Category: writing

Inspiration

Hi Kelley

I discovered Solitaire to be a fascinating story and a memorable reading experience. What inspired you to write the book? Good success with your future writings and endeavors. Have a marvelous week.

Best,
Mary

I’ve talked some about this recently, although ideas and inspiration are not always the same thing. Ideas are easy, and inspiration is unreliable. Art and craft are hard. I suppose for me it comes down to sheer stubbornness. There are feelings or dynamics or states of being that I want to explore, and so I bash my head against the word wall until I find the story (the people, the situations, the choices and consequences) that seems the best vehicle. That’s such a long and iterative process that I can’t really pinpoint when it gelled for Solitaire.

Sadly, I’m not going to have a much better answer to this question for the next book (current shorthand for which is the Kansas book). It’s been mulching in my head for over a year now, and is the same in essence, and different in detail, than what I began with. Where did it come from? Nicola says it comes from my fascination with notions of rebirth (and you thought it was just about Kansas, grin).

Now the book after the Kansas book (the mountain book), well, hah! I know exactly where that one came from. Nicola and I took a short but lovely trip here last fall, and several different moments rubbed up against each other in my brain and conspired to give me the whole package at once, character and story and feelings, like a present in a pretty blue bow. This has never happened to me before, and strikes me as a rare and precious thing.

I hope you have a good week too.

Bold cows

Within your response to Sirene you said:

I started writing poetry when I was about eight. A few years later I was fortunate to have teacher who was passionate about classic poetry forms, and taught me the structure, rhythms and rhymes of sonnets, haiku, cinquain, sijo, ballad… there may have even been villanelle in there, I don’t remember. She was the first person besides my parents who actively encouraged me.

Before anything else I loved Solitaire! This in more in the nature of a comment than a question. Sirene has hit on many of the things I loved about Solitaire and I would only add that the setting/s were interesting and real. I especially liked the uniqueness of the idea of the virtual prison and the twist on reentering the world.

I was surprised to learn that you have written a lot of poetry, especially using the different forms. I suppose real writers are the people who are able to follow the rules.

Being in a poetry workshop, we tried a villanelle at some point and I loved the experience. Unfortunately that poem got lost and of course I can’t recreate it. It was about the record industry and the progression of ways that music was recorded and sold. I chose this subject to go along with the rhythm of the form and it was quite fine and I’m sorry that I can’t find it.

I haven’t had as good results in other forms, must be my general resistance to rules. I am hoping to do better this year when we start up the poetry workshop again. The one member who was really into forms won’t be able to join us as she is a teacher and most of her time is devoted to all that that takes. I’ve truly missed her input for the last couple of years in the workshop since she got a steady gig at West High. Each person gives something different to the process and now I feel like a big piece is missing to bringing valuable critique of my writing.

I was heartened to learn how much work you put into your writing. I’ve heard from other writers that they have to work hard too with only the occasional person saying that it flowed out of them like honey. 😉 I was also a bit surprised at your comment about inspiration but thinking about it I have to agree. I have been inspired by many things and not able to create the very thing I have in mind. This was weighing heavily on me, making me think that I was some bold cow thinking I could write at all. So I guess this is also a long winded thanks for the kick in the butt. I guess I won’t give up just yet.

Sly in Anchorage

I’ve written my share of poetry, but I only worked with the forms when I was in school. The poetry I wrote as an adult was all free verse. I actually don’t enjoy working with the forms that much. I find them restricting, probably because I’m not a good enough poet to create at the level of people like Robert Frost or Shakespeare or Coleridge. But reading those folks, and experience the stricture of form, taught me a great deal about the power of rhythm and density. One of the best ways I know to test whether a sentence I write is “good” is to read it out loud: does it flow? Does the rhythm or word choice (the alliteration, the repetition of syllable or sound, the natural breaks for breath or emphasis) support the meaning? If it does, the prose becomes more rich even when read in silence.

Dialogue is different –” people don’t deliberately speak beautifully, as a rule, they speak with intent –” but it still has rhythm, and readers can tell when it’s not right. That’s the real benchmark for me. All the good form in the world is meaningless if it doesn’t work for the reader. I suspect most good writers are capable of following the rules, but I think the trick is knowing that rules are not the point. People don’t carry structure in their hearts, they carry story.

My poetry wasn’t particularly good, but it does ripple back into my work in interesting ways sometimes. A poem I wrote in the mid-80’s gave me the beginnings of Estar Borja’s character in Solitaire. It was a long poem, but this is the salient part:

     in an elongated moment
     the Lady Butcher passes by,
     nods reservedly, and leaves us
     with a quick assessing look
     and a corner smile;
     weighing our tendons’ strength
     against her good left arm.

The poem was about a couple confronting the end of their marriage through death, but of course became something quite different in Solitaire (grin).

It seems to me that there are only a few good reasons to give something up: if you think it’s bad for you, if you don’t enjoy it, if it’s hurting someone, if it’s keeping you from something more important to you. And we’re all bold cows, Sly: how else would any of us have the guts to stand up in public and say, I made this.

Stereotyping and writing questions

Honestly, I’ve wanted to write to you since I finished Solitaire several months ago, back in August of 2003. My only excuses for not sending in a Virtual Pint comment immediately upon finishing your novel are procrastination…and a lack of anything worthwhile and meaningful to say.

Solitaire is definitely one of my top ten favorite books of all time. You created a believable world that seemed beautiful and peaceful, despite all of Jackal’s unfortunate circumstances.

