Story Time

Some years back, when you were doing weekly features for the weekly freebie, The Independent, it fell to your pleasant lot to interview a number of local mystery writers, most of whom you already knew socially. 

 Perhaps the least well known of them all turned out to be my favorite interview experience, not only because he served such exquisite coffee while we spoke, not indeed because he was such an exquisite prose stylist, but because of one thing he said, almost as a throw-away line. It was a comment you had to ask him to repeat because you had difficulty believing you'd heard correctly. 

 He did and you will not forget the words or the intensity with which they were spoken. "I'd rather be the world's worst writer," William Campbell Gault said, "than a good anything else." Gault was far enough away from the world's worst writer to have been able to inject his sentiment with passion.

This opened the door in your mind for one of those lovely what-if situations that get writers going. What if a person were to prove to be preternaturally gifted at something that person hated doing?

The other memorable interview for your piece for  The Independent was with Margaret Millar, whose late husband, Ken, also known as Ross Macdonald, had been in graduate school together at U of Michigan with your associate from USC, Dick Lid. "As close friends can often do," Maggie said magisterially, "Dick can tell you things about us that will make us seem more like demons and less like Canadians."

Maggie was quite right.  Dick Lid did tell you stories of triangulation in which either Maggie or Ken called him, often in the earlier hours of the morning, when sleep for ordinary persons seems to be a given, and sleep for the talented, the disturbed, and the driven was at premium.

Our interview took place at the posh Coral Casino, a sort of meat market for the bored and wealthy of Santa Barbara, more known for its Olympic-sized swimming pool than its cuisine. Indeed, Maggie's major interest was that swimming pool to buoy her spirits as she faced widowhood and the decline of her eye sight to macular degeneration.

Maggie decided we could venture a salad at the Casino, but she brought our onion soup in a large Mason jar which she handed to the maitre d' with an edge that bordered on contempt. As we spooned our way through the soup, a distinguished man approached, greeted Maggie, and exchanged an affable shake of hands with you after Maggie introduced us.

After the man departed, Maggie alluded to his parentage in a hoarse stage whisper. "The son of a bitch!" she explained. "He knew how much swimming meant to me and he didn't tell me. He did nothing to prepare me for this."

Once again, she had me. "Okay," I said, " prepare you for what?"

"They had to take a lung. Cancer, you know. I can accept that. But the son of a bitch didn't tell me. When they take your lung, your buoyancy is skewered. You don't float the way you used to. I find it difficult to swim now, but I am not going to quit over a son of a bitch like him."

The Deviled Egg Is in the Details

Back to back tonight, the unexpected details saved the story and, as such things will happen, the entire arc of the class--lecture and discussion--was shunted onto an express track.

Story number one, set at a country club wedding reception, came to life when a few of the guests, bored, roiled by a variety of emotional tensions, and feeling the effects of too much champagne and too little shade, began throwing eggs at one another. 

 Not merely eggs or even hardboiled eggs but deviled eggs. In a few sentences the event came to life, all because of that one word, deviled. When I asked the author why she included the word, she grew nervous, apprehensive. Should I take it out?

On, no! I explained, directing her to reread the scene without that word. Sure enough, the scene fell flat. Somehow, one listener said, the deviled part made it real for me.

And me.

The next story, a bit of a push in the direction of other-worldly implication, had a middle-aged woman receiving a package in the mail from her parents. Not at all unusual under most circumstances, but fact is, her parents had been dead for nearly twenty years, killed in an accident. 

 The package had probably languished in an unused postal bin for lo these many years, but given the context of the story, the arrival of the package made the narrative seem plausible; opened the door to the possibility that the package was proof of the woman's parents attempting to contact her from "the other side."

Was that package a part of your original plan?

Oh, no, the author said; the idea just came to me from--

--out of the blue? I finished for her.

That's how it seemed.

