10 Rules for Writing: Margaret Atwood

Every author has their favorite rules or ways of writing. Our work can benefit  from learning their process. In the same way it's accepted painters  learn from the masters , writers too can learn from other writers. ( I wrote in more detail about this in the post An Infinite Authors Resource .) The writer doesn't  have to be your favorite, but their work must be relevant. When you're having trouble with a piece of work - your blog, fiction or non-fiction  - don't reinvent the wheel or plagiarize, but  look at how someone else tackled the problem. For issues on social media, the internet or  websites, I'd go to  Sherryl Perry or Leora Wenger . If you want a slow build up of fear try Helen Dunmore's 'The Betrayal'. For a more 'in your face' scary scene maybe go to Stephen King. Margaret Atwood's 10 Rules for Writing Fiction1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a memory stick.5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B.7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ¬essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.10 Prayer might work. Or reading something else. Or a constant visualization of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.NB: Margaret Atwood's rules for writing fiction, originally appeared as part of a feature in  The Guardian . I'd like to give a special thanks to Robert Bruce of  http://101books.net/ ( a fantastic site for book-lovers), who reminded me of her list in a recent post he did on Steinbeck.

------------------------------------------------I really love her dry sense of humor and sticking with the basics, like using a pencil, or your arm!  The rules could also apply to virtually any kind of writing.

OK, my turn...though I have made it easy on myself by only doing three.

A.K. Andrew's Top 3 Writing Rules :1. Write little and often. (Whatever  interpretation works for you)2.  Always carry a notebook (paper or electronic). Odd words or thoughts come  at any time day or night and trying to rely on your memory to recall them is hopeless. I've learned how to write small groups of words in the dark, then decipher them in the morning.3. Write what you enjoy. If you're not enjoying the process, your reader will never be engaged.What are your top 3 writing Rules?  (See I've made it easy for you too!) I'd love to hear your thoughts - and perhaps between us, we can come up with a really great new list of  10 Writing Rules.Note: This will be my last post for a month, so enjoy the end of summer and I'll see you back here near the end of September. Follow me on: -Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/artyyah/Twitter: @artyyahFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/akandrewwriterFor  regular updates of my blog: Subscribe Here  

Receiving a Versatile Blogger Award!

In the short time I've been blogging I've found other bloggers to be an extremely friendly, helpful bunch of people. Always going the extra mile to help out with problem or suggest an easier way to do things or an effective plug-in or  widget.  Sherryl Perry of http://keepupwiththeweb.com/ gave me enormous support recently when my account was hacked.I belong to Bloggers Helping Bloggers on LinkedIn and the group is fantastic – we read each other’s blogs, exchange comments as well as practical advice.But this week I’ve been totally blown away by receiving  the Versatile Blogger Award from Susan Cooper. Yeah!!! Thank you so much Susan. What an honor and so completely unexpected!You can find Susan Cooper on her award winning blog at http://findingourwaynow.comSusan herself has a great blog and is the recipient of a number of awards  - the Sunshine Blog, and Versatile Blogger Awards from “searchingforthehappiness“ and recently the Readers Appreciation Award from “Little Box Of Books“.As she says on her blog, she has a passion for life, but I’d say her generosity of spirit is the key to her success.In the twenty years while I was in business, I  believed competition and sharing information was a positive – in business this only hold's  true up to a point. So now I’m a novelist and a blogger, I’m delighted to find it’s a world of exchanging ideas, information and camaraderie.Part of receiving the award requires telling Susan 7 things about myself. Some feel more secret than others.