I especially liked how you didn’t revert to stereotypes when describing and introducing your characters. As a female, and a racial minority, I admire writers that can look beyond differences in race, language, and sexuality to create characters that are actually realistic. Although the protagonist was a woman, she wasn’t a pushover and she wasn’t “masculine,” as some media characterizes women that have relationships with other women. Frankly, I’m quite sick of popular media that exoticizes people who aren’t straight, white, American, and Catholic. Even Snow, who seemed to be a very sweet, reticent young woman at first, didn’t turn out to be a typical female ditz. I admit that I was surprised when I realized that Jackal and Snow were actually lovers. I thought it provided an interesting twist to the book, because the two women were very different and yet compatible.

The male characters in the book showed how large the spectrum of human personality is –” Carlos was the comforting father, Neill was the businessman with a soft side, and Scully was immediately likable…like an older brother. And I can’t forget Tiger, who was, surprisingly, my favorite character in the book. You were able to build his character in a very short amount of time, which I thought was amazing. I mean, when I started reading the book, I could tell that he actually cared about Jackal and was a nice guy with a lot of weaknesses underneath all of the smirks and perversion. But I didn’t mind that you killed him off early –” because, in many books I enjoy, my favorite character dies.

Overall, I loved Solitaire and will be looking for your next book. I’m glad you aren’t doing a sequel, though, because you provided a good closure to the story. I’m also glad that I bought the hardcover edition, because I find its cover much more appealing than the paperback edition’s. The new cover is edgy, and certainly interesting, but I prefer the abstract beauty of the first.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that a lot of writers with websites don’t like to communicate with their readers (sadly). That’s why I was pleased when I discovered the Virtual Pint Index. There are a number of questions I’ve always wanted to ask a successful, published writer…so please, forgive me for the numerous questions that follow. I am quite young and naive, though I rarely admit it.

* When did you start writing, and when did you decide it would be your career (that is, if you even did ‘decide’ to become a professional writer)?

* How does it feel being a published writer, with a book that has sold well and received outstanding reviews?

* Do you have any advice for aspiring writers (such as myself) on finding a decent literary agent and publisher…or just writing in general?

* How long did it take you to finish Solitaire, and when and how did you get the idea for it?

* Do you write daily?

Well, thanks for reading this. It means a lot to me…and I wish you luck on everything you’re working on right now.

Sirene

Fasten your seat belt, because I’m going to answer all these questions….

But first, thanks for sharing your observations about the book. I particularly appreciate that you found the male characters varied and human. I’ve had some criticism that they’re weak, which perplexes me and makes me wonder if I’m revealing some wacky unconscious prejudice. That’s disturbing –” I prefer to be aware of my biases and express them with intention. But I didn’t think they were weak when I wrote them, and I still don’t. They’re just doing their best, like the rest of us. I wonder sometimes if what bothers some people is that, with the exception of Tiger, none of the men are overtly sexual, and with the exception of Neill, none of them are overtly powerful.

I’m also glad that you didn’t find the characters stereotypical or exoticized. I put conscious work into that; it’s way too easy for writers who are (even partial) members of a majority culture to forget that our assumptions about skin color, sexuality, etc. aren’t the default setting of humanity. I’ve seen so many books and stories by white writers in which all the white characters are just “people with blue eyes” while characters of color are “coffee-colored, slender African-American women” or “graceful Latino men with bedroom eyes.” Really, ick. I’ve done it myself (big ick). I’m working on improving. As a sociological aside, you know what’s really interesting? Being a white person in a group of white people and describing someone across the room by saying, “That white woman in the green dress.” People raise their eyebrows or look puzzled, and some become downright uncomfortable.

I began to learn this lesson as a human from my parents and their friends, but I didn’t begin to learn it as a writer until Samuel R. Delany taught me at Clarion. I disliked the experience, but it was worth it. Nicola also helps me pay attention to this aspect of my work, along with so many others (she’s expressed her thoughts on stereotyping in this essay).

There is nothing wrong with being naïve. It’s my experience that I learn a lot more when I cop to not knowing. I don’t understand why our culture values “knowing” over learning and teaching, but there you go, just one more thing that I don’t know (smile). Besides, knowing is the easy part: doing, now, that’s where the game gets interesting.

When did you start writing, and when did you decide it would be your career (that is, if you even did ‘decide’ to become a professional writer)?

I started writing poetry when I was about eight. A few years later I was fortunate to have teacher who was passionate about classic poetry forms, and taught me the structure, rhythms and rhymes of sonnets, haiku, cinquain, sijo, ballad… there may have even been villanelle in there, I don’t remember. She was the first person besides my parents who actively encouraged me.

And I read everything. My parents did without to buy me all the books I wanted, even trashy comic books, and I read them until they fell apart. The only book they ever withheld from me was a thriller about an incestuous, sadistic, psychotic, serial-killing family with torture and/or sex on just about every page. (I know this because I climbed a nine-foot bookshelf to pull it from its hiding place one afternoon, and was thoroughly grossed out for days afterward).

I wrote a couple of stories as a child, mostly imitations of whatever I was reading at the time. But I didn’t write prose with any serious commitment until I was in my mid-twenties. I went to Clarion at age 28, and published professionally for the first time at age 30.

I think it’s possible to be a professional writer without having, or even wanting, a writing career. To me, “professional” means a) being capable of work that professional markets will publish, and b) producing regularly, even if slowly. To me, “career” means not just that writing is my primary job, but also, and just as importantly, that I have a vision for my work, long-term goals, a definition of success that extends beyond “please god, let someone buy this story.” I was a professional when I wrote Solitaire, but writing wasn’t my career. It took me longer than I expected to decide that it should be, and to make that commitment.

How does it feel being a published writer, with a book that has sold well and received outstanding reviews?

