You Can't Fucking Go Home Again--Not to the Same House

Back in the days when you still had a sister, you embarked on a project for her approaching birthday.  You did not get far with the project because some of it had vanished without you knowing it.  The project was to take pictures of all the places you'd lived in Los Angeles and surrounding areas as a family, including the last place, which she'd left after her marriage.

Even though you were only in Los Angeles one or two days a week at the time, you were enjoying the concept, drawing maps of the locations of the places, even going so far as to track down the locale of the most problematic of all, on Provedencia Street in Burbank, which was only the second locale you'd ever lived in and had such few memories.  You had no memories at all of the first place, a house in Santa Monica, where you'd been brought home from Santa Monica Hospital at Wilshire and Fifteenth, but the address of it was written on your birth certificate.

The place where memory truly clicked in for you was the third place, the four-plex apartment at 6145 1/2 Orange Street.  There you came into a world of experience, of time passing, of friendly and unfriendly dogs, of places where clumps of sour grass grew, of backyards where small, important adventures awaited an awkward boy with horn-rimmed glasses who had a stuffed dog named Prosperity.  Sixty-one forty-five and a half Orange Street was the capital of your universe, one scant parallel block from fabled Wilshire Boulevard, perpendicular to Fairfax Avenue.

You started with photos of the Santa Monica house, but when you went to Orange Street, the project came crashing down like missed dishes being juggled by a juggler.  Orange Street was still there, but the house and its immediate neighbors were gone, subsumed into a condominium arrangement that greatly resembles the sorts of self-assembly bookshelves sold by the likes of Staples and Office Max.  Gone, too, was the house of your sister's first residence, now a large apartment complex.

"Oh, them places,"  a resident of contemporary Provedencia Street said, "they went, one by one.  Pity, too.  Some of them was true Mediterranean, tile roofs and all."  Now they are ranch-like anomaly, another stylistic betrayal in a place where things change, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Of all the places you can't go home to again, Los Angeles seems to you the most passionately unreturnable because it is so given to change and recreation.  Los Angeles is an ideal metaphor for the past you cannot return to--except in memory.  It is a place where dreams metastasize, sometimes yanking entire neighborhoods along with it.  Nevertheless, it is a young, hearty, bright city, even its more seedy neighborhoods seeming to say Look at me, I'm up next.

It is everyone's Emerald City of Oz, replete with memories of the different Wizards who held forth.  Your L.A. is the L.A. of Madman Muntz, who didn't do all that well with used cars, and so he set forth to sell TV sets; of Earl Schieb, who offered to paint your car for $19.95, for an ice cream franchise called Currie's, where you could get the Mile-High cone for a mere dime; where the Angels Flight, a peeling orange funicular, groaned its way up Bunker Hill; the Hollywood Ranch Market, and the disc jockey-turned-recording entrepreneur, Gene Norman, broadcast nightly from the large music store, Music City, Sunset at Vine.

L.A. must be experienced to be appreciated on any terms.  The L.A. of today is a foreign country to you; whether you will know it as you once did is doubtful, but the L.A. of yesterday pierces the night sky of your imagination with the kleig lights announcing premier showings of new movies.  The L.A. of your memory is a metaphor for all the antic behavior and expectation you find in your own imagination, as colorful and appealing as the boxes of petit fours deserts served at the long gone Lucca's Restaurant on Western Avenue, as irreverent as the wrangler at the pony ride on La Cienega near what has become the dread Beverly Center.  "Fuck it, kid,"  he said once to you as he took your dime.  "Save your money and ride a real horse."  But you were a kid and the horse was a Shetland pony, and you were right where you felt you ought to be.  

I wandered lonely as a writer

Often when writing is discussed, someone will attempt to land the sucker punch of loneliness to the craft, as though a writer wanted nothing more than to be amidst a group of friends or family or even, dare the writer even think it, readers.  Listen to most writers for any length of time and out will come this tired trope of how the act of writing is somehow akin to being in a solitary confinement, where no one cares about the plight, whatever the hell a plight maybe, of the poor writer, where sacrifices are made on a daily basis to the Muse, propitiation for the visions, insights, and ideas said muse might chose to whisper into the writer's ear and without which in the first place the writer would be all vocabulary but no story.

