
#1. Can you easily and lustily cackle like a coyote?
Because seriously, if you want to live in Mexico it really, really helps to have, and to deliberately cultivate, a wacky, high-vibe sense of humor. If you can take one thing from this long post, this is it.
As you might imagine, moving to Mexico is not easy for someone, such as myself, who grew up speaking a different language and in a different culture. Ask a Hungarian how it is to live in Berlin, or a Berliner to make a new home in Toulouse, or, say, an Uruguayan in Philadelphia; they will assuredly inform you that they have faced, and not always managed to tackle, a multitude of gnarly challenges.
To start with, people talk funny. The people there don’t think your way of understanding and of doing things is the only way, and in fact they oftentimes consider what you think is normal and/or wise and/or good to be plumb crazy and/or stupid and/or stinkingly bad. Their system for recycling is…err, something else. Etiquette— there’s a bramble patch.
Plan on offending a ton of people you never intended to offend (and also the inevitable little phalanx of unhappy souls who project their own nasty whatnot upon your innocent and clueless self, and who relish being So Offended by You! You Foreigner, You!)
To make your way living in another country can take more patience and flexibility and sheer head-banging lonely frustration than you can summon.
But maybe you can. Only you can know. And you won’t know for sure until you try.
A few people might think, “but I am Mexican-American, I speak Spanish, so it would be easy for me to go live in Mexico.” Well, there, too, I wouldn’t know what’s going to work, or not, for you.
But I do know that as a native English speaker of (partially) English descent, one who adored Beatrix Potter and C.S. Lewis and tea with cucumber sandwiches, I found living in England, as I did for a season many, many years ago, more of a challenge that I ever could have anticipated. Did I mention, they talk funny. They have a most peculiar social structure wherein one is expected to address certain persons as lord and lady & such-like. They use pounds sterling, their electric outlets take a concatenation of weird prongs, they set their thermostats at freeze-your-fingers-off, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Their “hamburgers” and “catsup” are absurdly horrible!! I was young, it did not last. Oh well.
Certainly there are many foreigners who have made their way in Mexico. Here is a picture of my American amigo who had the most rockstar Olympic champion high-vibe sense of humor: the poet and writer Bruce Berger (he passed away in 2021). Having learned Spanish while playing piano in Spain, he came back over the pond to spend his winters in La Paz, on Mexico’s Sea of Cortez (the balance of the year he lived in Aspen, Colorado). For a sampling of his humor, and his enchantingly poetic tales, you might enjoy Almost an Island: Travels in Baja California. The chapter about the nuns is my fave.
A photo that brings back fond memories: Yours Truly (C.M. Mayo) with Bruce Berger (seated) and James Tolbert (standing), after a public reading in the Ida Victoria Gallery in downtown San José del Cabo, Baja California Sur, Mexico, sponsored by Tolbert’s Baja Books. I read from my memoir of Baja California, Miraculous Air, and, as I recall, Bruce Berger read from his, Almost an Island. Bruce was the author of numerous works of memoir and poetry. His last was a collection of his luminous essays, A Desert Harvest. Read my Q & A with Bruce here.
Another high-vibe American friend I very much admire, who has been living in Mexico City for many years, is historian and biographer Michael K. Schuessler. I invite you to listen in to my podcast interview with him about some wildly talented Mexican literary ladies.
#2. Do you have plenty of spare cash to pay your Mexican lawyer?
Because if you want to work in Mexico, legally, you will need to $$$hire$$$ a lawyer (and be very, very patient). Many an American, or other foreigner assumes that he can land in Mexico as a tourist and just stay indefinitely, oh, say, teaching English, or SCUBA diving. They learn differently when they get arrested by the Mexican authorities, and then deported.
Let me say that again:
Many an American, or other foreigner assumes that he can land in Mexico as a tourist and just stay indefinitely, oh, say, teaching English, or SCUBA diving. They learn differently when they get arrested by the Mexican authorities, and then deported.
And meanwhile, funny how that is, when employers realize you’re an undocumented worker, they don’t give you benefits, and they tend to pay, when they pay, very poorly.
