Never Too Late: 88-year-old author publishes long-planned book
January 29, 2011
Ever wondered if you’ll ever do anything with that idea for a great novel that’s been bouncing around inside your head?
Take a look at this New York Times article about Barnaby Conrad, former secretary to renowned 20th-century novelist Sinclair Lewis
(right), who challenged Conrad to write a novel about John Wilkes Booth, as if the assassin of President Lincoln escaped and went West.
Well, Conrad, now 88, finally got around to doing it–60 years after the initial idea, and Sinclair’s insisting that he write it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I’ve not read the just-released novel myself.
But I love the idea that unlike some professional goals–being, say, an NFL fullback–88 is not a bad age to follow through on an idea that’s been, well, mulling awhile.
If you’ve started writing later in life–or maybe you’ve been writing, like Conrad, but you’ve only just now gotten around to fleshing out an old idea– let us hear your story!
Anne Lamott on Addictions, Forgiveness and the Writing Life: a Video Interview
January 26, 2011
If you’ve not yet read anything by Anne Lamott, do not pass go, do not stop for a glass of iced tea, do not stop to make up the bed–which will only need making again tomorrow: buy one of her books now before the day sweeps you away into its torrent of Duty. Operating Instructions is about the first year of her son’s life, and is a riot. Traveling Mercies and Grace, Eventually are two authentic, hilarious and insightful reflections on addictions, depression, forgiveness, mercy and much more. Here she is in a fifty-minute interview at Point Loma Nazarene University’s Writer’s Symposium By the Sea:
Monty Python and Novel-Writing
January 24, 2011
If you’re a fan of Monty Python (“Just a flesh wound!”) or of the Victorian writer Thomas Hardy (former English majors unite!) or if you’ve ever written, tried to write or hope to write a novel one day, by all means listen to this…. Yes, yes, you’re very likely in the midst of some Responsible Adult activity, but chances are dinner can wait for four minutes, and you don’t understand the kids’ math homework anymore anyway, do you? So do have a quick listen….
For those of you who remember Thomas Hardy fondly, and would like to read more, or who’d like to be reminded who the dear gentleman was, there’s the link.
And for those of you who can quote Monty Python by the page…
“A Prayer for Our Daughters”
January 22, 2011
Tonight in the storm I thaw my feet by the fire, the wood stove
Serving us well, and pray that my child will always be
Warm. Twenty inches, they say, surely ending
By noon. The snow will brush
The dog’s tummy tomorrow—no, higher. She
Likes it like that and leaps for the stick that sinks
Deep into white and is lost. Golden body a blade, she drops head-
First into drifts, plowing furrows of froth, and emerges, her muzzle a beard.
My daughter laughs at her dog, baby’s arms flailing high,
And her face smiles itself into knots. All she knows of the
Snow is beauty and light, the dog’s beard, and Daddy
Tasting of salt: it takes time to shovel the drive.
But of snow caging cars, making dangerous rides
Of less-traveled routes, of cold, inconvenience, of threat,
Of that snow she knows nothing yet. So I pray that my daughter
Will always be safe. And warm. And well loved. Though I know I must
Pray too she’ll live well aware, understanding that everyone’s not,
Not warm and not safe and not loved. So may she live
To laugh much, yet be still willing to weep
Where God’s sorrow is stamped on pain.
May long life be hers too, strands of wonder and awe,
Happy years strung together in a life of great worth. Yet
More crucially still, may the days she spends living count well,
Not for what she’s collected, bank-vaulted, but for what she has given away.
May she be healthy, God, too: show her body respect, know her parts
Were hand-knitted by you. But may she never neglect to nurture
Her soul, which can wither, and rot, without notice.
Make her lovely with delight
In life’s laughs at itself: the dog’s sideburns and beard
Made of snow. If my daughter is pretty, God, save her from self,
From gauging her success by the heads she makes turn. May she understand
Beauty’s a slippery base on which to build futures, construct lives of ideals.
May her ways speak of hope in midwinter’s despair, offer courage
For long journeys home. Let her practice the mixing of mercy
With strength, and power that knows how to kneel.
May her intellect thrive; may she be well read;
But may the life of the mind never numb her from feeling
The world can for some be cold. May her battles be few and
Worth fighting—poverty, bigotry, pain. But in the midst of the struggle,
The close of each day, may real comfort be hers in good coffee . . . and grace.
May she never know hunger, material need; may she always thirst
For truth. Let her revere nature and in it find quiet, and reckless
Communion with peace. May her passions have substance,
Have heart behind words, not easily blown into heaps
By the breeze like bed sheets off the line. But her doubts,
May she face them and fearlessly test them; for belief is not blind,
Nor faith without thought; no answer is injured by wondering why—
Though the real cannot always be measured, nor the certain always be seen.
The snow’s made soft mounds of the mailbox, the shrubs. The big
Dog, unbearded, drips, droops at our feet, and my daughter
Is rubbing her eyes. She kicks and she wiggles
To shake off sleep’s touch that would pull
Her from play. But the logs in the stove shift about,
Settle in, and the dog starts to snore as the silence wraps round
Us in rest. Stretching day from her body, my daughter dozes at last.
