Last month I posted my list of recommended books on the craft of creative writing. This month, herewith, my list of recommended books on the creative process. May they prove as useful and inspiring for you as they have been for me.
By the way, many of these books are not about creative writing per se. As writers we can learn not only from other writers, but from painters, filmmakers, musicians, athletes, computer science professors— in sum, anyone who sets out to do, and keep on doing, extraordinary things when the world, alas, does not always respond in a timely nor generous manner.
Benke, Karen, Rip the Page! Adventures in Creative Writing For creative children— of all ages. Read her guest-blog post for “Madam Mayo” here. (Link goes to old blogger platform, will be corrected shortly.) Cameron, Julia, The Artist’s Way New Agey (and so not for everyone) but also highly practical. Her concept of the “artist date” I have found brilliantly effective.
To learn how to write fiction and creative nonfiction you need teachers, however, they need not be local, Zoomed in, nor even living, because, happily for us all, so many have written books on the craft of writing. Here is my list of favorites. May one or some or even all of these prove as helpful to you as they have been for me.
Fussell, Paul, Poetic Meter & Poetic Form More than a little bit crunchy and most of it won’t interest the average prose writer, but the chapter on scansion is worth the price of the book, and, for any prose writer aiming to achive vividness in their writing, worth rereading multiple times.
Gardner, John, The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers Forget the subtitle, “for young writers,” this is a book for writers of any age, and not necessarily beginners. I read the chapter “On Common Errors” so many times my copy fell apart and I had to buy another. Also highly recommended for writers of creative nonfiction.
Oliver, Mary, A Poetry Handbook This one is short and sweet. Finally, an articulate answer to the question, Why is a rock not a stone? An excellent resource for poets, as well as prose writers, who should never – ever – underestimate the importance of the poetry in their prose.
Scarry, Elaine, Dreaming by the Book Essential for understanding how and why specific sensory detail “works” to create a vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
Sims, Norman, and Mark Kramer, editors, Literary Journalism: A New Collection of the Best American Nonfiction A bit dated now, but nevertheless an outstanding selection. The introduction on the art of literary journalism (the more fashionable term these days is “creative nonfiction”) is vital.
Smiley, Jane, Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel Includes her reviews of 100 novels. A treasure of a book by one of our greatest contemporary novelists.
Snyder, Blake, Save the Cat! A snazzy book that reads like, well, your buddy explaining the ropes. It’s for screenplay writers but the basics on story structure are useful for short story writers and novels as well.
My mantra is, your best teachers are the books you have already read and truly loved. One way to extract the lessons they can provide to you as a writer is by way of what I call emulation-permutation exercises.
I especially admired this fragment in Henry James’s The Ambassadors :
the sky was silver and turquoise and varnish
so I broke it down as follows:
the sky was [some kind of metal] and [some of stone] and [some kind of liquid].
Mine:
the sky was gold and sapphire and milk.
the sky was tin and coal and whiskey.
the sky was brass and amber and bootblack.
Try doing as many of these as you can, whether one, two, or seventeen. Then, circle the one that strikes you as the most vivid and/ or apt for the manuscript you are currently working on.
Another example:
In reading Julia Glass’s novel, Three Junes, I admired this passage:
“Paging through the news from afar, he finds himself tired of it all. Tired of Maggie Thatcher, her hedgehog eyes, her vacuous hair, her cotton-mouthed edicts on jobs, on taxes, on terrorist acts.“
So, breaking this into chunks:
her [name of uncommon animal] eyes,her [quirky adjective] hair,her [adjective describing mouth / voice] [some form of speech] on [noun], on [noun], on [noun].
At the time I was writing The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire and struggling for a vivid description of one of my key characters, Princess Josefa de Iturbide, then an aging and overpowering spinster who has taken over the care of her nephew– from the point of view of another character, who was disinclined to be sympathetic. I used this basic structure (with a little wiggle room) to come up with the following:
Her lizard eyes, her coiled-up hair, her sharp-tongued pronouncements on his toys, his nap-times, his hot milk with sugared bread.
I decided I quite liked just the first part – her [name of uncommon animal] eyes, her [quirky adjective] hair – so I kept going just for fun (I didn’t use any of these):
Her angel-fish eyes, her dumpy hair Her ferret eyes, her over-blown hair Her Shetland pony eyes, her indecisive hair His raccoon eyes, his ludicrous toupee His weasel eyes, his cockamamie comb-over
and so on…
Once you’ve done a few, or several, circle the one that most appeals to you.