In short, don’t be too quick to assume things about the ineptitude of the Mexican state, especially if your main source of information is popular entertainment and the mainstream media in your native country. (I hereby desist from saying again what I already said three times.)
#3. Are you OK with the fact that when you do achieve residency status, with the right to work, as a noncitizen, you will not have the right to vote or otherwise participate in the Mexican political process?
Once you have an opinion or seven, you might find this intensely frustrating! If you decide to go for Mexican citizenship, don’t ask me about it, talk to your Mexican lawyer. See again #1 and #2.
Now a brief intermission for more from the great Charlie Chaplin— in character as Adenoid Hynkel from his movie “The Great Dictator,” a classic of anti-fascism from 1940:
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#4. Got Advil? For US citizens banking in Mexico can be a bit of a headache.
I know, banking in the US isn’t always a picnic, but for a US citizen it can take longer to open a bank account in Mexico than even the niños who believe Santa Claus lives in the Polo Norte would believe, and one fine day, as has happened to some Americans I know, including myself, you might find your balance wiped out— not stolen, exactly, just, oh, err, wiped out.
(You answered “yes” to the question about high-vibe sense of humor, I trust?)
How banking in Mexico is for other nationals, I have no idea.
#5. Can you define for yourself clearly what you mean by “living in Mexico”?
“Living in Mexico” and “living in Mexico cocooned in an expat community” might be entirely different galaxies of experience— and one expat community a different galaxy of experience from another.
I have never lived in an expat community, however, I’ve visited some of them, and I know a number of delightful Americans and Canadians who thrive in them.
Alas, however, it has not escaped my notice that, for not all, certainly, but for many expats, one of the prime attractions of an expat community is that it’s just like home but a heap cheaper and with better winter weather, you can squidge by without having to learn Spanish, and you’ll easily find friends who will sit around and whine and complain about Mexico with you while (a) watching CNN, MSNBC or (those are very deliberate italics there) Fox News (b) playing games (c) gossiping (d) commiserating about other peoples’ atrocious political opinions (e) drinking alcoholic beverages (e) ingesting other things it would probably be wiser to not ingest.
Ahoy, you novelists, rich pickings here!
FYI, Democrats Abroad is very active in Mexico, last I heard. But if you’re on the lookout for Republicans, they’re not hiding under rocks down there, either.
#6. Would you like to check out some books about Mexico?
As I said, books can be a far better resource for learning about Mexico than popular visual media. I can warmly recommend some superb literary art and illuminating histories…
The last time I received a flurry of readers’ questions about Mexico was in 2016 when Donald Trump… sigh. Was that a hundred years ago? Sure feels like it. I answered those readers’ questions by way of this reading list:
While it may have become far easier to self-publish, and most self-published books look a sight slicker than they did in days of yore, alas, they still more often than not look (ahem) self-published. So for my dear amiga who recently asked me— and for you, dear writerly reader—here are my top tips for making your self-published book look professionally designed, which is to say, reader-friendly.
1. For your text choose an easy-on-the-eye font.
Do not get lost “shopping around” in that gnarly list of fonts already installed in your computer!
The best way to grok this issue is to get up from your computer and walk over to your own bookshelves. Pull down some 3 – 7 books that you have already read and loved. My bet is, these books are well-designed or else you wouldn’t have managed to finish reading them.
So look at those fonts. Emulate those fonts! And in he unlikely event that any of them do happen to be hard on your eyes, why, pray tell, subject your readers to them?
In case you were wondering, this blog uses Merriweather, an easy-on-the-eye font for print text.
The image below shows the sort of fonts to avoid like the devil because— I’m sure we can agree— they’re a pain to read:
2. Consider pairing a sans-serif font for chapter titles (and possibly also subtitles) with a serif font for the text.
What’s serif? It’s a typeface with itty bitty thingamajigs on the letters.
What’s sans-serif? It’s a typeface without those itty bitties.
Pick one of each, et voilà.