I hold her tight by the fire, and I pray. . . . I pray that she’ll always be warm.
“A Prayer for our Daughters” from the book Grit & Grace: Portraits of a Woman’s Life, by Joy Jordan-Lake
(published in 1997; currently out of print but available at the link below and through on-line bookstores)
A collection of stories, poems and essays from various seasons of women’s lives, GRIT & GRACE was described by The Chicago Tribune as: “Written with much heart and wit, this little gem of a book touches on the ordinary and profound experiences that make up a woman’s life . . . a poignant and satisfying collection . . . funny and sad, inspiring and awfully surprising.”
To order: Grit and Grace: Portraits of a Woman’s Life (Wheaton Literary Series)
Chilean Novelist Isabel Allende Speaks of Writing, Passion, Justice, Suffering–and why Sophia Loren is still one of the world’s most beautiful women
January 22, 2011
“Nice people with common sense do not make interesting characters; they only make good former spouses”–Isabel Allende
Here’s a video that always prompts lively conversation with my creative writing students….
You may or may not agree with everything Isabel Allende says here, but she has much to teach us about caring for the abused and forgotten–and about why her novels stay with us long after we’ve turned the last page. If you’ve never read her fiction and you enjoy gorgeously crafted, meticulously researched historicals, you might try Portrait in Sepia or Daughter of Fortune. I hope you find her talk helpful to your own efforts to tell stories of passion, truth and risk-taking….
#4 and #5 of Ten Foolproof (Nearly) Tricks Toward More Self-Discipline Writing Time
January 19, 2011
# 4—Extend Mercy, Patience and Grace Lavishly to
Others; to Yourself, Not So Much
There are times–sick babies for parents or tax season for CPAs—when you need to cut yourself some slack for not meeting your daily writing goals. But hear this (and I’ve got to listen myself): there will ALWAYS be a half dozen truly excellent 
reasons NOT to write on any given day. Some of these, particularly those involving flames, flood waters and broken bones, will sound legitimate to your friends’ and your Aunt Mildred’s sympathetic ears, and you’ll find comfort in this. But offer too much mercy to yourself about the armies of people depending on you, the endless errands you need to run, the pressures at work…and you will never, ever write on any kind of regular basis. Me either. (See earlier posts, such as the need for the Internal Colonel.)
Notice how almost all authors who’ve written more than one book speak of their writing routines like an office job:
“I only write when I feel like it; and I feel like it at 9am every morning.” -Henry Miller
Are there times you and I should cut ourselves slack? Absolutely. And that number would be—for me, at least—about 1/77 of the time I think I deserve mercy, and a hall pass to watch Casablanca for the fifty-third time. (Oh, and just so you know, that hyperlink in the previous sentence just goes to a trailer, so if you must get your silver-screen fix, you can do so in two minutes–then get back to work!)
# 5—Learn Accountability from Weight-Watchers
and AA
As anyone who has kept the flab off or stayed on the wagon can tell you, accountability is powerful stuff. If you know
you’ve got to step on a scale and watch the cringes around you, or got to be dead honest about how long it’s been since your last bender, you just might stop and think about your goals BEFORE you blow it again again.
I often start my creative writing classes at Belmont or in other workshops with students (including my queen-of-slackers self) reporting, “My name is … and it’s been … hours (or days, weeks, months, heaven help us) since I last wrote.” Just because we adults move beyond middle school and finally get a handle on acne, most days, doesn’t mean that peer pressure can’t still do its work. So find some people in your life—other writers or not—who will ask you regularly how your writing is coming, and will commit to stare at you in utter disgust if your answer is lame.
So… What helps YOU keep writing in the midst of real life?
#3 of Ten Foolproof (Nearly) Tricks Toward Self-Disciplined Writing Time
January 18, 2011
Rise Before the Roosters,
and Before Your Rational
Mind Wakes Up
Yep, early. Ugly early. So early your alarm clock will choke when it sees the time you’ve set it to go off.
Because here’s the sad truth: for most writers, the prime creative, free-of-constraints hours happen early. Painfully early.
Those who study the intricate workings of the brain could explain this phenomenon for us in fine medical terms. All I know is that somehow the creative winds blow better before anyone else in the house is awake to get in the way, including my own Responsible Adult Self which likes to remind me–one finger wagging–how much more there is to do today than there is time.
Something about the mystical early morning hours make a new day seem possible—in every sense. Later in the day, I will be convinced that I must be deranged to keep writing. I will be certain without a doubt I should have become a trucker or a figure skater or a blacksmith instead, that my whole professional life has gone badly askew. But early in the morning, I can simply enjoy the taking-flight feeling of writing. Praying. Listening. Writing again. No strings or sales figures or sinister voices attached.