1. I love all things Italian – the country the culture, the food, the language. It’s been a dream of mine to live there someday – well for 6 months at least - but the older I get, the less likely it becomes. Visits are lovely though and Umbria is my favorite region.
2. I enjoy playing chess on-line. I’ve always thought of chess as being the most boring, nerdy thing in the world, until I discovered playing online and having 3 days to make a move. I enjoy playing live too. Wanna play? Let me know.
3. My cat likes to wake me up by purring loudly in my ear or tickling my nose with her whiskers. Since I left home at eighteen, I've never lived without a cat.
4. I have an auto-immune condition which saps my energy and limits my mobility. But without it, I probably wouldn’t have had the time to explore becoming a writer. It started with a journal and  went from there. Writing is something I can do in small chunks. Having been a type ‘A’ personality all my life, pacing myself is hard, but after 13 yrs I’m improving (ya think?!)
5. I’m a breast cancer survivor. I was very lucky and although I had a mastectomy, I didn't have  to have chemo or radiotherapy. Now I can join the Amazonian archery club!   I wrote my first published story during one nerve-wracking weekend while I was waiting for test results. It was a fantastic therapeutic way of dealing with the stress. I’ve been cancer free for 7 years.
6. I believe everyone is creative. We all have to find what creativity we can tap into, whether it’s gardening, metal work, sewing, sculpting or whatever. So many things stand in our way – time, inclination & the nagging self critic that sits on our shoulders saying ‘I’m no good at…' or 'I can’t…’ . We all have it at one time or another. It’s a question of taking a leap of faith in ourselves, and not worrying what others think. It’s the process that’s important not the result. Kind of like the journey not the destination.
7.  I’m a painter. I started going to a drawing class, 20 yrs ago as a form of relaxation away from a stressful job. Then I moved on to painting. As I said above,  for me it’s the process that’s important. I find painting (like writing) very meditative. When I started to have problems with my joints and mobility, I had to change the way I worked. Recently Susan Cooper introduced me to the program iDraw that she uses for the great drawings in some of her blogs. From there, I’ve gone on to start using ‘Brushes’ which is the app. David Hockney uses. I'd been looking at the full moon one night, so this ended up being  my first painting on an iphone. Thanks again Susan!

Now I need to pass the torch and nominate 15 bloggers to receive the Versatile Blogger Award.  I hope you check them out. There's some great blogs in there, but it was a difficult choice. I also knew people such as Claire Capetta and Doreen Pendracs for example, that I couldn't nominate as they already had the award.1. Keepupwiththeweb2. nhwn.wordpress.com3. leftcoastvoices.wordpress.com4. 101books.net/5. rowenadunn.wordpress.com/6. catarinasworld.com/7. biz.leoraw.com/8. ohegarty.blogspot.co.uk/9. susiebright.blogs.com/10. 3chicspolitico.com/11. brainpickings.org/12. thoughtlessbeauty.tumblr.com/13. zenashapter.com/blog/14.francescacarboni.blogspot.co.uk/15. angelaejkoh.com/ If you would like to check out more information about the award go to http://versatilebloggeraward.wordpress.com It's fantastic to see all the other nominees - and have the rules explained etc.Thanks again Susan for the award,  and thanks also to everyone who has come to my blog and left comments. The discussions are the part that  makes it really worth while.I'd love to hear your comments on blogging or the award. Come and join the discussion. Yeah!!! Subscribe at the top of bottom of the page.Twitter: @ artyyah    