January 25 “Emulation-Permutation” Take a particularly vivid and rhythmic sentence or two from someone else’s book or story, and then exchange the verbs and/or adjectives and/or adverbs and/or whatever to make it your own. For example, while reading Conversations with Gore Vidal(edited by Richard Peabody and Lucinda Ebersole), I came across this vignette in the piece by Larry Kramer, “The Sadness of Gore Vidal”:
“He is very fat. His face is lined. His hair, all of which he still has, looks like its in the end stages of a coloring job. He says he has to worry about his health. He orders a steak.”
Here’s my emulation-permutation on that:
She is very thin. Her face is as smooth as a child’s. Her hair, which is sparse and frizzed, reminds me of what might be a fried mermaid’s. She says she is ravenous. She orders the sardine sandwich.
And another:
He is huge. His face appears to have been inflated. His hair has been slicked back with a strong-smelling lotion. He says he hasn’t time for more than a quick bite. He orders the brisket.
Do as many emulation-permutations as you can on this, or on another selection– preferably from your own favorite reading. No rules.
P.S. You can find the archive of workshop posts here.
The following examples of musical writing I took from what I had handy at the moment, e.g., a magazine article, a newspaper movie review, however, for the most part, from old favorites on my bookshelves. Notice how the rhythms and sounds provide energy and meaning.
There he is, in all his glory, Brad Pitt, that beautiful, chiseled chunk of celebrity manhood. You want him? Go see “Fight Club.” You want action, muscle, and atmosphere? You want boys bashing boys in bloody, living color? “Fight Club” is your flick, dude. —Desson Howe, The Washington Post. 10/1999
The first technique Howe uses here is the rise with questions, then a contrasting downward thrust with commands or assertions:
You want him? Go see “Fight Club.” You want boys bashing boys in bloody, living color? “Fight Club” is your flick, dude.
Howe also uses poetic alliteration— repeating sounds in adjacent or nearby words:
Brad Pitt, that beautiful, chiseled chunk action, muscle, and atmosphere boys bashing boys in bloody “Fight Club” is your flick
I could give many excellent reasons for my dislike of large dinner-parties, soirées, crushes, routes, conversazioni and balls. —Aldous Huxley, “The Traveller’s-Eye View”
Here Huxley also uses poetic listing, made poetic in part by his use of alliteration (crushes… conversazioni).
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Philadelphia, I was told in New York, was so slow that it was safe for people to fall out windows—they just wafted down like gossamer… —P. Gibbs, People of Destiny, 1920
Brilliant use of the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in this one. For more about that, see my post on Grokking Scansion.
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Further fun examples:
We knew you were wondering, and the answer is no. Mohair is not the hair of the mo. —Jonathan Raush, “The Golden Fleece”
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No typos in this one, by the way (not that I could find anyway); this is how Armstrong wrote it:
We don’t think that we could be more relaxed and have better neighbors any place else. So we stay put After all— we have’ a very lovely home. The house may not be the nicest looking front. But when one visit the Interior of the Armstrong’s home they’ see a whole lot of comfort, happiness + the nicest things. Such as that Wall to Wall Bed— a Bath Room with Mirrors Everywhere‘ Since we are Disciples to Laxatives. A Garage with a magic up + down Gate to it. And of course our Birthmark Car‘ a Cadillac’ (Yea). The Kids in our Block just thrill when they see our garage gate up, and our fine Cadillac ooze on out. They just rejoice and say, “Hi—Louis + Lucille— your car is so beautiful coming out of that rise up gate,” which knocks me out. —Louis Armstrong, In His Own Words
Tony Morrison said, “The function of freedom is to free someone else,” and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do? Get it all down. Let it pour out of you onto the page. Write an incredibly shitty, self-indulgent, whiney, mewling first draft. Then take out as many of the excesses as you can.” —Anne Lammott, Bird by Bird
I stepped onto the hot tarmac of Tan Son Nhut air base to the ear-splitting howl of jet fighters. These jets had an aura of aggression, with their pointed noses painted as sharks hurtling down the runway, bombs tucked under wings, afterburners aglow. The energy of the war was awesome. —Jon Swain, River of Time
…hold on with a bull-dog grip and chew and choke as much as possible — President Lincoln to General U.S. Grant
“When somebody threatens me,” he says, “I usually tell them to pack a picnic and stand in line.” — Mikey Weinstein quoted in “Marching As to War” by Alan Cooperman, Washington Post
There is about our house a need… We need someone who’s afraid of frogs. We need someone to cry when I get mad, not argue. We need a little one who can kiss without leaving egg or jam or gum. We need a girl. —George H. Bush, letter to his mother, 1953
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What are your favorite books? I would venture to suggest that those, the books you have already read and most truly enjoyed, are going to be your best teachers. I’m betting that, as you comb through them, abundant examples of musical writing will be easy to find.