This isn’t a must, but it often works nicely. Here are some examples of sans-serif and serif font pairings that might work for you:
A few sans-serif fonts I like: Arial, Gill Sans, Helvetica, Verdana
A few serif fonts I like: Baskerville, Garamond, Georgia, Sabon, Times Roman
3. Be a Midas with the margins!
More often than not the first thing that screams “self-published” and “amateur” is a page with text splatulaed into every corner. Why such Scroogerie with blank paper is so common mystifies me because everybody knows from their own experience that it is, indeed, ex-haust-ing for the eye to follow long lines of crowded text. Badly designed books usually end up, sooner or later, in a dump— now there’s a waste of paper.
Compare:
4. Break up the text, where appropriate.
Another thing that makes it easier on the reader’s eyes: Where appropriate (I know, sometimes it’s not), break up big chunks of text into smaller paragraphs and/or sections. For example:
5. For chapter and/or section openings, consider using a drop cap and/or some variation to the text such as caps and/or bold and/or italics and/or even another font.
Yet another trick to make it easier on the reader’s eyes is the drop cap, which is just an unusually large capital letter to kick off the text. This first example shows a bold drop cap (from the opening chapter of my latest book):
This next image is the opening chapter of my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. This design was done by publisher, Unbridled Books. My point is: you can really get wiggy with those drop caps!
Here is an example without a drop cap but with the opening text in capitals and bold:
Again, look through the books on your bookshelf that you have already read and loved and see if you can identify some of these elements— and more.
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A Note on Adobe InDesign
If you plan to print a paperback book, as opposed to something you run off at Office Depot or your local copy shop, you will need to get your design into Adobe InDesign, and from there, make a PDF. Adobe InDesign has a frighteningly steep learning curve— and picture at the top of the cliff some ogres readying to roll down a boulder or three. I venture that unless you’re a software whiz or are planning to make a profession of graphic design, the few hundred dollars to hire a professional to format your book would probably be money well spent.
There are oodles more notions about book design and a hundred and seventeen ways to get started on that monster of a subject. My number one recommendation is to take Edward Tufte’s one day workshop if you possibly can.
Apart from all of the above, I have little more to say on this subject because I am not an expert on designing books; what I do is write them, and read even more of them.
A few years ago I gave a talk for the Women Writing the West conference, “On Seeing as an Artist: Five Techniques for a Journey Towards Einfühlung.” I recently reread it and, rare for me to say, I wouldn’t change a word (although I did fix a typo). Of late, I’ve had some conversations on this very subject, so I thought I’d take it up again for this second Monday of the month’s writing workshop post.
If you’re ever flummoxed for something to write about, a rich source of narratives you can do endless permutations upon are fables and fairytales. Something is at stake, characters are at odds— go to it! Make the fox who doesn’t want sour grapes, say, a stockbroker who doesn’t want that condo in Aspen. Make the princess and the pea a university student who tweets about her upset with outrageously insensitive professors. Rename the tortoise Ludovika and make her a STEM major; the hare, that’s her cuz, Jimmy the Adderall-addicted skateboarder. And so on.
Speaking of seeing, one of my personal favorites among that vast corpus of European fables and fairytales is Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor Has No Clothes” (sometimes translated as “The Emperor’s New Clothes”). Dear writerly reader, I am confident that you are already familiar with that story, so I won’t recount it here, but if you need a refresher or if you grew up in, say, the highlands of Papua New Guinea, here is an English translation. (And if you did grow up in the highlands of Papua Guinea I sincerely ask you to tell me the equivalent fable from your culture; I have no doubt that you have one!)
As I often take pains to point out in my workshops, reading as a writer is a very different endeavor than reading for entertainment or for scholarly purposes. Of course most people would come across “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in a children’s book, and read it for entertainment. The hero of the story is the little child who cries out: “But the emperor has nothing on at all!” Most readers are most entertained when they can identify with the hero. What’s to identify with? His shining innocence, his honesty, his courage in speaking truth to power. We can be sure, he’s as cute as Jackie Coogan, too.
Jackie Coogan wows the investors in the Charlie Chaplin film “The Kid”
As for that foolish emperor and his hypocritical courtiers, we give them the big, fat, farty raspberry!
Jackie Coogan, much later in life, in character as Uncle Fester. Well, OK, whatever he’s doing, let’s call it raspberry-esque.