I’m proud of all my short fiction, and of Solitaire. After more than 15 years of writing seriously, I see myself as an expert short story writer, and believe that I can become an expert novelist if I choose to do the work. Expert doesn’t mean the product is perfect, only that the results are conscious and shaped, rather than a splatter of hope, energy, desire held together by fledgling skills and a prayer, which is how I used to approach my work (and is to some extent how I approached Solitaire, at least the first few years that I worked on it). The hope, energy, desire are still there, but now the skills are driving the train. I like this way better. It’s exhilarating to sit down and know how to work. Some days are not so much fun, but I no longer have that creeping, acid fear at the back of my heart that I will never really be a writer. Working on the new novel is a little more fraught than writing stories, because I have so much more to learn about the structure and rhythms of novels; but I’m confident of my ability to learn these things consciously, to develop skill and craft so that I don’t just have to rely on talent. Talent’s not enough, nor is its baby sister, inspiration. In fact, part of the “career” choice I made is to stop caring about inspiration.

There are ways of being published that wouldn’t feel good to me at all. I won’t be specific, because some writers choose to take those paths and that’s fine –” it’s their choice, and I don’t see it as my place to be critical. I don’t think there’s “one true way” to be a published writer, but there are ways that are right for me. I think that developing one’s own definition of “career” includes making some of these decisions. I’m feeling good about my choices right now.

I’m delighted with the good reviews of Solitaire, and not nearly as gutted by the bad ones as I’d expected to be. The good review in the New York Times and the New York Times Notable Book nod are very good for the new edition and for the next phase of my career, as is the Borders Original Voices designation. The negative Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews probably hurt my sales, and certainly didn’t give my reputation as a novelist the glowing start I’d hoped for with booksellers and reviewers. Hardcover sales aren’t as good as I had hoped, and that could also be an obstacle for my next book if the major chains perceive that I don’t sell well. We’ll have to see how the trade paperback does.

Maybe you were just expecting me to say, “It feels great” (grin). And it does. But the reality of Solitaire is a mixed bag. That’s okay. It still feels great. There’s a big piece of my heart in the book, and all the skill I had at the time, and a huge amount of hope. Seeing it out in the world, knowing that it’s connecting with people, makes me feel like someone just plucked a cello string in my stomach, a deep, happy hum.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers (such as myself) on finding a decent literary agent and publisher…or just writing in general?

If you’ve read this far, then you know I probably do (laughing). One of the things I enjoy about the virtual pub is getting to be expansive in the way of that second or third round, when the day’s rough edges are smoothing and it’s fine to settle back in my chair and say Well, I might have a couple of ideas.

I’ve answered this question enough in other circumstances that I actually have something already written about it. I don’t know if it’s the kind of information you’re looking for, but start here. If this doesn’t do it, write me again with more specific questions and I will do my best to give you my opinion.

Please bear in mind that my opinions on writing and publishing work really well for me, but your mileage may vary.

How long did it take you to finish Solitaire, and when and how did you get the idea for it?

It took eight years, in fits and starts. Ideas came from all over the place. It was influenced by two stories I wrote at Clarion, Somewhere Down the Diamondback Road and an unpublished novella called Distance about a mother and daughter in a post-apocalyptic beach town. It was also influenced by my corporate jobs in Atlanta and Seattle, by music and television and other people’s books, by the things I liked and didn’t like about my life. I once had to throw out an entire year’s writing, somewhere around 15,000 words (if I remember correctly) because I had taken a wrong turn. That wouldn’t happen now; I have more skill. I despaired of ever finishing it, and sometimes I felt small and lazy because I wasn’t working faster, or working at all. But it’s a better book for having taken that time, and maybe if I’d rushed it I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you about all those lovely reviews. Who knows? I hope that for the new book I have enough experience to shorten the curve, that awareness and skill can substitute for just pounding away long enough to get somewhere…..

Do you write daily?

Yes, at the moment. I haven’t always, and I may not always. Some of the work is thinking, and that doesn’t always happen best in front of the computer. But I’m in a phase right now of showing up every day, putting my butt in the chair, and writing. Some days it’s just a job, and some days it’s a very great joy indeed.

Seeing differently

Kelley,

I suppose everyone starts with “I just finished your book.” Naturally, I want to be, if not unique, at least myself. However, with life’s distractions pulling at all corners, the only time to share the ‘virtual pint’ is in the heat of the moment after just finishing your book.

Delightfully, it is one of those rare volumes I could not bear to sit down once I started. You have created a world at once easy to enter, yet rich enough to keep my attention and with characters I wanted to know.

Does this story seem particularly strong to those of us who have experienced being alone and loneliness? Or is this just me? I suppose all “feeling” people have experienced this state at one time or another.

It was quite depressing for a while when Ko turned against Jackal and she ended up in VC. But I had faith that you would not leave her to waste her brilliant mind and personal drive. Thanks for rewarding my faith :o)

You captured enough of the essence of solitary confinement and her mental progression to make it real without making it so painful the reader would either quit reading or skip over it (I only scanned a few paragraphs, before she kicked through the wall.) I bet there was lots of head scratching over what to put in and take out of that section of the book!

It was such a relief to finally find “ourselves” in Solitaire. Hooray for fiction! Too bad we can’t just wander down a cul-de-sac in our town and find such an appropriate place for ourselves.

I suppose some might have criticized that things work out so neatly at the end –” if not happily ever after, at least happily working toward such. Personally, life is harsh enough and fiction should give us the chance to escape to a world where things do work out –” where Good at least wins a victory.

I didn’t read too many of the other posts on your site, but I was glad to see that you are not planning a sequel to Solitaire. Oh, sure, I wasn’t ready to leave the world you created; yes, I want to share more of Jackal, Snow and Scully’s adventures. Rarely though can an author pick-up where she left off (years later, I suppose, when the pressures to do so begin) and continue the story to the satisfaction of those wanting a sequel. I’d rather imagine what happens next, than be disappointed in a following book that does not have the same impact as the original.