#Authors - An Infinite Writer's Resource

Writers are always looking for resources, whether it’s for technique, style, how to get published, or ideas for a story. The single best resource is using other authors as a reference for better ways of working.During my Creative Writing Certificate course at Sussex University, we spent one semester on  ‘Special Author’.  We each chose an author, and a particular novel, whose work we thought would most benefit our own. I chose The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. We looked at all aspects from first encounter, tracing sub-plots and the climax of the story to name a few.At the end of the semester we each gave a verbal presentation to the class, which forced us to study the work, and think about it in a critical way we’d never have done otherwise. We were lucky to have Susannah Waters as our tutor - a stickler for precision in technique and critique skills,  with an incredible passion for the process. (FYI Susannah does independent mentoring and manuscript assessment, as well as  teaching at Arvon. See *below for contact details)The purpose of the course was not to necessarily emulate the author, but to look at how they might deal with different aspects of writing from dialogue to creating suspense, character and setting and thereby learn from them. A simple example is in my novel Radio Echo- the first scene in Bologna is set in a graveyard. I’d had no thought of using that location until our tutor asked us to create a scene in a setting used by our Special Author.As an example of how to learn from another writer’s work, I’ve chosen two pieces of text from The Blind Assassin to look at dialogue and description, and see what Atwood does with them. The sparingly used dialogue in Atwood’s novel, functions as an insight into character relationships, rather than moving the plot forward.  The immediacy is emphasized by the use of present tense. The dialogue is tight, short phrases back and forth, rarely interrupted by gesture. This accentuates the intimacy and envelopes two individuals in their own world during the scene. It’s the lover’s first sexual encounter; this is never stated, but just enough information is given to spark the reader’s own imagination. Don’t worry so much, he says. Lie Down.Don’t you’ll tear it. Wait a minute.She hears her own voice. It isn’t her voice, its too breathless. ....Smoke  taste on his mouth, salt in her own; all around, the smell of crushed weeds and cat, of disregarded corners. Dampness and growth, dirt on the knees, grimy and lush; leggy dandelion stretching towards the light.Below where they’re lying the ripple of a stream. Above, leafy branches ...the blue sky in splinters. Hard dirt under her back.¹ The text shows Atwood’s excellent use of metaphor and simile. Her descriptions are not elaborate: they simply use evocative words to show what’s in the scene. Once that is established, she then places the character, in a physical sense, into the scene, which highlights the physical nature of the encounter, but also grounds the reader.The second text shows description of setting that also conveys the mood of the scene. It’s the last time the lovers meet and the scene depicts resignation, a bleak encounter in a rundown motel.A carpet once dark blue and red. A pathway strewn with flowers, worn down now to the roots.I’m sorry, he says. It could be better. ² Painters are renowned for learning from other painters – “learn from the masters”. So why should it be any different for writers? We’re not talking plagiarism, but simple learning by example.At the end of the course I realized as a writer I'd always have an infinite resource if I was stuck and wanted to know how to deal with a scene. Looking for a spare style?  - go Raymond Carver, or Cormac McCarthy. Want to portray a character who’s fraught to the point of despair? - go to the scene in 'Anna Karenina' leading up to the suicide. Write text that will push emotional buttons? – Jodi Picoult.Etc. ad infinitum.We first learn to love books by reading them. Learn to love writing from the same source.Who or where do you go to when you’re stuck? What authors would you recommend for particular styles?Let me know. For me, learning is an ongoing process.  Excerpts from The Blind Assassin by Margaret AtwoodPaperback 2001 Virago press¹Pg 32 -33 Chapter - The Lipstick Heart²Pg 563 Chapter – The B Rage Room *Susannah Waters:-susannahwaters@yahoo.co.ukLiterary Mentoring and Manuscript Assessment. To follow this blog click on “FOLLOW” in the bottom right hand side of the page. 