Seemed is right. That idea was there all along but you could easily have missed it for any number of cogent reasons. The deeper we get into who our characters are, where they really come from, what they want, and how they see themselves in the scheme of cosmic things, the more we are likely to discover details about them that form immediate revelations of character, human understanding, and the things people will do--or not do--to one another.

To get these details we must give up our own desire to control and allow the characters to be guided by their own pole star instead of ours. As their creators, emboldened by the corrupting power of creation, we are often corrupted by the notion that our methods are for the benefit of all.

Our methods are thus altruistic in a sea of malfeasance. Ever the benevolent dictators, we believe we know the details better than they, forgetting that when the details come from them, it is true discovery, when it comes from us it is, well, it is propaganda.

Phishing for Compliments

One of my favorite bumper stickers and crypto-patriotic car decorations is in the shape of the yellow ribbon used to advertise sympathy for our troops in Iraq. 

 This decoration I so favor advertises support for "the guy in China who makes these stickers," a lovely irony suggesting that any time one pays for political slogans, even those espousing one's own favorite causes, one is not supporting the cause at all but rather some identity thief, some capitalist entrepreneur who is simply taking advantage of a momentum.

Old wives' tale-ish as it may sound, many are concerned that a photograph taken of them will somehow kidnap their spiritual essence.

Scarcely a day passes when those of us who use computers, bank, use credit cards, and similar electronic transactions are not warned about the dangers of disaster when some capitalist entrepreneur gleans our password, our drivers' license, our Social Security Number, or some other key to doing business in this increasingly automated society. 

Today alone, I received authentic-looking emails, complete with art and corporate logo from Bank of America and Downey Savings, informing me that my account has undergone a few necessary changes and would I please send the requested information in order to keep my account current. Trouble is I don't and never have had an account with either institution.

Thinking about it, I see how easy it would be to be drawn away from my intended confession and investigation, shunted into a screed over the way we are presented with so many options that appear plausible and on second or third blush, are no such thing. George W. Bush comes to mind, but that vagrant thought is far from original or relevant.

Almost without exception, I regularly steal identities, turning them into characters whom I proceed to abuse in one way or another, possibly educating them, possibly redeeming them, occasionally getting them laid, which seems only fair after all the mischief I put them through.

When I contributed to the now defunct Nick Carter series, I invariably stole the identity of my then department chairman at the University, rendering him variously as a spy, a crook, or someone who had as an agenda the goal of returning the world to iambic pentameter in some kind of formal rhyming pattern. 

 I frequently use the names of friends in novels and short stories, and indeed my own identity has been phished by a former student who has led me up the bureaucracy of the Bronx Police Department, where I achieved the rank of sergeant before taking early retirement to go into the private sector for trendier investigations.

This is by no means to minimize the effects of identity theft on the men and women who fall victim to the schemes or accidental vicissitudes of financial chicanery, but it is an acknowledgment of how many of us give away our identity on the spot to some seemingly obvious con. 

 Ah, there I am, back to George W. Bush again, and I apologize for that, but wait, haven't many of us done the same thing with regard to the late Rev. Falwell? And of course we give certain portions of our identity to the likes of the hysteria-mongers on Fox News, and there are cadres of politicians, societal reformers, religionists, and the aforementioned capitalist entrepreneurs, waiting to sell us bumper stickers in one form or another.

I am at the particular stage in a twelve-week summer session where I am attempting to lead a group of students toward buying a particular bumper sticker, one I get no financial reward for, only satisfaction. This is the scary part, because the satisfaction is of an evangelical nature: I hope to motivate them to finding their own identity and--yes, yes; I know, this makes me not only evangelical but a conservative--holding onto it because in many ways, it is all there is for them.

When I began this essay, I thought of myself as pretty optimistic; a bit edgy, perhaps, but certainly not evangelical, conservative, or suspicious.