What I would suggest to you, dear writerly reader, is that the more interesting characters in this fairytale, and that are worthy of exploration and fleshing out in literary fiction, are the emperor and his courtiers. What might they think and what might they say after the child, in his innocence, has broken the spell?
We know from the story what the emperor thinks and feels in that moment—he knows that the child is right, he recognizes that the crowd of his subjects agrees with the child, but he, in his underwear, and his courtiers, their hands in the air “holding” his imaginary train, continue the procession more seriously than ever.
But what about that night? The next day? A week later? A decade later?
At the end of their lives?
Use your imagination to go to those points, and tell us how, concretely, the life of the emperor and his courtiers lives have been upturned— or not? With whom are they now allied / upon whom do they now depend ? And what it is that, a day later, a week later, a decade later, or on the last day of their lives, they deny, although it is plainly before them? Describe the state of their self-images, and of their souls. You might use imagery, specific detail that appeals to the senses, dialogue, action.
For symphonic effect, tell about, say, their relationships with their dogs. Or, dogs in general. Do they prefer beagles? Or German shepherds? And so on.
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Speaking of emperors, courtiers and clear seeing, a few months ago I began a side project of translating Eine Reise Nach Mexico, a German language memoir by Countess Paula Kollonitz, an Austrian lady-in-waiting who traveled to Mexico as part of Maximilian and Carlota’s entourage in 1864. (It is a memoir I originally read in Spanish translation, and I made use of many of the details she recounts in my historical novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire. For those unfamiliar with the history of Mexico’s Second Empire, I warmly recommend my podcast interview with M.M. McAllen, author of the superb narrative history, Maximilian and Carlota: Europe’s Last Empire in Mexico.) You can read Eine ReiseNach Mexico now for free in the original (if you can handle Gothic font) and in a 19th century English translation on archive.org. My purpose, apart from a more modern English translation, is to provide an introduction and notes.
Eine Reise Nach Mexico by Paula Kollonitz
Countess Kollonitz writes about her journey some two years afterwards, when it was obvious to even the most deluded adherents that Maximilian von Habsburg’s Mexican adventure was doomed. It makes for uncanny reading— and it’s interesting to note what she, a lady-in-waiting from the Hofburg, dares to say, and what she doesn’t say, but that would have been obvious to her either at the moment she chronicles, or later, as she was writing. Eine Reise Nach Mexico was published in Vienna in May of 1867, the month before Maximilian’s execution in Querétaro. It so happens that I saw the elaborately pleated shirt Maximilian wore for that occasion, on display in a museum in Mexico City. It was pierced by several bullet holes and stained with blood.
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
In most of the manuscripts I’ve seen in writers workshops, the characters… sort of… ummm… float kinda sorta in space? When they do appear more concretely, their bodies, gestures, physical interactions with other bodies and things tend to be generic, e.g., the tall black man stood; the short blonde woman was sitting; the Asian man nodded. She looked. He shrugged.
It gets kind cardboard-cutout-y.
Oh, and these characters also do a lot of taking sips of drinks.
Well, OK, sometimes a character’s black or Asian or blonde or whatever, and he or she or zhe’s gotta stand and/or nod and/or shrug and/or take a sip. But it isn’t gain-of-function research to grab a floccule more oomph from the Vividness Department. Take just a moment to dig around there in your imagination—and this could, literally, cost you less than 20 seconds in some instances— and then, with your thoughtfully selected detail (or two or three), you can guide your reader to see your characters and the scene with more specificity, that is to say, more vividly.
(But what about clutter? You might hasten to ask. I do the whack-a-mole on clutter here. )
How to come up with vivid detail? One of the best ways to get click-your-fingers fast with vivid detail is to read as a writer. Reading as writer is not the same as reading passively, for entertainment. Nor is it reading to bag some trophy-worthy-theme as for your PhD thesis on race, class, gender & intersectionality, but rather, simply, when you spot something you—you the fellow literary artist— think an author does especially well, take note. I would suggest that you check it or circle it or underline it (or all three) with your pencil and, should you feel so moved, copy it out in your notebook. Then, perhaps take another moment to try some permutation exercises.