#Editing Forward

How many times have you groaned about having to go ‘back’ and edit a piece of work? And yet all writing is rewriting. I’m fortunate that for the most part I enjoy editing. In fact I often view it as a way of ‘keeping in touch’ with my work when there’s not a lot of time. Edit a short passage – even a sentence – rather than wait for the 2 hr stretch that won’t come along so easily - and it keeps your mind from losing the plot so to speak. Makes it easier to get started the next time you come back to the work. In short I’m a big advocate of little and often. But hey, no one’s perfect, and I can get ground down and see editing as something that’s dragging me back, stopping me moving forward. But no more. This afternoon I had an epiphany!Today is the start of British Summertime. The clocks went forward – which is what prompted my train of thought. It’s been a lovely weekend in Brighton, on the south coast of England, and yesterday I went down to the seafront. It could have been the start of summer. The stripy deckchairs were out, seaside kitsch was back on sale – bags of shells, flip-flops, small containers of shrimps and half shells of freshly caught crab. Men had taken off their shirts, women wore bikinis – generally a lot of pale skin that hadn’t seen a stroke of sun for many months.  There were even some people with a couple of toes in the water. And not the hardy 365 days a year swimmers.The Wurlitzer carousel, built in 1888 has been reassembled into its circle, though when I was there at 10.30 the horses were still wrapped in a giant tent of tarpaulin. There was a sense of emergence in the air, a new season, a new beginning.It was only today when I sat down to do a bit of editing, secretly wanting to press on with where I’d left off, that I realised the problem was that I was looking at editing from the wrong perspective. Editing is not going back but going forward. As you may have seen in my last post I’ve changed the title of my first novel to ‘Radio Echo’. I’ve also recently re-edited the first three chapters (rewrite 28?). Both things have been very positive in my approach to the work. When you edit a section, it’s done to make it better. You might be approaching it with some feedback from other people, or with merely a keener eye from yourself. But the chances are very good that you’re going to make the work better. So in what way is that ‘going back’? The answer is it’s not. It’s moving forward.I’m not being Pollyannaish about this, it’s simply a fact. You are moving your work forward every time you edit. There is no going back about it. So if we keep this in mind, then maybe it will help to take the groan out of having to edit. When you’re sitting down to edit a 60-100,000w bit of work, it’s going to be more than a quick ten-minute task. Inevitably there’ll come a point – or several points, where you feel jaded, bored – whatever you want to call it. But more often than not, we’re editing smaller chunks - a line, a paragraph, or a couple of chapters. All of this is moving the work forward, which is a good thing. To be a writer you have to enjoy rewriting. That’s the fact of the matter. If you don’t, then you’ll rarely get past one edit without it being an unpleasant gut-wrenching task. It’s impossible to edit everything as you go along. The work needs distance. Then you move forward. You edit.I hope that looking at it as editing forward, rather than going back to edit is of some help to those of you who dislike the task. We all have different writing habits, methods, rituals that work for each one of us. How do you approach your editing? Are there ways you make it go faster or are more economical with your time?Let me know what you’re approach is, bad habits you’d like to get out of or any good habits you want to share.I’d love to hear from you!  

Cantoni Sisters - What's in a Name?

I've changed the name of my first novel to The Cantoni Sisters.What's in a name? Depending on what it is  - everything.  For a person, it's either a moniker they're stuck with and hate their entire life, or probably for most of us it's one we're ok with, maybe we play around with abbreviations, nicknames, but settle for what we're given. But names are important. Rightly or wrongly, they can give an impression of what that person is like, or let us foolishly go along with our preconceptions.Would we think of a strong, manly figure being called Pinkie? Well, I would have said no But take the main character in Brighton Rock, by Graham Greene. He's called Pinkie and he's a mean spirited thug. But did that make him strong and manly?  You make the call.For writers, and particularly novelists, as we need to live with the characters for so long - as do our readers - names are incredibly important. I spent hours deliberating names for my characters for my first novel. The fact they are Italian names did not make the job easier. We each have personal associations that interfere with potential choices - people we know, or someone we don't care for; perhaps a teacher who was particularly mean. Our own history colours our decision as well as the characters we're trying to portray.Some people say having names that begin with the same letters make it confusing for the reader. Two brothers called Harry and Henry, I can imagine being easy to mix up, unless their characters are either extremely well defined and/or very different from each other. Take the Kray brothers - Ronnie and Reggie Kray.  Can anyone remember which was which despite the publicity at the time, or the filmic portrayals etc.? I can’t.The younger sister in my novel is called Alma. But initially the older sister, the main protagonist of the novel, was Essie (an Italian abbreviation of Esther). For me I knew who they were, but other people found their names too similar. They had the same number of syllables and they found them confusing. I eventually changed Essie’s name to Raffaella, which instantly made her a different character both in my mind and on the page. I also had to admit, part of the problem was her character hadn’t been clearly enough defined. So changing her name helped me shape her character. I talked about character in my blog a few weeks ago (see Real Characters Feb 18^th).So where does that leave us with the title of the work, in this case a novel? That too has to fit, has to mean something to someone who picks up the book and has only the blurb on the back cover and the title to help them decide whether or not to buy it. For the past 3 yrs the novel has been called Tracing Paper. And it fit the novel when I began. But the novel has changed so much, that the meaning behind it has become diluted.So after a professional critique of the beginning chapters and other writers who thought it no longer fit, I have changed the title to The Cantoni Sisters.Letting go of the original name has been hard – almost like letting go of a friend. But as with any rewrites, you have to be prepared to be brutal, even if it was a favourite piece of the work. Publishers often change titles, so I may have to let go of it again. But to me, writing is all about change and rewrites. How else can the work grow and improve? My hope is that long term it will help me deal with change in real life, which is usually just a tad bit harder than a quick tap of a key or stroke of a pen.How do you go about choosing names, or the title for your latest work? Was it a difficult process? Is it one that's ongoing?I’d love to hear from you.