What are your favorite books? I would venture to suggest that those, the books you have already read and most truly enjoyed, are going to be your best teachers.
P.S. To really make this sink into your writing mind, I would suggest that you try marking the stressed and unstressed syllables, and also identifying some of the author’s poetic techniques.
Stressed, unstressed: Not all syllables are the same. My writing assistants model the concept.
Knowing how to work with scansion, whew, rocket fuel! Not all but many of the following examples are taken from Paul Fussell’s Poetic Meter & Poetic Form and John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. The former is fairly technical, but serious fiction writers will find the chapter on scansion worth the price of the book. As for The Art of Fiction, the bit on scansion is an itsy bitsy bit, however, I consider Gardner required reading for any aspiring fiction writer. I read The Art of Fiction so many times that my copy fell to pieces and I had to buy another. Nonetheless, over the years, many of my writing students have told me, and oftentimes bitterly, that they found Gardner’s tone so arrogant as to induce a writing block! So you have that caveat. (But if Gardner’s arrogant tone is all it takes to induce a writing block…. hmmm… that will be another post.)
Scansion = representation of poetic rhythms by visual symbols ̆ = unstressed syllable / = stressed syllable
Because scansion marks are difficult to insert in this program, where we would expect to find a “/” above a stressed syllable, I have underlined that syllable instead and left the unstressed syllables unmarked.
Favors to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends.
If this is wigging you out already, trust me, there’s nothing too complicated about this. As you read a line aloud, just notice which syllables naturally sound a little stronger and maybe a little louder? Those are your stressed syllables. Everything else, those would be unstressed. And yes, sometimes some syllables can be stressed or unstressed depending on how you choose to read it. There are gray areas aplenty. La de da.
To slow down, make it heavy:
For this, following Fussell, you’ll want “a succession of stressed syllables without the expected intervening unstressed syllables” – for example:
When Ajax strives some rock’svastweight to throw The line too labours, and thewordsmoveslow
To go fast, lightly, and/or easily:
Here what works, says Fussell, is “a succession of unstressed syllables without the intervening stressed syllables” – for example:
Ripple on the surface of the water – were salmon passing under – different from the ripples caused by breezes – Gary Snyder “Ripples on the Surface”
Mirror the rhythm:
“all the waves of the billows of the sea” — H Melville, Moby Dick
To show something sudden / different / new:
Fussell: “an unanticipated reversal in rhythm”– for example:
The pig thrashed and squealed, then, panting, trembling, lay helpless. –John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
No scansion marks on the following. Try reading these aloud, listening carefully for for rhythms and the changes in rhythm– they will be obvious to your ear.
…the roller coaster’s track dips and curves like a barn swallow. Just now, a train full of flushed riders climbs, swerves, tilts on its side, then plunges on the rail’s fixed flight through the park… –Lynda McDonnell, “Veblen and the Mall of America”
I could not bear upper Madison Avenue on weekday mornings… because I would see women walking Yorkshire terriers and shopping at Gristede’s, and some Veblenesque gorge would rise in my throat. –Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That”
Gorge! Well!
To conclude, here is an old poem with especially clear and energetic rhythms. Note the stressed and unstressed syllables:
THE FAIRIES by William Allingham W.B. Yeats, ed., Fairy & Folk Tales of Ireland
Up the airy mountain Down the rushy glen We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap And white owl’s feather!
As you revise the draft of your short story or novel, and especially as you put your eye on crucial descriptions and/or actions, or lines of dialogue, see if by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables, you can identify where the rhythms work well and where your text might be rearranged or rewritten to make the rhythms more apt, which is to say, more congruent with what you mean to show, and thereby more vivid for your reader.
Duende is a Spanish word that might be translated as “sprite” or “fairy.” But for poets and other artists, no one has evoked, if not quite explained this rare, magnetic quality in art, so well as Federico García Lorca in his poetry and in his essay, “The Theory and Play of the Duende.”
Who and what else has duende?Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Tolstoy– and especially broad sections of War and Peace. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker— all of it. William Butler Yeats’ poetry. Charlie Chaplin’s silent movie “The Pilgrim”– especially the final scene at the US-Mexico border. In a time closer to our own, Flannery O’Connor’s fiction oozes duende.
Do you already have your own list? If not, I can recommend making one as a more than illuminating exercise.
ELB
Oftentimes writing with duende aims to épater les bourgeois, shock the middle class, as those poètes français d’autrefois so loved to do. The danger is that, alas, that épater stuff– I call it ELB for short– more often than not lacks duende. And ELB without duende is so old hat, you can vacuum it up along with the dust bunnies and dead flies.