Recently I was reading Bernard DeVoto’s The Western Paradox when this struck me:
“We headed toward Flagstaff from Bakersfield. In August the lower end of the San Joaquin Valley is wrapped in a brown heat-haze which I have never fully understood, for assuredly there is no water vapor in it. A reek of crude oil goes with it; the sky is a steel-white; one does not rest a forearm on the car door.“ —Bernard DeVoto, The Western Paradox (p. 195)
Rest a forearm on the car door—Bingo! Dear writerly reader, is this not by a league more vivid in your mind than, say, “it was a really hot day”? We’re no longer kinda sorta floating around; we are in a body— a body with a forearm that avoids resting on the car door!
As I went on to read Willa Cather’s novels My Ántonia and O Pioneers! I kept an eye out for how she handles bodies— not only in how she makes the characters more vivid and/or grounds them in the scene, but has them relate physically to each other. (And I would wager that any author whose work you especially admire and enjoy reading is doing this splendidly well— else you wouldn’t be bothering to read them and so admiringly. So I would suggest that you go to your own bookshelf of books you have already read and loved, and reread one or two with an eye to how these authors handle detail relating to the body.)
Cather never disappoints.
“As Ántonia turned over the pictures the young Cuzaks stood behind her chair, looking over her shoulder with interested faces. Nina and Jan, after trying to see round the taller ones, quietly brought a chair, climbed up on it, ansd stood close together, looking. The little boy forgot his shyness and grinned delightedly when familiar faces came into view. In the group about Ántonia I was conscious of a kind of physical harmony. They leaned this way and that, and were not afraid to touch each other. ..” —Willa Cather, My Ántonia
“Three three pretty young Swedish girls who did Alexandra’s housework were cutting pies, refilling coffee cups, placing platters of bread and meat and potatoes upon the red tablecloth, and continually getting in each other’s way between the table and the stove.” —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
“Frank went into the house and threw himself on the sofa, his face to the wall, his clenched fist on his hip. Marie, having seen her guests off, came in and put her hand coaxingly on his shoulder.” —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
She put her hand on his arm. “I needed you terribly when it happened, Carl. I cried for you at night” …. Carl pressed her hand in silence. —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
“Emil rubbed his knees thoughtfully” —Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
And from some random other reading:
“But it is true that a lot of work gets done over two-hour ceremonial luncheons, and more than once, after such an occasion, I wobbled out like a stunned ox, vowing to change jobs before I acquired gout and a faintly British accent.” — Michael Collins, Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journeys
By the side of this fortress-door hung a heavy iron bell-pull, ending in a mermaid. When first Mrs. Lucas had that installed, it was a bell-pull in the sense that an extremely athletic man could, if he used both hands and planted both feet firmly, cause it to move, so that a huge bronze bell swung in the servants’ passage and eventually gave tongue (if the athlete continued pulling) with vibrations so sonorous that the whitewash from the ceiling fell down in flakes.” —E.F. Benson, Queen Lucia
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A WEE WRITING EXERCISE
As one character is speaking, what else can another character do besides, say, “rub his knees thoughtfully”? Oh, plenty! Here goes:
Joe slowly rubbed his elbow.
Elmira dabbed a finger under eye, as if to remove a fleck of mascara that wasn’t there.
Patsy slipped both hands, palms out, into her back pockets.
Lou took up his cup of tea and then, with a nearly inaudible sigh, leaned sideways into the pillows.
A wee exercise: To this list, add 5 more examples of your own and use the names Puddleton, Jamilla and Fred (because I say so). Absolut Verboten: nodding, sitting, standing, looking, shrugging and sipping.
BY C.M. MAYO — November 29, 2021 UPDATE: This blog was then entitled Madam Mayo (2006-2022).
This finds me working away on my Far West Texas book which, unavoidably, concerns Mexico. Meanwhile, it’s time for the fifth-Monday-of-the-month newsletter and cyberflanerie, Mexico edition.