Italian Jews in the Holocaust (orig.posted Jan 27th)

 You who live safeIn your warm houses…   Consider if this is a man    Who works in the mud    Who does not know peace    Who fights for a scrap of bread  Who dies because of a yes or no. From ‘If this is a Man’ by Primo Levi Today, January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance day. The date was chosen as it’s the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops in 1945. In Italy it's called ‘Giorna della Memoria’In remembering the Holocaust, it’s rare that Italian Jews are mentioned. Perhaps because it’s a Catholic country, there might be an incorrect assumption that there wasn’t a Jewish community in Italy. More than 8,000 Jews were deported and killed in the death camps. When WWII broke out there were over 42,000 Jews living in Italy. Put simply, 20% of the Italian Jewish community was lost in a little over a year.An Italian Jewish community still thrives in Italy today, mainly living in Northern Italy in the cities. Like many other countries, Italy has a long history of anti-Semitism. The word ghetto is an Italian term first used in Venice, the site of the first Jewish Ghetto in the 16^th century. It’s a term combining ‘gheto’ or ‘ghet’, which means slag or waste from a foundry (which was located near the area of Jewish confinement) and borghetto the diminutive of ‘borgo’ or borough.Jews were compelled to live in city ghettos which following the Venetian example. Gates at the exits were locked an hour after sunset until dawn. This went on for literally hundreds of years. Only after the unification of Italy in 1861 were Italian Jews gradually allowed to live in other areas.The ghettos themselves, usually in undesirable locations of the city, were places of overcrowding and poor housing, and owned by Christians; Jews themselves were prohibited from owning property. Poverty was rampant as the types of trades Jews were able to pursue was restricted e.g. ragmen, second hand dealers, or fishmongers. Jews could also be pawnbrokers, the latter profession stirring considerable hatred towards them. Most Jewish women, because they didn’t work outside of the home were not allowed to leave the ghetto. On occasions they did, they had to wear a yellow veil, the same color as prostitutes.In the decades prior to WWII Italians were generally more tolerant towards Jews than other European countries. This is perhaps rooted in the fact that as a community, Italian Jews more assimilated into Italian society. It was not unusual, Jews to marry Italian Catholics, and there were high ranking Jews in the Fascist Party.Mussolini and Fascism in Italy was a way of life that initially did not initially discriminate against Jews. In fact there were the same percentage of Jews in the fascist party as there were Jews in Italian society. However once Mussolini allied himself to Hitler things changed. In 1938 the Racial Laws were passed.  In effect, the laws barred Jews from participating in society - they were banned from any form of state education teachers, professors and students alike. They were banned from libraries, from seaside resorts, from employing, or marrying non-Jews, owning a sizeable business or property, or a radio. Once Italy came into the war in 1940, Jewish refugees were interned in concentration camps in Italy. The most famous of these was Fossoli near Modena. This aspect of Jewish life changing is touched on in the early parts of Radio Echo.Then in 1943 the Allies landed in southern Italy, and Northern Italy became occupied by the Nazis. A campaign was then launched to deport all Italian Jews out of Italy. On October 18^th 1943 the Rome ghetto was raided, and in one day, 1,200 Jews were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz.Another issue that is individual to Italy is the position of the Catholic Church with regard to the deportations, as well as saving many Italian Jews. Again this issue is touched on in Tracing Paper. Many people criticized Pope Pius XII for doing little to intervene. That said, one cannot speak highly enough of the many individual priests and nuns who chose to risk their own lives without a papal decree to shelter Jews.Probably the most famous Italian Jew in literature is Primo Levi. In “If This Is a Man?” Levi writes about his life and survival in Auschwitz, as well as the many Jews who fought in the Italian resistance. The irony of the opening line of his preface “It was my good fortune to be deported to Auschwitz only in 1944…” shows the spirit of survival that was uppermost in his thoughts. Every crumb of thought, or bread he had, or movement he made, led to his survival. His very being was on a singular path. And luck was on his side.Those targeted by the Nazi’s pursuit of a ‘master race’ were not only Jews. Other groups include Gypsies, Lesbians, Gays and the physically and mentally disabled – anyone considered sub-human or imperfect.To those who were less fortunate than Primo Levi, we remember you.We remember you and we will never forget.CommentsDavid