In plain English, I label as ELB without duende those scenes, imagery, and lines of dialogue that don’t do squat, other than reveal the author’s rude jones to appear too cool for school. Entre nous, dear writerly reader, alas, more often than not, ELB might as well also stand for Easy Lazy Bullcrap.
Or, say, Egregiously Louche Buffalocrap.
“To get into the best society, nowadays, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people – that is all!” ― Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, 1893
It’s 2020. Scandalizing Grandma? She’s probably got three tattoos and you don’t want to guess what she’s watching on YouTube.
Green hair? Black fingernails? Chainsaw massacre? Yawn.
That said, Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” is one of the finest short stories yet written in the English language and it’s totally ELB, in the original sense. It is deeply weird, crisp, charming, punch-funny, and horrifying for, in the end– trigger warning!– Grandma gets offed by the mass murderer. It works. Why? Did I mention, it is deeply weird, crisp, charming, and punch-funny? O’Connor had so much duende, Dr. Jung would not have been surprised that her family’s farm in Milledgeville, Georgia, where she wrote so much of her fiction, was called Andalusia. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” appeared in 1953, and it still twirls the wig of just about everybody who reads it.
Religion is not my rodeo. However, I can recommend this fascinating interview with literary scholar Dr Jessica Hooten Wilson about how Flannery O’Connor’s Catholic faith informs her writing (the camera is a little shaky, so you might want to focus on just the sound):
More about duende and ELB anon.
P.S. You can find the archive of workshop posts here. Again, I offer a post for my workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing on the second Monday of every month.
This finds me away from the blog this week. Herewith a post from the archives:
Writing Loglines and the Concept of “the Eyespan“
Originally posted on Madam Mayo blog February 22, 2012
I resisted writing loglines for a long time, for I was of the school of Flannery O’Connor’s famous saying (as I recall it), “if you want to know what the story is about, read the story.” In other words, I believed in the mysterious resonance of literary profundity– and, oh yeah, I still do– but I have come to appreciate the focusing power, both for the writer herself and for her sales team (agent, editor, marketing staff, booksellers, et al) of packing the whole enchilada into one super-yummy bite– because, otherwise, you and your readers will be left vaguely wondering, um, what might it be? “A good meal?” Err, that could anything from a chunk of cheese to a 5 star foie gras extravanganza.
Specificity entices.
It also repels. Dear writerly reader, as you know, there are readers you don’t want your book to attract. I don’t mean that in a necessarily snobby way. After all, someone who’s looking for a guidebook wouldn’t want to be served up a lyrical literary experiment in travel memoir– and vice versa.
I just wrapped up a few days of giving writing workshops in San Miguel de Allende, and on the last day, I evangelized about loglines which I would have done anyway but it so happened that I had just, the night before, finished reading Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! a both amusing and practical guide to writing screenplays which, by the way, offers a slew of examples of great loglines. I don’t write screenplays (yet) but the basic principles of storytelling are the same, whether for the screen or the stage, the page, or lo! ye olde campfire. Seriously, if you’re writing any kind of story, read Save the Cat!, have a chuckle or nine, and save yourself a heap of headaches.
Snyder writes, “If you can’t tell me about it in one quick line, well, buddy, I’m on to something else.”
(Does this guy snazz around Malibu in a little red convertible, or what?)
Yours Truly defines the so-called logline as a one to two sentence description of the book that (a) tells the reader what to expect and (b) entices.
Here are some examples from various books that work for me– not all official, by the way, but plucked from longer descriptions on the book’s jacket; others are simply subtitles; others were cooked up not by the author but by the editor and/or marketing staff:
This ultimate insider’s guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz veteran who’s proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat. Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
From literary journalist Sara Mansfield Taber comes a deep and wondrous memoir of her exotic childhood as the daughter of a covert CIA operative. Born Under an Assumed Name by Sara Mansfield Taber
How what we hear transforms our brains and our lives, from music to silence and everything in between Healing at the Speed of Sound by Don Campbell and Alex Doman
An epic novel about a family torn apart in the struggle-to-the-death over the destiny of Mexico The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by Yours Truly
Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin American journey that changed the way we see the world Humboldt’s Cosmos by Gerard Helferich
Not long ago the Big Thicket of East Texas was still one of those places singular in its southernness, like the Mississippi Delta or the Carolina Low Country; now its old-timers and their ways are nearly gone. They will not be forgotten, though, for in My Grandfather’s Finger, Edward Swift recalls a Big Thicket populated by family and friends as gloriously vibrant and enigmatic as the land itself. My Grandfather’s Finger by Edward Swift
War and Peace broadly focuses on Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and follows three of the most well-known characters in literature: Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves his family behind to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman who intrigues both men. War and Peaceby Leo Tolstoy
All of these fall into what I think of an an “eyespan”– an amount of text the reader’s eye can take in in a “gulp.” (I admit, the last example is long– but it is one sentence.)