***

I don’t want to promulgate stereotypes, but I’ll plead guilty to generalizations. Nonetheless, I’ve found great reading satisfaction in the works of women writers in science fiction. This has been true for the last 15 or 20 years, I’d guess, but seems especially the case in the last 5 or 10. This “new generation” has embraced the “science” without resorting to the “fantasy” that was the popular realm of women writers in earlier days. The genre, admittedly, lends itself to the male gadget mentality (as long as I am stereotyping), but what a delight to experience the rich tapestry of characterization that seems so much more vital and interesting when painted from a woman’s pen.

As I wrote the above and thought back over some of the great contributions of female authors, I remembered with a laugh that the first book I remember having read that was classified as “science fiction” was Andre Norton. I don’t remember the title, but there were smart cats in it! I suspect if I found the book again, there would be plenty of fantasy in it, judging by many of her later works. Not that there is anything wrong with fantasy, just not my taste.

***

Well, enough of this drivel. Guess I just wanted to say thanks for such a fine novel, for giving us a view of the corporate future that is not too grim, and for the chance to imagine a happy ending.

Bill Groll

It’s a compliment that finishing the book would fire you up enough to write me, and I appreciate it. And all my readers are unique people of exceptional character and taste (grin).

I, too, assume that we all share some experience of being alone, as well as lonely. It seems to me to be an adult skill to understand that they aren’t the same and don’t necessarily have to pal around, and to learn to navigate them separately or together. This is important to me, and one of the building blocks of Solitaire. I empathize with people who are just setting off into these territories, as well as with those who find it too frightening to go there; but I connect with people who have mapped some of the landscape, who have found some ease with the ambivalent spaces.

I often resist notions of gender, but I’ve come to believe that many women do write differently in some essential way from men. I don’t think it has as much to do with chromosomes as it does with cultural perspective. My American Sign Language curriculum requires students to examine the dynamics of dominant and non-dominant cultures, and our assumptions about our own culture. This isn’t entirely new for me, given my parents’ involvement in civil rights in the 60’s, and my mother’s participation in the women’s movement in the 70’s (my first protest experience was standing on a median strip on a weltering day in Tampa, Florida, holding up signs supporting the Equal Rights Amendment).

One of the lessons I learned from those times is that members of the non-dominant culture know a lot more about the dominant folks than the other way around. This is true everywhere –” in the particular domains of home or business, and in general society. It’s partly because the dominant culture assumes its worldview is some kind of absolute truth, and that everyone would share it if they had the intelligence, desire, or opportunity: so the dominant culture may practice cultural appropriation when something looks interesting, but there’s not necessarily a lot of understanding going on.

But for the folks on the downside of the equation, knowing everything possible about the dominant culture is often a matter of survival (mental, emotional, social, literal). People of color have to pay close attention to white people. Women have to watch men very carefully. Queer people understand a lot about heterosexual dynamics and often participate in them, for a variety of reasons that mostly come back to wanting to be safe. Et cetera. So it seems to me, although I hope I’m not over-intellectualizing, that sometimes the perspectives and characterizations of these writers are interesting or perceptive because in fact they’ve been spending a lot of energy noticing how things and people work.

Fantasy has been a safe place for women to present their understanding of the world, because it’s seen as a “women’s” genre. But some of it’s been very interesting and subversive. Some science fiction, as well. And I’m not suggesting that women are intrinsically Deep Character Writers and men aren’t. Not at all. However, I think that men who write with emphasis on character are more likely to have some experience of being the Other in their own lives.

To be clear, I don’t think you’re promulgating stereotypes, Bill. I think you are noticing that women writers sometimes notice different things.

There’s a book you might enjoy if you are at all interested in the intersection of gender and writing. It’s How To Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ. It’s short and to the point, and is applicable to any dominant/oppressed cultural dynamic, and it’s no chore to read.

I’m glad you found Solitaire and its people accessible; it’s certainly one of the things I look for in a book. It seems right now that almost anything leads me back to the consideration of what makes a work of fiction ‘literary.’ So many people seem to think that quality prose must be difficult, and difficult prose must be quality. Another notion I resist. There’s an essay I adore, called A Reader’s Manifesto by B.R. Myers, first published here in The Atlantic. Not everyone is as taken with Myers as I am (oh, the howls from the literary establishment!), but he makes a passionate case that words have specific meaning which must not be sacrificed to style, and that reading shouldn’t be a hardship. I went to look at the essay again because I remembered this bit:

At the 1999 National Book Awards ceremony Oprah Winfrey told of calling Toni Morrison to say that she had had to puzzle over many of the latter’s sentences. According to Oprah, Morrison’s reply was “That, my dear, is called reading.” Sorry, my dear Toni, but it’s actually called bad writing. Great prose isn’t always easy, but it’s always lucid; no one of Oprah’s intelligence ever had to wonder what Joseph Conrad was trying to say in a particular sentence.
 
— from A Reader’s Manifesto by B.R. Myers

Amen, brothers and sisters, amen. If you found Solitaire accessible, lucid, and true in some ways, and are willing to forgive its awkwardness in others, then I’ve done my job and can go have a beer.

That individual thing

Kelley,

First of all, yes, you correctly interpreted my last point about literature being about emotional truth. I agree that it’s difficult to “express precise emotional truth in bad prose” –” it’s like watching a terrible movie in which the actors are very good. What’s the point, I ask myself? I also completely agree that great prose doesn’t necessarily hit the mark, although it also depends upon the reader. It used to bother me when I read a book that someone I respect recommended highly and it didn’t work for me at all. I used to think there was something wrong with me, that I just wasn’t getting it. I know now that it probably just didn’t read for me.