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:12:26

Thank you for this sensitive account, Kathy. It is unfortunate that collective memory seems in such short supply these days, and so many of the same prejudices are even now reasserting themselves in Europe and the UK.A.K.Andrew

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:15:16

Thanks David. I completely agree. Unbelievable, but unfortunately true. That in itself is very scary.  

And it’s 1, 2, 3, What Are We Writing For? (orig. post Jan 20th)

And it’s 1, 2, 3, What Are We Writing For? I’ve been taking a poetry class with Catherine Smith (see Links page), called Pushing the Boundaries. I wanted to get to know one of the characters better in my new novel Under the Bed - she’s a 25 year-old poet in the East Village in 1969. A not very good poet, so I figured she wouldn’t be too hard for me to emulate. I’ve also been a bit poetry phobic so I thought it would kill two birds with one stone. I’ve loved learning the value of brevity, which can only be a good thing for a prose writer.This week we did a Ghazal, which comes from a musical tradition of Urdu poetry, going back to the 14th century. A ghazal is made up of several couplets, which traditionally would have been set to music, sung and performed. When sung, the music provides an interlude for the audience between each couplet allowing them to resonate. An important aspect of the couplet is that each should stand on its own as an aphorism. The couplets have been compared to a ‘stone from a necklace’, each with a value of its own. Once put together it’s part of a whole. I’ve included here the ghazal I wrote as “Izzie”. Ghazal:  When is a War not a War?By “Izzie” 1969 No poem or painting is finished without our eyes to see.We decide what it means. Dare to say what we see. Are the mix of hues and colors still on the canvaswhen they’re left in a darkened room, too dark to see? Have all the colors in the world disappeared whenthe sun is blazing white, so bright we cannot see? Where have the other colors run to, in a land where sun burnscrimson, earth and rivers reflect blood red for all to see? What is more real? What we think we see, what we’re toldto think, or what is shot in front of the whole world to see? TV images of the War up Close - visual bombardment more realthan any reality in the commonplace we live and see. Izzie’s paintings are finished by the viewer’s eyes. Can wefinish the War by what we dare to think and say and see?  The ghazal I’ve written asks more questions than I answer, which is symptomatic of the times (1969) and how a 25 yr. might have viewed them. By coincidence, after I’d written the ghazal, I came across a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin on twitter this week, which I thought was apropos:“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live … “ In the critique part of Catherine’s poetry class, I talked about the fact that the Vietnam War was really the first war recorded live on television. We also referenced the iconic satirical protest song ‘Fixing To Die’ by Country Joe McDonald *The refrain says it all: - And it’s 1,2,3, what are we fighting for,Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damnThe next stop is Vietnam,And it 5,6,7 open up the pearly gates,There ain’t no time to wonder whyWhoopee we’re all gonna die To most people in the UK ‘during the war’ refers to WWII. When I first went to live in San Francisco in the early 80s, when people talked about ‘the war’ everyone was referring to Vietnam. I think it’s hard for people in the UK to fully understand the enormity of the effect the Vietnam War had on an entire generation of Americans. So in the spirit of my ghazal, mixed with Country Joe’s humor,  I’m going to leave you with the question: What are we writing for? Click on Comments at the bottom of this post and let me know. * Here’s a link to Country Joe’s performance of ‘Fixing to Die’ at Woodstock, August 1969.Country Joe @ Woodstockhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdeCxJmcAoCommentsJess

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:34:23

what are we writing for? To stay alive, to be alive, to be able to say all the things we can't speak aloud ourselves and to see how all these things look through other people's eyes.A.K.Andrew

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:02:07

Thanks for getting the ball rolling Jess. I have to agree with you, especially the part about seeing how things look through other people's eyes. To actually get inside their minds is pretty amazing. I think it helps us understand other peoples motivation too.Catherine Smith

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 04:48:54

I agree with both of you - and writing reminds me I want to keep asking questions.I want to find out what I belive, what is important to me. I don't always find the answers, but asking the questions still feels essential. Love your blog, Kathy! ;-)A.K.

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 08:05:10

Thanks Catherine. And you're right The questions always take the lead.  

Real Characters (orig. post Jan 13th)

Real Characters

I recently watched a US hospital drama in which Alfre Woodard (an excellent, but underrated actor) played a writer desperate to finish a novel before her aneurism burst. She said the characters in her book were her family. I understood what she meant. They were real to her and her readers. That’s when you know if the character is successful or not. The three-dimensional nature of characters is to me the test of a good book. Plot is great, but without characters it's worthless.When writing Radio Echo, I struggled for months writing the characters of the two sisters. Then I started to write the character of the homosexual fascist. I was staggered that he just fell off the end of my pen. I instantly cared about him despite his unlikeable nature – or at least his distasteful politics. I realised in part that with the two sisters, I’d focused on what happened to them, rather than who they were; trying to nail the plot of the entire novel, at the expense of their character. I re-worked them, and now they’re three-dimensional.I think the response of the viewer for any art form is an integral part of the process. Arguably, the end product could be considered incomplete without the response of the viewer, however different that individual response is. I could go further and say that fictitious characters are as important as real flesh and blood characters if they have had an effect on you as individuals. If fictional characters can evoke emotion, isn’t that about as good as it gets in terms of anything meaningful? Okay you can't hug or touch a character in a novel, call them up and have a chat. But to miss them when the novel ends and to wonder what happened to them or to feel changed by them is to learn something about one's self. Especially as an adolescent, but also as an adult, a good character in a book might express what you’ve been thinking all along, but didn't have the words to say it. How often have you finished a good book and said –‘yeah that’s what I meant’?Much of Radio Echo is set in Bologna. The central piazza there, Piazza Maggiore features in the hearts and minds of the characters. “We’ll be dancing with GI’s in Piazza Maggiore before the end of the year,” one of the characters says after the Allies have taken Rome. The sentiment encompasses the hope that people had at that point in Northern Italy. Because the novel is historical, characters have root in real life. They all are fictitious; none of them are based on real people per se. None of the individual events are based on real events. But of course in other ways they are based on things that did actually happen. So when I went to Piazza Maggiore myself, I was fighting back the tears. I had lived with those characters for a long time and it was as if I, in their place, had made it back to the piazza. And of course the citizens of Bologna and returning resistance fighters did congregate there and celebrate with the Allied troops when Bologna was liberated in April 1945.The memorial in Piazza Maggiore is very different to any of the war memorials I’ve seen in England. It is dedicated solely to the men and women who died fighting in the Italian resistance. Instead of just a list of names, there’s a photo of each person printed on a tile and so you have an image of that person as they were in the mid 1940s with their name beneath it. More than just a list of names, the sight of the images together makes them truly real characters.   