If you google around, you will find a multitude of webpages with advice, and schoolmarmy formulas, for writing log lines. Such rigidity might be apt for certain industries (TV pilots?) but for books, we have a scootch more wiggle room. But not past the eyespan.
What you might also notice is that in these examples– just pulled from the books I happened to have at hand– the (very few) adjectives and verbs have verve:
reveals dare admit prove sell save hear transform to be (forgotten) follows fighting yearning leaves fights (again!) intrigues
So…. if you’re working on a log line, why not make a list of vervy verbs and such from the books you have at hand? Recycling a few of them (covertly fighting! deeply yearning! wondrously transforming!) can be a felicitous endeavor…
P.S. I offer several detailed reading lists for writers here.
For updates on upcoming workshops I invite you to sign up for my newsletter here.
I wish I’d had the foresight to take a photo of what this book looked like before its repair: the spine torn off and hanging to one side by threads. It’s the ninth edition of the “Fannie Farmer” Boston Cooking-School Cook Book published in 1951, not a valuable book in the rare book market, and this specimen less so for its decades-old gravy and butter stains. But it is a tremendously valuable book to me because it was my mother’s. I took it to my local bookbinder and, for about the price of a pair of Keds, voilà:
Restored for use by my local bookbinder.
It strikes me as curious that in all the many writers workshops and conferences I’ve attended over the years I cannot recall anyone ever even mentioning the craft of book binding. But what skill it takes to do it well! And what a difference it makes! With its repaired binding, this dear workhorse of a book has been given the dignity it well deserves.
What has this to do with a writing workshop? Two things.
First, as a writer I’ve come to realize that the quality of the book’s design, paper, and binding is immensely important, for its gives the book its presentation– like a frame for a picture or the dress for a bride– and it also gives it the sturdiness it requires to survive over time.
Second, I’ve come to believe that as a writer it matters why and how I treat my books because respect for them is respect my own endeavor. Generally speaking, I have learned to try to keep them out of the sun, I avoid eating or drinking while reading them, and I take care not to fade, fold, bump or tear any dust jackets. However, that doesn’t mean I’m ever and always fussy about my books. I’ll toss out battered old mass market paperbacks, and I often donate books. And some books I go ahead and give myself liberty to attack! I mean in a good way!
A more recent example: Doug Hill’s superb Not So Fast: Thinking Twice About Technology. When I ordered Not So Fast I guessed it would eventually become an important collector’s item, so I shelled out the clams for the University of Georgia Press first edition hardcover from bookdespository.com. Alas, when it arrived I found that the dust jacket had been badly treated (um, actually it looked like the forklift left greasy tire tracks on it). Translation: as a physical object my copy has little to zero value. Because I was so anxious to read it for my own work-in-progress however, rather than ask bookdepository.com for a replacement, I took this as a welcome opportunity to go ahead and mark it up with my notes. So: maltreated my copy may be, both in the warehouse and by my scribbles, it’s a book that is tremendously valuable to me as a working writer. (And I warmly recommend it to you, dear reader, by the way.)
I ordered the book from bookdepository.com and alas, the dust jacket arrived looking like this….
…so I gave myself permission to go ahead and mark it up. This one stays in my working library.
How do you treat your books? And why? These are questions I didn’t think to ask myself for many years. These may not be trick questions, but they are tricky questions, for they necessitate distinguishing the book as a thoughtform from the book as a physical object, and they also require self-awareness and clarity in one’s intentions, as both a reader and a writer.
WHITE DOG
The other day my copy of visual artist and writer Katherine Dunn’s latest book, White Dog, arrived. So obviously made with love and joy, White Dog is one of the most exquisite books that I have ever seen. Dear writerly readers, it is self-published. And I do not believe that any commercial publisher would have, nor could have, done justice to her vision.
UPDATE: See the Q & A with Katherine Dunn for this blog here.
MORE TO COME ON SELF-PUBLISHING
Those of you who have been following this blog well know that since early 2019 I’ve been migrating selected posts from the old Google platform. I have a batch of posts on self-publishing that I’ll be getting to in the coming weeks.
To be clear, I’m not a champion of self-publishing per se; I sincerely respect and value what a good publisher’s team (editor, copyeditor, book designer, sales reps, publicist, back office) can do. Most of my books have been published by traditional publishers or university presses, and indeed, I aim to place my recently completed collection of essays and my book in-progress with a publisher (wish me luck). But without making much effort to find a publisher (for good reason, which I go into in the relevant blog post) I self-published Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution. In addition I have self-published several Kindles, including this longform essay about the Mexican literary landscape. I remain open to the idea of self-publishing again in the future. In the post-covid economy, where we can expect smaller catalogs and fewer publishers, that may turn out to be the increasingly more realistic route. We shall see. More anon.