My resolution, my answer, my salvation has grown with me from the times when I set into motion characters I did not like. I have since learned that all characters think they are right, an observation that has saved me from being a lousy plotter. My salvation is that there are ways of being right. My salvation is that although I have come to favor quirky, possibly even devious characters, I like them all, and along with their identities that I have stolen for my own use, I have stolen a remarkable concern for their welfare.

What's Fitting and Proper

The recent publication of the presidential journals of Ronald Reagan has once again brought voice to the notion of doing something more for his memory than naming a cheesy airport after him. 

 Even John Wayne has an airport named after him, the argument goes, and with the exception of that notable gaffe in which an airport was named for JFK, the naming of airports should be left for Republicans. The Baghdad Airport, for instance, is ready made to be renamed for the forty-third President of the united States, a somehow fitting tribute

Those who truly regard Ronald Reagan as though his journals were a hagiography want nothing less than the empty space on Mt. Rushmore as a fitting memorial.

I had not meant to wax so political, but I did not particularly care for Ronald Reagan even when he was a Democrat. Besides, the Mt. Rushmore real estate at issue should, in my opinion, be accorded to a beagle named Snoopy, who is a greater icon, a more representative relic of America than Ronald "Where's the rest of me?" Reagan.

Because of my long acquaintance with Snoopy's creator, Charles Schulz, I was invited to contribute to a book, Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life, which is in its way a lovely tribute to Snoopy and the man who chronicled the beagle's adventures. 

 Thirty-two of us were invited to take a favorite Snoopy comic strip and write our reflections on the message embedded in the strip. I think all of us did pretty well. My own favorites were the late, lamented Ed McBain, and Jerry Freedman, and Fanny Flagg.

What could have been one of my favorites--and wasn't, because it didn't appear in the book--was from John Updike, who wrote a longish letter explaining why, although a fan of Snoopy (wasn't everybody?), he was busy and didn't have the time. 

 He didn't have the time for three or four pages of letter, which I suggested should go in the book because making a long, elaborate excuse that could just as easily have been the piece itself is such a writerly thing to do. Or not.

I would in fact be mortified if Ronald Wilson Reagan's bust made its way onto the slopes of Mt. Rushmore. Come on! But Snoopy is a lovely alternate.

Hunters and Gatherers

If you take a few moments to think about it, issues of identity in California are different than issues of identity anywhere else.

You would not, for instance, confuse identity issues in California with identity issues in Nebraska, much less identity issues in North Dakota. Issues of substance in Nebraska and North Dakota—issues such as Who am I? and How can I be sure I am doing my best?—are the issues of individuals who emerge from an agricultural bent. 

Issues of substance in California—issues such as Who is my real estate broker? and Is tofu really a complete protein?—are the existential issues of Hunters and Gatherers.
Of course people in California are hunters and gatherers--even those of agricultural bent. There is much to be hunted and gathered here, particularly for those who pursue the arts, but in another way for those who pursue commerce. 

 The trick of it all is to take note of these things before they fade in the sunnier parts of the state or somehow erode in the colder, windier parts of the state. Having taken note of some treasured vision is the first step to finding those two things I've been speaking of, lecturing about for some time: attitude and voice.


Story is often thought to be highly effective when it has a sturdy-but-flexible spine, which is to say a design or plot; nor does it hurt if the story has edgy, remarkable persons who somehow warn us of what we might or already have become. But attitude and voice trump these with great regularity. 

 We want a man or woman or child to follow who is already launched in attitude and voice because we know that ever once in a while, like the hunters and gatherers of eld, they will have secreted themselves in the precise place where something momentous will come galumphing by.
Because there are so many possibilities, issues of identity are always good building blocks for the short story. Perhaps one or two realizations per story. You leave with a dangling modifier, which is not a noun waiting to be claimed by some pronoun , but rather a character with a voice and attitude who may or may not accept some collected wisdom that is within his reach.