Route 66 to Writing Rooms (orig. post Jan 9th)

Route 66 to Writing Rooms.I started this week by having a spinal MRI. In order to get this layered X-ray, they slide you into a big white tube, somewhat similar I imagine, to being in a cylindrical coffin. The ceiling is about 4 inches above your head. I've had a number of these over the years and initially claustrophobia ruled big time. An MRI doesn’t scare me now. I don’t have the hideous panic of having to claw my way out of the tube. But its taken work. To combat my claustrophobia I started some years ago by never, ever opening my eyes while I was in the tube. To open them gave way to panic. Then, eyes shut, I’d meditate or at least imagine being in a different place. By the ocean or some wide-open space. Anything but an enclosed environment.This time I put myself in a different place by thinking about a character in ‘Under the Bed’, the novel I’m working on. Instead of focusing on the closeness of the ceiling my character took me to the main thoroughfare of Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1951. Walking up Central Avenue, I was surrounded by flashing neon both sides of the street; motels and all kinds of American Southwest kitsch popular back in the day. Central Avenue was Route 66. It still is Route 66. The cache of going from ‘Chicago to LA’ on a single highway has been lost, but you can still see the remnants of the motels that used to be crowded with travellers looking for somewhere cheap to spend a night. Central Avenue is still thriving in it’s own way, although you might ‘get your kicks on Route 66’ with one of the hookers who wander up and down the strip at night. Some of the motels have been renovated, but most either don't exist or are in disrepair.I then followed my character to 1969 Harlem in New York City. There’s a loud drilling noise that accompanies an MRI, which is similar to the opening bars of a Ramones song or a jackhammer. I prefer the Ramones analogy, but it was bizarre to hear that noise and yet I was in a gospel church a couple of blocks off Seventh Avenue up in Harlem. The choir and the congregation were singing ‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’.This isn’t the first time I’ve used hospital time to write. I always take a notebook with me wherever I go, but especially to the hospital as wait times are often long. In Radio Echo, my first novel, I decided on one of the main characters fate while I sat shivering in one of those charming little tie gowns they give you that make you look ridiculous with shoes and socks still on, white legs poking out. I sat in a cubicle with the curtains drawn, writing frantically, wanting to get down the plot epiphany before the nurse called my name.So writing has become a liberation in terms of hospital visits, because now it’s not a waiting room but a writing room. We all know a writer should carry a notebook, jot things down, make notes at every available opportunity. Easier said than done. I’ve picked up the habit by having enforced periods of what would otherwise have been mind numbing boredom. Instead I’m freeing up time to be creative that would have been lost in a frustration of waiting for the doctor or waiting for a friend to arrive or waiting for the car to be repaired.So now, waiting rooms are not something to be dreaded or avoided. Waiting rooms are writing rooms.CommentsGed DuncanFri, 06 Jan 2012 01:13:39'Would you get hip to this kindly tipAnd go take that MRI tripGet your kicks on Route 66'thanks for the heads up on journeying in the mind and redeeming the time - hope the soundtrack didn't show up on the scan xxA.K. AndrewFri, 06 Jan 2012 02:37:25Thanks for the comment Ged. I'm hoping the soundtrack does show up on the MRI. Might make it easier to twist again.RowenaFri, 06 Jan 2012 04:23:34Thanks Kathy, It's a great message that no time is dead time when you can use it to write, or imagine a story.You've reminded me of the concentration it takes to believe that you're not in a coffin when you're inside an MRI machine - I had white knuckles clutching the panic button.....A.KFri, 06 Jan 2012 04:41:13Thanks for the comment Rowena. Its easy to forget all the times one could have to write. Yeah - I've gripped that button pretty hard myself at times.tom tomMon, 09 Jan 2012 22:58:18Hospital machinery is sometimes the only way to travel. I wrote significant parts of Under the Singer in my early days of writing, while waiting in X ray departments. Deciding to use my own experiences to fatten out the character of Joseph allowed me to consider the fact that these quiet, slightly detached people looking after me, may well be about to discover I have cancer and it would really screw up their day.I look forward to the next instalment of your road trip.AKMon, 09 Jan 2012 23:02:33Thanks Tom. Hospital machinery is a cheap ride in UK at least. Now the US - ah .. a different beast altogether. Theirs is more shiny & expensive.NoelMon, 09 Jan 2012 23:26:03Oklahoma City sure looks pretty... If I don't have a notebook or pen I use the notes app on my phone. God, I'm so modern it's frightening.KateThu, 12 Jan 2012 21:01:30I'm booking an MRI. Thanks for the journey, Kathy.