P.S. You can find the archive of workshop posts migrated-to-date here. Again, I offer a post for my workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing on the second Monday of every month.
I spent that terrible day and many of the days afterwards glued to the television– what a waste of time. Even still, if briefly, I worked on my query and submission letters, so determined was I, after having let my second agent go (long, boring story), to place my memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. That month, it seemed the publishing world, already in decline, had stopped dead. But later that very same month, an acceptance letter came from the University of Utah Press, and so Miraculous Air was published in the fall of 2002. All these years later, I am proud of that book, and I believe it is a healing book. I believe it will be read beyond my lifetime. Like other such books, it’s a gift, a gift to the artist, and by the alchemy of intention, persistence, work, skill, and time, a gift from the artist. This is what art is.
And books, by their nature, are time-travelers. Right now I’m reading (wild laugh) about the Thirty Years War. And Pierre Hadot on the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius.
So what do I have to say apropos of current events? If you’re interested, and you have a chunk of time and the attentional focus for something complex, this, which I wrote last fall, and this, which I delivered at a writer’s conference in 2016.
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Because I’m deep into doing some deep work, this Monday’s post is from the deepdom of the Madam Mayo archives: a note about Cal Newport’s Deep Work. (One of these days I’m going to make a kooky little desk-top altar to this guy, light a candle, and bring it flowers.)
Cal Newport’s “Deep Work,” Study Hacks Blog, and On Quitting Social Media
Originally posted on Madam Mayo Blog, September 26, 2016
Find out about a must-read book, a must-read blog, and a must-watch TED Talk by Georgetown University Associate Professor of Computer Science Cal Newport, all in one handy post at his Study Hacks Blog, “Quit Social Media.”
What Newport says in that post is provocative– undoubtedly just the title will rub many people’s fur the wrong way, and no surprise, it already has many commenters a-huffing & puffing.
Here is my comment on Cal Newport’s post:
Thank you for this blog, for your TED Talk, and for your books, especially Deep Work. I am a writer with 2 finance books published under another name, plus 4 literary books, plus an anthology– all of which is to say, I understand the nature and immense benefits of deep work.
But dealing with the Internet… that has been a challenge for me over the past several years, and especially when all these shiny new social media toys seemed to be so necessary and (apparently) effective for promoting one’s books. Every publicist, marketing staff, my fellow writers, all seem slaves now to social media. I can assure you, every writers conference has a panel on book PR and social media.
For a while, at the enthusiastic urging of one of my writer-friends, by the way, a best-selling and very fine historical novelist, I maintained a Facebook page, but when I realized what a time-suck it was, and how FB made it intentionally and so deviously addictive, I deactivated my account. I had also come to recognize that people addicted to FB, as seemed to be not all but most of my “FB friends,” often as they might “like” and comment on my posts there, are probably not my readers. (My books require sustained focus; I admit, they can be challenging.) I deactivated my FB more than a year ago, and I breathe a sigh of relief about it every blessed day.
As for your book, Deep Work, much of what you say was already familiar to me from my own experience as a writer, but I appreciated the reminders, especially in light of these contemporary challenges to sustaining focus. What was especially interesting and intriguing to me was the new cognitive research you mention. Next time I teach a writing workshop you can be sure that Deep Work will be on the syllabus.
Do I miss interacting with friends and family on FB? Yes, but now I have more time for higher quality interpersonal interactions, such as, say, emails, telephone conversations, and–Land o’ Goshen!!– actually getting together in person.
However, for the record, I’m not (yet) giving up the three social media tools I still use, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, because:
(1) With LinkedIn and Twitter I appreciate having a way to contact certain individuals when email is not a workable option (nieces and nephews, you know who you are!);
(2) I appreciate the broadcast opportunity, modest as it is. Check out my YouTube channel here. As for Linked In and Twitter, usually I just zip in to tweet a blog post or a podcast, then out, and not every day;
UPDATE: Twitter, meh. Now, with the rarest of exceptions, I tweet once a month, as a courtesy to the authors who do a Q & A for Madam Mayo blog.
(3) I turned off their notifications;
(4) I do not find these services addictive, as I did Facebook, hence, I am not tempted to constantly check them.
In sum, for me– and of course, this might be different for you– at this time– and no guarantees for the future– the benefits of maintaining my LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube accounts outweigh the costs.