True enough, you know some individuals who produce material, some of which is published, who are not persons you would want as friends or associates.  Nevertheless, they are writers.  Afflicted writers, you say of them, and there is some likelihood that all of us who writer have one or more afflictions, and there is also the likelihood that the writers you consider afflicted consider you in some degree a rogue, outsider, or misfit.  Even with this as backstory or, if you will, subtext, it is somewhat of a jump in momentum to consider yourself lonely because you have been chosen to be a writer.  Writing is far from martyrdom, even though there were times before you broke through certain barriers to some semblance of being published on occasion, you felt with each new story you sent forth a kind of stoicism in the face of rejection that links to martyrdom.  It may be hands held under the tablecloth or some hidden connection with martyrdom, and it was more or less of a piece with teen romanticism , but you did not feel lonely.  To put the matter in as blunt terms as you can, if there were times when you felt lonely, it had more to do with you, your state of mind, and your person skills than it had to do with your writing state of mind and your writing skills.

Many writers have associations with other writers; we do tend to make friends with persons of the same interest range. We sometimes form reading groups with these friends or at least have some system of reading the works of friends, supplying support and occasional suggestions when asked.
Writers who are used to publishing on some regular basis have literary agents with whom they are in contact, editors with whom they work.  If anything, there is a sense of relief in being able to squirrel away the necessary hours to satisfy one's literary Jones.

The writer of fiction is constantly being badgered by characters, wanting some quality time.  How, they seem to be asking, are we going to have any semblance of intimate relationship with you off all the time with your pals, griping about the state of publishing today?

The writer of nonfiction is as though locked in a linear accelerator where ideas rather than electronic particles are sped up with the deliberate intent of causing them to collide, producing yet other, newer ideas.  Writers of nonfiction may on occasion seem spooky, trying to keep track of things, but usually they are among the first to duck when they sense an invasion of friends or guests.

Some writers you have observed, still floundering within the learning curve, hopeful of a reasonable balance or foothold, will keep silent about their writing activities, not yet confident enough to show anything of their work to anyone, and one individual of about this level seems to appear out of the shadows from time to time, desperate for ways to secure publication of the two things she has written, thus to earn her way out of a detestable job and into the seemingly more secure and pleasant job of supporting herself on her writing.  Writers of any stature at all are aware of such individuals who are starting along the path, much as you did when you were setting forth.

Many of us write because we have discovered that not writing produces some symptom such as a headache or acid stomach or the gloomy behavior of which Ishmael spoke when he was explaining to us why he signed on The Pequod in the first place.  Others of us write because of our belief that it is expected of us, as in being told by friends or family or teachers that we have a way with words.  At the slightest sign of our individual advancement as a writer, we are beset by those immediately below us, eager for clues about how to get into the big kids' sandbox.

In short, we are not as lonely as we would wish to be; it is not a lonely business, and sometimes we run the risk of being considered rude when we take steps to insure we get out pages done.  

Acknowledgments

You have long since reached the place where you are disabused of any notion that writing a book is a one-person activity.  While it is often true that volumes of journals or diaries or memoirs are written without much public knowledge of them being written, even those, you have come to understand, involve other individuals, persons you variously admire, love, respect, detest, and various other energizing responses because, truth be told, you do draw even in these ventures from those about you.

From your time on "the other" side of the desk, as editor in a number of book- and magazine-publishing venues, you were aware of the individuals who contribute in some way other than authorship to the making of a book.

You have one step to finish on your latest book venture before it will momentarily at least be wrenched away from your hands while others do to it.  This most recent phase is checking through the manuscript presumably for the last time to see what queries or suggestions the copyeditor has.  Almost everything a copyeditor does is mechanical in nature, looking for standardized use, consistency of use, checking for anomaly, possibly making some suggestion for a reason to deviate from CMOS--Chicago Manual of Style-suggested standardized use.

In anticipation, you have begun composing what probably will be your last text addition to The Fiction Lovers' Companion, the Acknowledgments, the first of which will be your ongoing recognition that you are not in this alone.  A longish phone conversation with the Executive Editor/Publisher had convinced you of that.  So much is at stake here, including her thoughts about what the next book project should be.

Acknowledgments extend far and wide, to friends (amazing how few friends you have outside the perimeters of publishing), family, and individuals within the publishing house who have loaned their talents to yours.  Also, you must consider a group who comprise the most significant area of surprise to you, students of yours for whom you hold no special warmth or regard.  It is nothing at all to acknowledge those men and women with whom, over the years, you have shared information, hints, tricks, and from whom you have gleaned and foraged information you have been able to put to work in your own writing.