Delightful Mexico-related items have been landing in my mailboxes— both email and snailmail! First of all, the pioneering consciousness explorer and interviewer Jeffrey Mishlove has won the Bigelow Prize of USD $500,000—you read that right, half a million dollars— for his essay, “Beyond the Brain: The Survival of Human Consciousness After Permanent Bodily Death.” The news relevant to Yours Truly and Mexico is that, in this essay, Mishlove mentions mywork about Francisco I. Madero, the leader of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, who also happened to be a Spiritist medium. A few years ago in Las Vegas, I was also greatly honored when Mishlove interviewed me at length for his show, New Thinking Allowed.
You can read Mishlove’s award-winning essay “Beyond the Brain” in its mind-blowing entirety for free, and read more about the impressive panel of judges, and the also impressive runners-up for the Bigelow prize at this link.
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Another delightful item to land in my mailbox in this drizzly-gray season was the pristine copy of Lloyd Kahn’s 1999 newspaper, El Correcaminos, Vol. 1. No. 1, Los Cabos, Baja California Sur. In the photo below, my writing assistant, Uli Quetzalpugtl, lends his presence to the wonderfulness! Gracias, Lloyd!
I’ve been a big fan of Lloyd Khan’s many endeavors (including this one) for some years now. Among other things, Kahn is the editor-in-chief of Shelter Publications. Check out his website and blog.
For me, reading this first 1999 issue of El Correcaminos was like stepping into a very personal time machine, for that was the year that, having concluded several years of intensively traveling and interviewing in and researching about that Mexican peninsula, I started polishing my draft of the manuscript that would appear as Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico (University of Utah Press, 2002).
Here’s a photo of El Correcaminos’ page of recommended books— ah ha! Anne Zwinger’s A Desert Country Near the Sea, Graham Mackintosh’s Into a Desert Place; Walt Peterson’s The Baja Adventure Book: These are some of the books I’d kept on my desk, and even carried with me on my travels. I’m smiling as I write this. How books can be like old friends! And sometimes their authors can become friends, too! (Hola, dear Graham!)
More Mexico news from Denver, Colorado: My amiga Pat Dubrava reads her translation of “The Magic Alphabet,” a short story by Mexican writer Agustín Cadena for Jill!
Dubrava and I both translate Cadena— he’s vastly under-appreciated in English, and we’re aiming to change that.
Another big part of the wonderfulness of Mexico City is its Centro de Estudios de Historia de México (CEHM) in the southern neighborhood of Chimalistac. Its director, historian Dr. Manuel Ramos Medina, reads a letter from the Empress Carlota to Señora Dolores de Almonte—this being one from the vast cornucopia of treasures in the CEHM’s archives. For those of you who speak Spanish and have an interest in Mexican history, check out the website for information of the innumerable free online lectures they offer.
His wife, my amiga Araceli Ardón, a writer I have long admired and some of whose fiction I have translated, is offering a free series of outstandingly good lectures on Mexican literature and on her Ardón method of creative writing— in Spanish. Highly recommended.
Blah verbszzzzzzz. My writing assistant models the concept.
He was tall. He was old. He went to have a nap. Was, was, went. This reader’s asnooze already!
Some examples of livelier verbs:
Some rough-and-tumble cowboy movie would scramble across the screen –Bill Cunningham, Fashion Climbing
I ebbed down into the darkness of sleep – Jack London, The Star Rover
In fact, I bought some Ziploc Space Bags (in tropical colours), which are vacuum-resealable bags capable of squishing a huge pile of clothing into one fruity brick. –Melanie Kobayashi, Bag and a Beret, February 17, 2014, Why Do Laundry When You Have Scissors?
Ooh, squish, that’s just squishalicious!
She didn’t believe in the war, but it wasn’t the soldiers’ fault that they’d been gulped down by it. – Alice Miller, More Miracle Than Bird
How to come up with livelier verbs? Yea verily, even in the murk of the Present Rhinocerosness, it can be done. If you wish upon the gibbous moon, or a fluff of dandelion, one or eleven may just pop into your coconut! On a more practical level, I can recommend reading whatever you happen to be reading closely, and when you come upon any verb that strikes you as especially vivid and apt, jot it down. You thereby train yourself to become more alert to them. And there’s no law against making use of them yourself.