You’re also right on the money about “genre” fiction. I read a ton, all the time, and I would say a majority of my favorite reading material would be classified as genre fiction. And it’s not all great stuff –” sometimes I just wanna watch stuff blow up, to use another movie metaphor. But the best of those books transcend whatever genre they’ve been shoved into.

I think “genre” is really a marketing term. A publisher has to try to sell the books they are publishing, and my experience as a consumer has convinced me that the standard advertising strategy for any product is to simplify and summarize –” come up with a brief, catchy way to let the consumer know what it is. Often it seems that advertisers and their clients make an early decision on a specific section of the public (a demographic) to which to make their pitch. Then the summary can be canted toward that audience. Books cause problems when they cannot be easily summarized or fit into a standard category. I imagine it gives advertising companies seizures. So they do the best they can, pick a category reasonably close to the book’s content (or possibly just arbitrarily assign one based on the author’s past work) and put out a marketing campaign accordingly, which may or may not work.

What do you think, as both a reader and a published and therefore marketed writer?

Another unrelated question: I love reading Ask Nicola and have written a few questions myself (just sent one in a little bit ago). The two of you have distinctive, individual voices. I wouldn’t write a post here in quite the same way as I would a post over there. My question is, do the two of you ever discuss the sorts of posts you each get at your respective Web sites? Or do you make a point of maintaining your own separate spaces on the Web? Just curious.

Keep passing the open windows,

Adam Diamond

The comment about disliking books recommended by people you respect makes me think about growing up Southern, and learning early that contradicting others’ taste wasn’t Nice (there are certain qualities of Southern culture that cry out for capitalization). I’ve unlearned this fairly well, thanks in great part to living with Nicola (smile).

But it’s not fair to blame the South. Let’s blame the whole US. I think it’s possible to talk about US culture in a few fundamental ways, even though race and region and class and gender and physical ability particularize our socialization to such a great extent (not to mention whatever individual family wackiness we grow up with). Why do you suppose so many people in this culture equate disagreement with personal disrespect? Partly, I suppose, it’s a communication-style issue. Some folks don’t know any other way to express an opinion except as a die-to-defend-it expression of self (even Nice Southern Folks, and those of you who live there know what an experience it is to cross teaspoons with a bona fide steel magnolia who believes her taste has just been dissed….). It’s hard to have a conversation about perception with someone who wants to talk about it in terms of core identity.

But there you go: individualism and customized personal identity are fundamentals of US culture. And I like the premise even if I don’t always like the way it plays out. I wish I had grown up with more sense of interdependent community, but I also know that being raised in a culture of individualism made it possible for me to escape my class and much of my negative socialization. (Shakes head). These are the tools we’re given.

Part of the reason I’m riffing on this is that I think it’s related to marketing and the concept of ‘genre.’ Because even individuals need connection, but we sure have to work hard to find it sometimes. Most of us are more comfortable with similarity than difference, and we use affiliation groups, categories, whatever, to help us find our connections. Amazon.com knows this –” I think the “people who bought this book also bought…” is a stroke of marketing genius. Because that’s what marketing is all about–”that balance between individuality and groupmind. That’s why there is nothing so precious or effective as word of mouth to sell a book. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold didn’t end up selling north of a million copies because it got reviewed in the New York Times –” it was all those book clubs, and people telling their friends. Viral marketing.

In my experience, your perception of book marketing is accurate, although I think it’s often a less active process than the one you’ve described. It seems to me that most books go out into the world with “default marketing” –” someone writes a press release and sends it with copies of the book to a pre-established list of reviewers and booksellers, and then goes out for lunch. I don’t much like this system, but I understand why it exists. In 2002, an estimated 115,000 books (including Solitaire and Stay) were published in America. An Everest of books. As a reader, I rely on reviews and word of mouth to find my way through the forest, and when I’m browsing in a bookstore I rely on cover art and the “signals” of genre (categorization, blurbs, cover copy, etc.) to help me navigate. Newspapers and magazines often assign reviewers to certain categories of books so that readers can get a certain consistency of reviews over time. And booksellers need to know where to shelve a book so that all us readers will find it. It’s a vicious spiral of categorization. I don’t think it’s a question of least common denominator as much as the path of least resistance taken by the people who have those 115,000 books to market.

I was fortunate that Solitaire was treated, well, more individually (grin). Anyone interested in more detail about this can read this interview with Broad Universe.

And now to the difference between VP and Ask Nicola. I showed your question to Nicola and said, “What do you think he means by that?” She said, “I guess he means we’re different.” Hah. She is so great.

She certainly answers questions more quickly (and thanks for your patience, Adam). She gets many more than I do, so she has a certain pipeline pressure. Yes, we do talk about them. We talk about everything. It’s one of the fundamentals of our relationship.

And we are also interested in maintaining our separate space (that ‘individual’ thing….) I think this is a more conscious concern for me, because Nicola doesn’t generally have to contend with the “oh, you’re a writer too” attitude. This all goes back to those notions of individualism. There’s a set of largely unarticulated but profound assumptions in this culture about partners in the same line of work: that their relationship suffers from competition (or the rigorous defense against it), that the person who “goes first” has a certain right of assertion to being the “real one” while the person who “goes second” is probably riding on their partner’s coattails. The “follower” is more influenced by the “leader” than vice versa. Way more people describe me as a writer in terms of Nicola’s work than have ever described Nicola in terms of mine, as if the influence only went one way. This is particularly troublesome to me, since it implies that I’m not as independently creative.