Targets of opportunity range from woolly mammoths to ideas for rock paintings to dances of celebration to narratives of pure speculative invention. We await them with stealth, ingenuity, and opportunism. And thanks.

Curioser and Curioser

One of the more contentious topics for discussion came up this morning at the Saturday Writers' Workshop, contentious because of its roots in frustration. When we hear a particular work that strikes a resonant cord among the assembled host, our first thought is where to send it.

We are none of dilettantes by nature, nor is any of us with the possible exception of me lazy. Anne Cravens, for instance, reading her essay accompanying a grant proposal, was agonizing about the times when, mother of two boys, wife to a rock musician, and a full-time worker at one of the local scientific industries, the decision was between taking a shower and reading a few pages from a magazine or book. Christine is running her late husband's business, pursuing a career as an actress, and writing two wildly differing projects.

The subject came forth when Gail announced she'd been accepted by a service that edits, formats, and submits manuscripts. A wild-eyed populist, liberal, optimist in so many things, I nearly resorted to the conservative approach of rendering that word service in quotes, thus expressing an attitude of cynicism toward it. Simply put, Gail is paying two hundred ninety dollars a month for this service, at the news of which Liz offered to do it for two hundred fifty.

It's my money, Gail countered, and I can do what I want. True enough, particularly since what she wants is to get her work out in circulation. Marci reports paying her daughter to submit her short stories, a task at which the daughter excelled, resulting in five acceptances for Marci--before she was bitten big time by a novel she's working on.

The issue is only tangentially whether writers--artists in general--should take the responsibility of submitting their own work. The real issue is time.

The pile of magazines and journals on and about the floor of my room, the rear of my car, and such random places where there are no books serve as a constant reminder to me of the amount of reading needed to--what is the euphemism?--keep current, is staggering.

Add blog reading to the magazines; that's a given because blogs are often more up-to-date than newspapers in their coverage. I do a few for politics, notably Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, John Amato's Crooks and Liars, The Huffington Post, and to get a sane view from a conservative, Andrew Sullivan. Then there are the photo blogs, which offer visual images as well as conceptual argument. These have become increasingly more important in helping me focus on subject matter and point of view. I find Liz Kuball, Ben Huff, and pod (THE BAD PHOTOGRAPHER) invaluable.

My former student, John Fox, has a comprehensive take on matters related to writing, and I estimate checking him out three or four times a week, but here's where the beef comes in, with all its attendant fat and cholesterol: the writers' blogs I'm seeing--and I am looking--are almost entirely divided into two camps, those selling editing and motivational services (how could you want motivation after looking at the images of Liz, Ben, and pod?) and those apologizing for not having blogged for the past week or two or three.

The ideal blog has a theme, a development of the theme, and some sort of conclusion which involves some element of risk-taking. The more commonplace blog has an elaborate defense mechanism set up to justify not having anything to say, then going on at great length to wring its metaphorical hands and gnash its metaphorical teeth.

What ever happened to writing from enthusiasm or outrage or in the spirit of recommending something splendid or dumb?

As Alice put it, it gets curiouser and curiouser that there are so few who have curiosity for their pole star.

Sooner or Later: Writers on Writing

Sooner--see The Danse Macabre by Steven King--or later--see Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose--a productive writer will want to produce a book that instructs readers how to write the way a writer does. This is something like the elegant irony of the motion picture Shakespeare in Love, which a fictional version of Shakespeare falls in love with a young woman who masquerades as a boy in order to become an actor. It was a fact that in Shakespeare's time, the roles of women and girls were played by boys. This historical reality becomes the dramatic device that causes Shakespeare to conceptualize Twelfth Night, in which the character Viola pretends to be a young man. 

 Thus in the reality of the time, you'd have a boy actor portraying a girl portraying a boy portraying a girl. A nice ride of identity and ego, an entertaining story. So, too, is the growing genre of the writer writing about writing, a temptation from which I am scarcely immune, considering the progress of my own venture into the field. I think the motive goes well beyond mere ego and into the emotional terrains of nostalgia and a desire to provide some sort of monument for what at times seems to have become muscle memory but which at other times seems to have been a long, laborious process.