SPEAKING OF COSTS
Speaking of costs, one of the vital arguments Cal Newport makes in Deep Work is that pointing out the benefits of utilizing any given social media tool is not enough; one must also take into full account its opportunity costs in your actual practice. Oftentimes these costs are devastating. But fear of “missing out,” fear of admitting that one could have done so much better than to have spent weeks, months, even years of precious hours agog at mindless trivia– in short, the fear and pride behind cognitive dissonance– make many otherwise highly intelligent people blind to this simplest of common-sense arguments.
One question that popped up in the comments there at Study Hacks blog was about the definition of “social media”: Does it include blogs? Ironically, since he publishes comments and on occasion responds to them, I consider Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks Blog” to be social media. I do not consider this blog, “Madam Mayo,” to be “social media,” however, because an eon ago I closed the comments section.
That said, dear thoughtful and courteous reader, your comments via email are always welcome. I invite you to write to me here.
P.S. My recommended reading lists for my writing workshops are here. You will find Cal Newport’s excellent Deep Work on my list of works on Creative Process. And you can read my review of Cal Newport’s earlier book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You,here.
One of the gnarliest challenges in writing nonfiction is that oftentimes, no matter how thoroughly we do our reading and research, we just do not have the factual information to make an important scene come alive on the page. On the other hand, by its attention to specific sensory detail, fiction has the power to incite a “vivid dream”in the reader’s mind. But, by definition, aren’t we supposed to avoid fiction when we write nonfiction?
I write what’s called “creative nonfiction” or “literary journalism” — and this does not give me license to mislead my reader. What the adjectives ” creative” or “literary” mean is that I make use of various lyrical techniques in writing nonfiction. One of these is conjecture.
My writing assistants demonstrate conjecture. ULI: What if we could jump through the glass? WASHI: Squirrelburger!!
Conjecture is a powerful way to upfront, above-board, nada de funny-business, blend the magic of fiction into your nonfiction and so limber it up, stretch it out, let it breathe… and thus help your readers more clearly see a situation, a personality, animal, thing, a feeling, an interaction, or whatever else it might be that needs more depth, a star-gleam of vividness.
Foolishly, certain historians, la de da, just make things up, or, to say the same thing, without a shred of credible evidence, assert as fact what they would like to believe and/or what makes for the best story. And when these historians are found out, so much the worse for their reputations. And I say “foolishly” because those so-called “historians” could have honestly achieved the same effect for the reader, should that have been called for (sometimes it’s not), by instead offering their conjecture.
Academic historians tend to steer wide-clear of conjecture. That said, one of my favorite history podcasters, Liz Covart, host of Ben Franklin’s World, always ends an interview with an invitation to conjecture. And I am sure that you, dear writerly reader, can also offer some fine examples of exceptions.
On the other hand, many writers of creative nonfiction / literary journalism / popular history frequently make use of conjecture.
Think of it this way: We generally do not pick up an academic journal unless we are obliged to, while creative nonfiction is oftentimes the just the thing for the beach bag– and not necessarily because it is less intellectually nutritious.
Yeah, I go for intellectually nutritious beach reading.
In the following brief examples taken from works of creative nonfiction / literary journalism note how the author clearly signals to the reader that he or she is not asserting a fact, but offering conjecture.
Then Jesup got lucky. Abraham agreed to meet with him. He arrived at Jesup’s Fort Dade headquarters on January 31. The two men probably sat down in a rude, whitewashed office. An oil lamp would have provided flickering light. Jesup would have had on his dress uniform–lots of braid, and maybe some dangling medals. Abraham, in contrast, would undoubtedly have worn ragged deerskin, the sartorial legacy of fighting and hiding in the swamps. ––Jeff Guinn, Our Land Before We Die: The Proud Story of the Seminole Negro
Guinn’s clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture: “probably” “would have” “maybe” “would”
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This had been a Columbian mammoth, the tracks circular, decayed, and toeless. There would be no scientific report on the find. We’d never be able to find these again or explain where they were, compass bearings too vague on this expanse, no GPS to drop a way-point. I walked alongside the tracks, and the mammoth rose up from the ground, its body filled in by my mind’s eye. It didn’t seem to notice me, it was focused ahead, tusks swaying back and forth as it traveled. It had hair, with rough brownish or gray skin visible underneath, but it was not woolly like its northern cousins… ––Craig Childs, Atlas of a Lost World: Travels in Ice Age America
Childs’ clear signal to the reader that this is conjecture: “filled in by my mind’s eye”
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In my dream I was walking a rural road in Aquitaine, high above a river, when my attention was drawn to something in the roadside woods–mound, barrow, some small heap of disturbed earth. On investigating this I found a partly distinterred Neanderthal skeleton, one humerus and a femur faintly daubed with red. Quite improbable, my waking mind told me… — Frederick Turner, In the Land of the Temple Caves