That’s not why our website voices are different: they’re different because we’re different. But it is partly why I have a website (although I think every writer ought to have one). It’s a way of particularizing me to people. I work hard to make my web voice reflect my private voice. Okay, I swear a lot more in private conversation –” but in person I like to riff, to ask and answer, and meander to and from a central point as much as I do here in the virtual pub. Straight-line conversations don’t interest me as much. I wonder what it’s like to view life as a linear process? I never have. To me, it’s a set of fractals, or an ecosystem, or maybe a perpetual set of chemical reactions…. any metaphor that involves change and reaction, choice and adaptation.

And I like to watch stuff blow up too. Multifaceted, me. Cheers.

No sequel

Kelley,

I just finished reading your book the other day, and I thought it was great. It delved into the recess of the human mind that many authors do not write on. Very rarely have I ever seen a book written such as this. The internal perspective of the protagonist was so vividly described that it almost made you feel as if you were her.

As I read the last line of the book it left me with one burning question: Will there be a sequel?

As I said before, I thought the book was great. I can’t wait to see what you write next.

Anonymous

I’m glad you liked the book, and sorry to disappoint you about a sequel. I don’t expect there will be one. The stories that are jostling for my attention now are about other people. I think I’d like to write a short series someday, something with a specific, planned arc (as Nicola is doing with her series about Aud Torvingen), but I’d be surprised right now if it turned out to be about Jackal or any of the other characters in Solitaire.

I’m glad you cared enough about Jackal and Snow and the others to want to know more about what happens to them. That’s such a compliment to a writer, and it seems churlish to say nope, no sequel. But I told the part of their story that I wanted to tell. It’s like driving at night past the lighted windows of houses or apartments, getting a peek at the life inside. It’s an intersection of sorts.

Tribal

I found a link to this by chance, and it reminded me of Solitaire.

The article doesn’t cover all that much ground, but the description of “urban tribes” as “loose networks of close friends, or tribes, [that] sustain each other emotionally and professionally for the years in between college and marriage” resonates with the connections Jackal has on Ko.

Although the people to whom the label is attributed tend to respond with “Fuck you, I’m not in a tribe.”

“Web” sounds so much better.

Ide Cyan

I’ve read elsewhere about this book, and find the notion interesting and familiar. When I was in high school and college, and imagined an adult life in the wider world, I saw myself in what might now be called an urban tribe. I thought of them as “my people” –” friends, lovers, older or younger, people who would help me move a hundred boxes on a Sunday, watch bad movies, make interesting food, understand how plumbing worked. People who would find me equally valuable. In some ways, Jackal’s web does this, but it’s heavily influenced by the corporate culture of Ko, where the emphasis is on the “greater goal” of business. The web is a community, but it’s an artificial construct based on age, and it’s in service to the good of Ko. There are people in America who think this latter quality is a good idea for us, too, so maybe it isn’t science fiction after all.

If you’re interested, there’s a “virtual tour” planned for this book, the brainchild of Kevin Smokler. I love this idea (here’s an article about it), and will be interested to see how it plays out. But I don’t love that he says “no genre fiction” in the guidelines (edited in 2008 to add: that link is no longer in service, so you’ll have to take my word for it). I infer he means “no crap fiction” and that he assumes “genre” and “crap” are synonymous terms. It’s too bad, and too easy. See my previous post for more ranting on this subject (grin).

Edited in 2008 to add: Kevin read this post and contacted me, and we had a good email chat about good fiction. A couple of years later, he invited me and Nicola to write this essay for his anthology Bookmark Now. Thanks again, Kevin!

What’s literature?

Been a while, but I’m back for a glass of something and some good conversation…

What’s literature? Tough one. For many, I think they can’t get past the boundary that a book has to have been taught in English class — high school or college — in order to be considered literature. Presumably, something has to be read to be considered literature, or maybe it had to have been read at one time. I’m thinking of a quote from the movie “Bullets Over Broadway”, where the pretentious playwright mentor of the hero proudly intones that all of his plays are specifically written to go unproduced. I’m also reminded of my freshman year of college, where my Intro to Literary Method teacher spent a class period talking about the concept of “dramatic literature”, or plays written to be read rather than performed. Then later the same day, my American Musical Theater prof talked about how the concept of “dramatic literature” is a crock — plays have to be performed to be fully realized.

So what does this have to do with literature? I think my point is that writing, in order to be relevant to anyone other than the writer, has to be read. But to be literary, it has to relate to the world. Now, a lot of writing takes place in the world without actually relating to it. Hell, some of Stephen King’s writing is like that. And I’m not talking about just dropping common references — a lot of writing does that as a short cut to engage readers. There’s a feeling to literature that I’m having trouble articulating (obviously). I think a lot of writing is intended to (and succeeds in) activating emotional reactions from its audience, but in a very superficial way, like movies made from video games instead of scripts, or quickie books written based on TV characters. In order to be literary, I think writing (or art in general) has to access emotions in a genuine way. I almost wrote a “lasting” way, but it doesn’t have to last to make an impression.

I guess I think Stephen King’s best work is literary, but no writer is always literary. I think a lot of people think that authors are either always literary or always not. But was Charles Dickens really writing at the top of his game all the time? Was John Steinbeck? Was Jane Austen? The answer should be obvious.

Well, that’s my two cents on literature. Here’s another related question, though, which is implied in some of my comments above: does a work have to be written to be literature? Can a film or a play qualify as literature?

Later, y’all.

Adam Diamond

I’m with your American Musical Theatre professor on this one. Strictures of form are essential. Goethe said, “In the limitations the master shows his mastery.” I do think that “literature” is a specific term that refers to prose or poetry, so I don’t think plays or films are literature, but the best ones embody the same qualities as the best books –” a good story, well told, about characters who are true even if they aren’t real.