At first blush, this seems an altruistic gesture, but thinking it through, I'm approaching the belief that it is anything but altruistic, not merely bordering on but invading the terrain of egotism. Yes, it is true, I wish I'd had a teacher like me when I was starting out. Instead, my first creative writing teacher was Herman Quick, a man who wore double-breasted suits and imparted a message that actually proved out for me: one learned the craft by doing the work. Vernon King, my first college-level instructor, had a wry sense of humor (college writing instructors, I came to realize, either had a wry sense of humor or none at all, and those who had none at all tended to throw things), published small editions of poetry about Western topics, and got me firmly anchored with F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories. J. E. Johnston took wryness to new levels, causing in me a sincere desire to project wryness as a badge of writerly disdain for the commonplace, to emerge as sarcastic and insufferable. 

John Jenkins Espey not only looked writerly in his academic regalia from Oxford, he published memoir with Alfred Knopf, and had a significant number of short pieces in The New Yorker. He had a definite wryness that ultimately helped me seem more overwhelmed than sarcastic; the depth of his learning and connections to writers I admired was then and remains today humbling. His book explaining and demythifying Ezra Pound's poetry almost changed my mind about graduate school and pursuit of the scholarly life.
Mr. Espey was the last of my formal teachers, leaving me to discover informal teachers in such remarkable places as The Garden of Allah, a Belgian Restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, the West Valley Democratic Club, The Cock & Bull Pub (also on Sunset Boulevard), a Chinese Restaurant run by an actor named Benson Fong, and Sunday afternoon writers' baseball games played in various venues throughout west Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks. Only one individual from this multifarious group of informal teachers, Wells Root, wrote a book about writing, and its publisher, The University of California Press, impressed me almost as the content. The truths I'm trying to get at are stunning in their simplicity:

1. No matter what the writer tells you, the book can only take you, Moses-like, up to the Promised Land, but not into it. You have to get there on your own devices, your own wit, your own persistence. Friends help, it is true, but they can help only so much.
2. Until you know who you are, you are likely to be rejected or ignored because you sound like too many other people who are not rejected or ignored--although maybe they should be.
3. Even when you know who you are, you may well be ignored or rejected because who you are is too sarcastic or worse.

4. Your best chance is knowing who you are, thus writing the way you talk and talking the way you write. At least you will be authentic, even though this leaves more questions unanswered than it provides solutions. Books on writing by writers who are probably between projects than have nothing to do with the process of writing can be valuable in helping you discover who you are. It is a freeing thing to say I am not Steven King or Francine Prose or Jane Smiley or Annie Lamott. I wish Annie Proulx and Daniel Woodrell would write books on writing so that I could have the freedom of not being them. Admiring each as much as I do, there is an incpient danger that I would be caught up in their slip-stream.

At my age, that is not a good thing. In fact, at no age is that a good thing.

When writing books and magazines tell you it is hard work, you may be tempted to think they mean the act of creating stories is difficult but that is not the case because you have already learned from another writer who is too busy writing novels to write books on writing that you should only write things you enjoy. The hard part of the work is being yourself instead of Elmore Leonard or Joan Didion. The hard part of the work is keeping yourself from the realization that you are having too much fun and that you ought to get serious.

It sounds as convoluted as what I can now call the Twelfth Night Syndrome, with you having so much palpable fun and not writing anything serious that your friends and associated begin to wonder.

So we close with these observations:

1. Don't write anything that isn't fun. Seen from the proper perspective, even a suicide note, written in the proper spirit, could provoke important second thoughts.

2. If you see it beginning to get serious, stop and ask yourself what it will take to get you back on the right path.

3. Reread Twelfth Night at least every eighteen months.