Turner’s clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture / fiction: “In my dream” “Quite improbable, my waking mind told me”
Still, the old beauty sat on before her glass of wine, nursing it as she may have been nursing her memories. She was old enough, I judged, to have seen it all, as we say: the Great Depression when ordinary Parisians slept out on the portico of the Bourse; the fall of France and the Occupation; Algeria and de Gaulle’s triumphant return to power; the vandalizing of the city by Pompidou; the new age of the terrorist… She didn’t seem to be at all captive to some senescent trance but instead attuned to something not evident, listening maybe like the Venus figure of Laussel. — Frederick Turner, In the Land of the Temple Caves
Clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture: “as she may have been” “I judged” “maybe” #
And at some immeasurably remote time beyond human caring the whole uneasy region might sink again beneath the sea and begin the cycle all over again by the slow deposition of new marls, shales, limestones, sandstones, deltaic conglomerates, perhaps with a fossil poet pressed and silicified between the leaves of a rock —Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundreth Meridian (p.169)
Clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture: “might” “perhaps”
He might see, as many conservationists believe they see, a considerable empire-building tendency within the Bureau of Reclamation, an engineer’s vision of the West instead of a humanitarians, a will to build dams without die regard to all the conflicting interests involved. He might fear any bureau that showed less concern with the usefulness of a project than with its effect on the political strength of the bureau. He might join the Sierra Club and other conservation groups in deploring some proposed and “feasible” dams such as that in Echo Park blow the mouth of the Yampa, and he might agree that considerations such as recreation, wildlife protection, preservation for the future of untouched wilderness, might sometimes outweigh possible irrigation and power benefits. He would probably be with those who are already beginning to plead for conservation of reservoir sites themselves, for reservoirs silt up and do not last forever, and men had better look a long way ahead when they begin tampering with natural forces. –Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian (p. 361)
Clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture: “as I imagine” “could have” “perhaps” “He might” “He would probably”
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Alas, I do not have my copy on hand to pluck out some choice quotes, but Nancy Marie Brown’s The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman is the most masterful example I have yet found of an historian using conjecture, and to brilliant effect. In this page-turner of a book Brown spins out the thousand-year old story of Gudrid the Viking who sailed from Iceland to Greenland, and to North America and, in her old age, made a pilgrimage to Rome. There is so much of value in The Far Traveler, both for learning about its subject (Icelanders; medieval life at the pioneer-edge of European settlement) and about the craft of writing itself. I would suggest that you buy a paperback copy, and read The Far Traveler with your writer’s eye, scribbling in your notes. (If you can get a fine first edition hardcover with the dustcover, keep it fine–out of the sun– and hang onto it!)
Here, I supposed now, Maximilian must have imagined that he would return to his glittering dinner parties, and simpler, bachelors’ evenings of billiards, smoking, cards. He would write his memoirs of Mexico. Travel: why not an expedition to the Congo? Or Rajastan? And I had read somewhere that Maximilian had told someone (was it Blasio?) that one day he should like to fly balloons. This parterre would be the perfect place for a launch:
Late August 1867. A summer’s day, sparkling, sun-kissed sea. He is well again, he has put on weight. His entourage in tow, he strides across the gravel and steps into the basket of a billowing, parrot-green montgolfier emblazoned, of course, with “MIM.” And it lifts, up and yonder over the shining white tower of Miramar. From the basket sandbags splash to the sea — and it rises ever higher, ropes trailing.
A picnic in the clouds: chilled champagne, tiny toasts spread with foie gras.
“What’s so funny?” A. said.
I sighed, and put down my coffee cup. “It ended a little differently.”
My clear signals to the reader that this is conjecture: I supposed now, Maximilian must have imagined I sighed…. “It ended a little differently.” [as explained previously, Maximilian was executed by firing squad]
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So, where in your nonfiction manuscript does it make sense to use conjecture? You’re the artist! But I would whisper my little suggestion to you that it might be a place where, though you have little or nothing to go on, you would underscore the importance of a person (or some aspect of his personality or manner), animal, object, incident, or scene, and so invite the reader to slow down and pay special attention.
It can be, after all, a delightful thing to offer your conjecture.
“Future Neighborhood” Describe your neighborhood as you would expect it to appear 10 years from now.
“Take the Day Off” If you were to take today off, what would you do? What would your brother or sister do? Your boss? Your neighbor? Smokey the Bear?
“Who Went to McDonald’s?” This exercise is courtesy of novelist Leslie Pietrzyk. Who is the most unlikely person— living or dead, famous or non— you can think of to be in a fast food restaurant? Okay— that person just walked into McDonald’s (or choose your own fave). Why are they there and what happens?