Art is not theory, it’s connection. It’s not about thinking, it’s about doing. It’s an interaction between people, across a spectrum of immediacy that ranges from live on stage to words or images whose creators are no more than mulch and memory. When it comes to fiction, I’m not interested in realigning the post-modern literary paradigm through radical re-interpretation of established form. Blech. I want a good story, well told, with some sort of resonance and meaning that I can connect with. I want it to be particular, the way our tastes and experiences and notions of ourselves are particular. That’s part of my definition of good writing. But do we really need three hundred pages of ten-dollar words and tortured metaphors to get there? I don’t think so.

I recently judged a writing competition with two other writers. One referred to himself as a noir mystery writer, the other as a literary writer. We had an interesting disagreement about what should constitute a winning entry, and eventually found ourselves on opposite sides of the border. The entry that these writers preferred was controlled and structured and obeyed all the rules of reasonable prose, and it was boring. Nothing happened. All telling, no showing. An adjective or two for every noun, an adverb for every verb. A theme constructed in crystalline sentences and unconvincing dialogue. I would rather pound my head against a brick wall than read a whole book of that stuff. But they liked it because it was “good writing.”

We disagreed not so much about what good prose is, but what it does. I agree with you, Adam, at heart it’s about emotional truth (which is how I’m paraphrasing your comments, let me know if that’s not right). I’m not sure it’s possible to successfully express precise emotional truth in bad prose, but I am sure that it’s possible to write beautiful prose without heart, without a human center.

So much of what is pointed out as “literary” prose seems to me to be almost a purely intellectual exercise in vocabulary and structure and style. All these things are necessary, but they are tools, not substance. A novel shouldn’t be “about” voice or theme. Yeesh. It should be language in service of story. It should create people the reader can connect with in some way, and things should happen to these people that matter to them, and to us.

And of course there are many literary novels that do exactly this. I think my biggest grump comes with the idea that genre, by definition, cannot be literary in this way. Genre can be crap sure, and it can also be literature –” but try getting the literary establishment to think so. It was interesting at the judging meeting. Everyone was comparing writing experience, seeing who could pee highest up the wall. The New York Times Notable Book thing is a clear contender in this regard, and the LW’s eyebrows went up a notch when I mentioned it. Then he looked at the book. “Oh,” he said. “Science fiction.”

Emotional truth

Been a while, but I’m back for a glass of something and some good conversation…

What’s literature? Tough one. For many, I think they can’t get past the boundary that a book has to have been taught in English class — high school or college — in order to be considered literature. Presumably, something has to be read to be considered literature, or maybe it had to have been read at one time. I’m thinking of a quote from the movie “Bullets Over Broadway”, where the pretentious playwright mentor of the hero proudly intones that all of his plays are specifically written to go unproduced. I’m also reminded of my freshman year of college, where my Intro to Literary Method teacher spent a class period talking about the concept of “dramatic literature”, or plays written to be read rather than performed. Then later the same day, my American Musical Theater prof talked about how the concept of “dramatic literature” is a crock — plays have to be performed to be fully realized.

So what does this have to do with literature? I think my point is that writing, in order to be relevant to anyone other than the writer, has to be read. But to be literary, it has to relate to the world. Now, a lot of writing takes place in the world without actually relating to it. Hell, some of Stephen King’s writing is like that. And I’m not talking about just dropping common references — a lot of writing does that as a short cut to engage readers. There’s a feeling to literature that I’m having trouble articulating (obviously). I think a lot of writing is intended to (and succeeds in) activating emotional reactions from its audience, but in a very superficial way, like movies made from video games instead of scripts, or quickie books written based on TV characters. In order to be literary, I think writing (or art in general) has to access emotions in a genuine way. I almost wrote a “lasting” way, but it doesn’t have to last to make an impression.

I guess I think Stephen King’s best work is literary, but no writer is always literary. I think a lot of people think that authors are either always literary or always not. But was Charles Dickens really writing at the top of his game all the time? Was John Steinbeck? Was Jane Austen? The answer should be obvious.

Well, that’s my two cents on literature. Here’s another related question, though, which is implied in some of my comments above: does a work have to be written to be literature? Can a film or a play qualify as literature?

Later, y’all.

Adam Diamond

I’m with your American Musical Theatre professor on this one. Strictures of form are essential. Goethe said, “In the limitations the master shows his mastery.” I do think that “literature” is a specific term that refers to prose or poetry, so I don’t think plays or films are literature, but the best ones embody the same qualities as the best books –” a good story, well told, about characters who are true even if they aren’t real.

Art is not theory, it’s connection. It’s not about thinking, it’s about doing. It’s an interaction between people, across a spectrum of immediacy that ranges from live on stage to words or images whose creators are no more than mulch and memory. When it comes to fiction, I’m not interested in realigning the post-modern literary paradigm through radical re-interpretation of established form. Bleh. I want a good story, well told, with some sort of resonance and meaning that I can connect with. I want it to be particular, the way our tastes and experiences and notions of ourselves are particular. That’s part of my definition of good writing. But do we really need three hundred pages of ten-dollar words and tortured metaphors to get there? I don’t think so.

I recently judged a writing competition with two other writers. One referred to himself as a noir mystery writer, the other as a literary writer. We had an interesting disagreement about what should constitute a winning entry, and eventually found ourselves on opposite sides of the border. The entry that these writers preferred was controlled and structured and obeyed all the rules of reasonable prose, and it was boring. Nothing happened. All telling, no showing. An adjective or two for every noun, an adverb for every verb. A theme constructed in crystalline sentences and unconvincing dialogue. I would rather pound my head against a brick wall than read a whole book of that stuff. But they liked it because it was “good writing.”