For a time you were faculty mates with the late, fine storyteller, Richard Yates, who spoke of the dispiriting times he experienced dealing with students he knew he was not reaching.  For whatever reasons he became one, Yates was a recovering alcoholic.  He left USC to take a job with more classes and, thus, an overall larger paycheck, but after a short time was no longer in recovery, rather he was, in a succession of fatal prepositions, off the wagon, in the hospital, and out of the human condition.  Did bad writing--whatever that is--kill him?  No, it wasn't that simple or direct.  It was his own personal circuitry to the amount of unlettered work, beginning work, he could tolerate that opened the weak spots in his psyche to let the need for drink override his sure knowledge of what would happen next.

At one time, in your late teens and early twenties, you showed a remarkable aptitude for the drinking habits and attitudes that could have brought you into that scary terrain in which Yates lived.  How fortunate for you that your own misconceptions, leading you to romanticize alcoholism, did not get the opportunity to take hold.  How fortunate for you that one of your dearest mentors, herself in recovery, noted the relative work you'd have to do in order to accomplish that wretched state, allowing you to understand how easy it was for you to accept your freedom from that particular dead weight about your energies.

But you have come to think that, for all the dreadful material you read as a teacher and an editor, there is a saving grace.  Your own dreadful writing, which you had to write your way through and still, on occasion, need to write yourself well past, is in its way a light house, at least a beacon, reminding you as you consider the individuals and things you wish to cite in your Acknowledgments,to nod in recognition to those students with whom you could not connect, whose work you could not abide.  Recognize if you will what they, too, have contributed.  Wish them well, and realize now and into the future their contributions to this book.

Interview #12

Herman Melville (1819-91) led a troubled life as a writer, producing an enormous volume of high quality work, which was often well regarded by critics, but spurned by the public in terms of actual sales.  He produced at least three major front-rank characters, beginning with the ill-fated captain of the whaling vessel Pequod, moving along to a naive young sailor, and after the disastrous reviews sustained by his novel Pierre, a quirky copyist at a law firm who in many ways was a dramatic version of the philosophy expressed in Ralph Waldo Emerson's famed essay, "The Transcendentalist."  Bartleby, the Scrivener:  A Tale of Wall Street, is thought to be Melvlle's response to the publishing industry in general and his reviews for Pierre specifically. Bartleby first appeared in 1853, when Melville was thirty-four years old.

Interviewer:  How does it feel, playing the literary equivalent of first mate to Captain Ahab?

Bartleby:  Don't get me started.  The man had no style, rather a predictable and boorish performance.

Interviewer:  Is it possible to conclude that you've carried a jealous animosity toward Ahab for his flamboyant behavior and seemingly secure position among American literary characters?

Bartleby:  It was a mistake to have him portrayed by an actor of the stature of Gregory Peck.  Sylvester Stallone would have been more appropriate,

Interviewer:  Which actor would you chose to portray you?

Bartleby:  Anthony Hopkins projects a nice world weariness, but my real preference--

Interviewer:  Yes--

Bartleby:  I prefer not to say.

Interviewer:  Any reason why not?

Bartleby:  I am programed by my creator to prefer not to.

Interviewer:  But that's only to make the point that Melville prefers not to write the way the critics want him to write.

Bartleby:  This fellow Clooney, I think he'd give it a nice ride.

Interviewer:  George Clooney as Bartleby the Scrivener?

Bartleby:  Has a nice ring to it, at that.  But you mustn't think me a narcissist in the way of some characters who are all gone over to style and no real substance.  I was quite a remarkable copyist and scrivener.  Had that legal firm up and running, I did, all thanks to the high quality of my work.  I am preferring not to from a rather high plateau.  People don't seem to realize that.  People think of me as a passive wretch.  I am anything but.  You must take into consideration what I chose not to do, what I was willing to risk my life not doing.  Nothing, i repeat, nothing, passive about that.

Interviewer:  And you think George Clooney could bring that off?

Bartleby:  I prefer--

Interviewer:  --not to say.

The Two Ways to Write Story

There are two basic ways to tell a story, which is a dangerous enough statement on its face because the moment you step forth in such specifics as the mention of the "two" as a modifier for story,(remember, basic was also dropped in there as a modifier) some smart ass by degrees smarter than you, will call forth "three," and maybe even "four."

With this potential for rebuttal in mind, you resort to a bit of self-editing: There are two basic ways for you to tell a story.

The first way is, in your opinion, the most effective, most apt to produce surprise and some measure of value for what you hope is your still-expanding craft, and for any who may happen upon your story.  This is the way of story telling you are so invested in, because of your direct experience with the events within the story or because you have seen similar events in real life and they have become forged in the smithy of your process to this particular genie in a bottle, urgent for a means of escape.  You are in effect the bottle from which the genie wishes--needs--to escape.  Ah, such stories are joys incarnate because they have the power to break your heart.  They are there, watching for an opportunity to escape from you, devious, determined, watchful.  You do not so much tell this kind of story as you serve as the medium by which it is conveyed.  Stories such as this kind are reminders of why and how you became what you are.