Just a few of the verbs on my own notecards:
flout blabber brandish get jazzed baffle delude jettison canvass pander abide degrade scourge fluff fling ping ring zing
Be bold! Some wacky guys demonstrate the concept by taking an itty bitty step… off the top of a mountain.
Boldly nurture your creativity! Heed the call to your greatness, your highest self, ever and always! Even if you feel itty bitty! Because you know that first draft is crap! Herewith, a set of tips and tricks to, by the itty and by the bitty, get your revision mojo mojoing.
Revision: Take a Chainsaw to Those Little Darlings, Prune, Do No Harm, Be an Archaeologist, Move the Furniture Onto the Front Lawn, Flip the Gender
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog, by C.M. Mayo, May 1, 2006
Revision on my mind… as I am revising the revision of the revision (of the revision) of my novel… which has already undergone a few chainsaw massacres… more than Texas-sized… Australia-sized (I’m talking 250 pages)… I am also gearing up to give a special one day workshop on Revision at the Writers Center this May 14th [2006]… So I recently asked a few writer friends for their thoughts on revision. Novelists Mary Kay Zuravleff and Carolyn Parkhurst were both in my writing group; first-hand I’ve seen how good they are with revision. Check out their websites to see what they’re up to– both have wonderful new novels out. Dinty W. Moore is the author of many books, most recently The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction. Dawn Marano is fine writer of creative nonfiction and, bless her heart, the editor of my memoir, Miraculous Air. Known to all in literary Washington DC but the brain dead, Richard Peabody is a poet, fiction writer, editor, publisher and writing teacher. Check out his website– he’s offering a novel writing workshop.
Here’s what they had to say on revision:
“the smell pass, the hearing pass”
MARY KAY ZURAVLEFF “The prose on my pages doesn’t match what I’ve envisioned for drafts and drafts. Near the end, I make a pass for each of the senses. There’s the smell pass, the hearing pass, etc., as I try to vivify every sidelong glance. Then it’s time to prune it back so readers don’t choke on details!”
“first, do no harm”
CAROLYN PARKHURST “When facing revisions, I think it’s useful for a writer to begin from the same starting point as a doctor: first, do no harm. Revision is a vital part of the writing process, but it’s possible to revise all the life out of something if you’re not careful. Never lose sight of what was artful and compelling about the piece in its purest state: when it existed only in your imagination.”
“curiosity… questions”
DAWN MARANO “Substantive revision—as opposed to line-editing, that is, moving commas around and such—begins when a writer returns to a draft of her work with the curiosity of, say, an archaeologist. Arrayed before her are the traces of a lost civilization—in this case, sentences and paragraphs instead of material artifacts—that are waiting for her to see them with the fresh and patient eye of possibility: ‘What larger meaning or context might this perplexing fragment of thought I left undeveloped be a part of? What is this clever demurral or summarization disguising or helping me avoid writing about? What story am I really trying to tell myself with this assemblage of words on the page?’”
“the conscious choice that it belongs”
DINTY W. MOORE “Simply proofreading your second or third draft and fixing a few awkward sentences is similar to remodeling a room by dusting the end tables and rearranging the pillows on the sofa — not much changes. The true act of revision comes when a writer is willing to move each piece of furniture out onto the front lawn, roll up the area rugs, take the pictures down from the wall, and then, on a case by case basis, decide what returns to the room, and where it will be situated. Sometimes a favorite table has to be left out on the curb for recycling, because it just doesn’t fit anymore; maybe some new furniture is purchased (a new scene is written); perhaps the walls are painted a new color (voice or point-of-view shifts); or maybe all of the furniture is returned but in a different configuration — what’s important is that nothing goes back inside the metaphorical living room until and unless the writer makes the conscious choice that it belongs.”
“No fear”
RICHARD PEABODY “I think revision is about testing the boundaries of what’s on the page, having no fear of pushing to the logical extreme. You need to jettison your baggage about plot, invest in your characters (and their voices), and trust your guts. When all else fails flip the gender.”
I welcome your courteous comments which, should you feel so moved, you can email to me here.