We disagreed not so much about what good prose is, but what it does. I agree with you, Adam, at heart it’s about emotional truth (which is how I’m paraphrasing your comments, let me know if that’s not right). I’m not sure it’s possible to successfully express precise emotional truth in bad prose, but I am sure that it’s possible to write beautiful prose without heart, without a human center.

So much of what is pointed out as “literary” prose seems to me to be almost a purely intellectual exercise in vocabulary and structure and style. All these things are necessary, but they are tools, not substance. A novel shouldn’t be “about” voice or theme. Yeesh. It should be language in service of story. It should create people the reader can connect with in some way, and things should happen to these people that matter to them, and to us.

And of course there are many literary novels that do exactly this. I think my biggest grump comes with the idea that genre, by definition, cannot be literary in this way. Genre can be crap sure, and it can also be literature –” but try getting the literary establishment to think so. It was interesting at the judging meeting. Everyone was comparing writing experience, seeing who could pee highest up the wall. The New York Times Notable Book thing is a clear contender in this regard, and the LW’s eyebrows went up a notch when I mentioned it. Then he looked at the book. “Oh,” he said. “Science fiction.”

Buncha stuff about writing

So here’s what happens a year after the publication of a book….

There are no more print media reviews (although I give thanks on a daily basis for the internet, and bloggers, bless you all).

Most of the awards have been given out.

The trade paperback publication is still months away.

The author is up to her ears in two or three new projects, all of which are exhibiting a strange “running in place” energy. Lots of work and creativity going in, very little to show for it. I’m sure that some law of writing physics is attempting to reveal itself to me. We could call it the rising blister theory, but that would be inelegant. Let’s call it critical mass of narrative. Then let’s buy it a beer and try to persuade it to relax a little….

All this by way of explaining the lack of updates in the last 2½ months. It’s been very easy and enjoyable to disappear into the new book and the details of the everyday. I think it’s partly an effect of summer. But now that fall is rolling in, I’m preparing to be more engaged with the wider world. I love autumn — it smells and looks and feels right, a little wild, a little sad, with unexpected moments that feel like some internal space has just opened wide.

In that spirit, I have some things to share.

I’ve been noodling with a “links” page on this site, but I find that deciding what to include on such a page is a bit like choosing a tattoo. So instead, every so often I will stop in to the virtual pub and post things that been meaningful or interesting to me. Here are a few:

Open Letters. This site is no longer active, but is available in a complete archive state. There’s some great storytelling here. People are amazing. I miss the hell out of Open Letters.

@U2. The best U2 website on the planet, in my opinion.

Arizona River Runners. I took this trip nearly 20 years ago (edited in 2008 to add: and had hoped to go this year) and my heart has been full of canyon since. Along the trip, the guide stopped the boat by a wall that went up and up. “Touch it,” he said, and when we did he told us the rock was nearly 2 billion years old. The Grand Canyon is the closest thing I know to a cathedral.

An amazing poem by Wendell Berry. An acting teacher gave me this when I was at college a thousand years ago. Along with getting genuinely excited over a monologue I did one day, it’s the nicest thing she did for me. She also taught an improvisation class one summer that gave me one of the cruel moments of my life, and would be another Open Letter, if…. This poem is reprinted by permission of the publisher.

A website chock full of computer wallpaper. Amazing photos and graphic images of all descriptions. My mom, the Master of Web, turned me on to this site.

DATA. If you have email and a phone, you can help persuade the US government to keep its promise to help African nations work against poverty and AIDS. Make a difference in the world.

MoveOn. You can have more than just a vote, you can have a voice. This is the best organized, most effective grassroots organization I have ever seen. (Edited in 2008 to add: And I unjoined a couple of years ago because they lost focus on the electoral process and started trying to stick a hand in every issue under the sun, and it all started feeling a little too much like lockstep politics to me…)

From time to time, I will also pass along articles about publishing. It’s a wacky business; the more I learn, the more I shake my head. I think there are some changes coming, although I’m not sure what they are. It seems to me to be more and more difficult for a writer to a) break in to the business, and b) maintain a career. Having accomplished (a), I find myself concerned about (b). Reading articles like the ones below helps me understand how fortunate my experience with Solitaire has been in many ways (especially given the poor reviews in the trade — Publishers Weekly and Kirkus hated the book), and also how much more fortunate I will need to be with future books.

“It takes more than talent to become a best-selling novelist. Timing, marketing, and luck are also key…” (from the Boston Globe)

“Of the 60,000-some books that land in his office yearly, Steve Wasserman, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, has room to cover only about 1,500…” (from Poets & Writers Magazine)

“Look up a book on Amazon.com, and the first media review you see isn’t from a well-known book review outlet…” from Slate.

And other news: Stephen King is getting a National Book Award for Lifetime Achievement. Big smile from this side of the room. I’m delighted for him, and also delighted that the National Book Award had the guts to acknowledge that storytelling and characters who talk like real people, as opposed to speaking in ongoing tangles of metaphor and endless irony, have a huge place in the general reading experience. (Edited in 2008 to add: Here’s more about that.)

I am pretty tired of what passes for literary fiction in some circles these days. I prefer good writing to bad, but beautiful prose is not an end in itself. At least, I don’t think it should be. Nicola says that if you can see how much work the writer has done, then the writer hasn’t done enough work.

I’ve been following the commentary on the New York Times website regarding the award for Stephen King. It started out with (predictably) a lot of people being very fussed. Then there was a round of supportive posts from people who decided to come out of the closet as those who like a good read, and the literary canon be damned. For a while, the discussion flows along the lines of Oh no! versus You go, Stephen! Then it moves into consideration of what makes a work literary, which to me is a much more interesting and slippery question. I’d be interested to hear what people think — what’s “literature,” anyway? Any takers?

Cheers to you all.