The second way, the "other" way, is important to you because while it is not your favorite way,it is the conveyance you rode into the craft.  This "way" involves your construction of a story, sometimes by simple trial and error, floating concepts, testing them, adding an element, say the literary equivalent of baking soda, watching for effect.  You are in a way using recipes, hoping for a combination that connects with some loud noise, signifying the agreeable combination of elements responding to one another in that special synergy of the whole being more,much more than the sum of its parts.  Such stories rarely leave you satisfied; you watch them with suspicion, looking for a place to tack on a sensor that will lead you deeper inside the core, hopeful you will find a place where passion dwells and  some insight awaits release.

The two types of story are inextricably bound; you always want to find the former lurking in the latter.  But there are no guarantees of such results.  The one certainty is the need for drafts, one after another--until something is discovered.  It is like diving for coins in the cushions of sofas and easy chairs in hotel lobbies.  Sometimes, sometimes you get lucky.

The Second Sentence.

How do you know you're off to a beginning?  Is it a choice, provocative opening sentence--the hooker, building to an image of some intrigue forming on the dramatic horizon?  Or is it the unacknowledged workhorse, the second sentence, the one that by its attitude and strategic placement, sets off the conceptual explosion promised in the first?

The politically correct answer, the centrist answer, if you will, is that the force and power of a beginning, the true opening velocity, is a combination of every sentence, every word, the effect much of a piece with the steel-point etching or engraving so favored in the early days of magazines, where a drawing was stunning competition for the new-fangled photograph.

You have reached a point--perhaps it is more accurate to say returned to the point--where political correctness and getting along are not all they are cracked up to be.  Particularly for you when it comes to writing.  A little edge.  Toss in a touch of anarchy.  Screw the need for politeness.  Such stature as there was of your early work was edge.  Edge and a bit of derivative, depending on whom you were at the moment admiring and trying to soak up, hopeful of learning something in the process; you wanted to rip and tear at conventions you did not even know existed.

The mid point was a time when you felt yourself buried under a slag heap of convention, technique, and vision; everyone you admired had a world view.  What you had was edge, energy, and verbs sharp enough to sting when they were able to land a punch.  Not bad for a kid, but not by any means enough to satisfy you.

All this stuff to get out of the way.

At the moment, you are feeling much like someone you should interview here, because he is surely a character who resonates for you. Mr. Gully Jimson, who has his visions, then moves to execute them.  Somehow.  Somewhere.

The first sentence gives you the reach and the grade of the drill.

The second sentence outlines the target and gives you a boost up to get at it.

Bad Neighbors

As you move along within the stream of what you have come to think of as the writing process--perhaps that should even be with capitals, as in The Writing Process--you find your impatience growing with works of other writers for which you find no overt attraction, because of the writer's style, use of language in general, and treatment of thematic material.  A considerable segment of this impatience comes from published work that is over or around your head, in that you do not get it, do not see in it what others do.  Any number of persons you admire and respect have read and enjoyed George Eliot's ramble of a novel, Middlemarch.  On the number of times you have attempted to brave it with the intent of taking it in and digesting it, you have met with the disaster of the kind of boredom that produces irritation, a sure sign the material is somehow beyond you.  You are attempting your way around this seeming butting of heads by reading into the author's Daniel Derronda, which so far engages you with its characters, its design, its style.

Material comes at you from many sources, from clients, from students, from friends, from your own curiosity, not to disregard from yourself (yes, there have been times when you have read something, yet in the belief it was from a student or a would-be client, only to discover it was from you.  How, you wondered, could you have forgotten so much?  How could such material be saved, in the literal sense of being allowed to remain and in the figurative sense of being subjected to help from you in a better mood and position than those you occupied when you wrote the offending copy.

The more you read that you enjoy, the more you sense such amounts of patience as you have to be packing its bags, preparing for a long trip.  Seeing yourself in this cusp, you are aware of the resident curmudgeon and the equally resident squatter, the dilettante, hunkering in.  Neither is a particularly good tenant, neither is all that helpful in producing work that is driven by eagerness rather than by impatience.  In a perfect world, impatience would end when it got you to your desk, primed for enthusiasm to pick up the pen or tap the electronic keyboard.

You must exercise daily to effect that delightful chemistry.