So far as I’ve counted, only a handful of writers find they can function creatively after midnight, and these are all one of two categories: A) parents of very small children and B) people who put away great quaffs of bourbon while communing with the Muse—and this category tends to die young, leaving an unfortunate flotsam of three or more former spouses.
When my own kids were babies and I was often up with someone’s earache or tummy bug at 2 a.m. anyway, I’d stay up, groping for my hidden stash of imitation chocolate mini-doughnuts and Diet Coke, then using those cold, dark hours for hammering out a few pages. This can work well for those able to nap the next day, or with access to medically inadvisable volumes of
coffee.
If early-morning writing simply can’t work for you, at least give yourself a quiet five or ten minutes pre-shower to jot down ideas before your day goes careening away. You’ll find that later, if you take, for instance, a lunch hour to write, you’ll often find you’ve been mulling ideas over all morning and the creative pump will be primed.
As always, let us hear what works for YOU in finding time to WRITE IN THE MIDST OF REAL LIFE!
#1 and #2 of 10 Foolproof (Nearly) Tricks Toward More Self-Disciplined Writing Time
January 15, 2011
#1—Know the Struggles
of the
Hard-Working Writers
Who’ve Gone Before You
NOT the ones who became overnight successes, you understand. There have been only two of these in recorded history anyway. The rest of the world’s writers are all people who’ve labored away in cold, musty closets, who’ve foregone lunch hour with friends and spent it instead with vending machine Cheez-Its and a laptop, who’ve dragged themselves home from a day job and made meatloaf and tucked the kids into bed and THEN, long after dark, begun to write for the day. So remind yourself if self-pity or laziness threatens: you get to call yourself a writer ONLY if you are writing. Regularly. No whining allowed.
Early twentieth-century novelist Edith Wharton was independently wealthy enough (be sure to add visiting her Lenox, Massachusetts, estate, The Mount, to your Bucket List, by the way) to stay ensconced in her bedroom and write for hours before lunch, with her servants traipsing up to deliver breakfast. Personally, I’m a little more short-staffed than that. And 
if you are, too, that puts us in the excellent company of 99.9% of writers who are trying or who have become established writers, who keep to a schedule of writing and still do their own dishes.
#2—Create an Internal Colonel
to Whom You Must Answer
I suggest this cautiously, since most of us actually need to turn OFF those militant voices that kick in when we sit down to write (You call THAT an opening sentence? You do realize that character is a total cliché, right? Checked the stats lately for how many writers actually make a living at this?) But when it comes to setting up a TIME TO WRITE AND STICKING TO IT, most of us need somebody to show up with a uniform and large, loaded firearm.
My neighbor, a retired army colonel, was recently in charge of our community pool, and we all adored his approach. Because it took someone politely ruthless to keep roving bands of teenagers from sneaking in after hours. He had cameras installed so he could monitor pool activity even when he was out of town. Lifeguards caught texting rather than watching for small, struggling children in the deep end were taken and…let’s just say they were never heard from again. No excuses accepted. Effective? And how.
So install your own Internal Colonel and let him—or her—show up, armed, when you try rolling over in bed rather than crawling out, dropping ten, and groping your way to your writing desk.
More Foolproof (Nearly) Tricks coming soon…. And let us hear what’s worked (and hasn’t) for you!
Can You Tell a Story and Prolong the Suspense?
January 14, 2011
We’ve all had those friends who were just plain old natural born storytellers, the kind that gather big groups around them at parties and on sprawling front porches, everyone leaning in, straining to catch every word. Down here in the South, we home-grow lots of them. In fact, the National Storytelling Festival meets every year just up the road–okay, a good ways up the road–in Jonesborough, Tennessee, and while I’m not claiming that Tennesseans are always better storytellers than the rest of the country, still, you’ll notice I’m hoping you’ll draw that conclusion.
The art of storytelling, with vivid characters, conflict, rising action and sustained suspense have nothing to do with education or fancy degrees. Truth be told, the further away I get from my own graduate school years, the more I’m convinced that I wasn’t really doing myself any favors by reading Samuel Richardson’s 1,000-plus-page (and you think I’m kidding) 18th-century novel Clarissa, a story in which a young woman is seduced, drugged, raped and proceeds to die a slow and painfully melodramatic death–over the course of hundreds, and I do mean hundreds, of pages. It might still serve me well when I’m teaching literature to refer back to it with a self-confident flip of the professorial hand (the one that says I’ve read that–don’t recall much about it–but dang it, I’ve read that). Yet, when what I’m wanting to do these days is construct a story that keeps readers turning pages late into the night, Clarissa is not my friend.
A couple of years ago, a friend led me to bestselling author Ken Follett’s site (Pillars of the Earth, etc.) on which he offers a marvelous four-part lecture, free for the on-line viewing, on “The Art of Suspense.” I’ve since used it in many of the creative writing classes I’ve led, and I’m happy now to pass it along to you. Let me know if you find it useful in your own suspense-making!
Ken Follett speaks on The Art of Suspense
Author of EAT, PRAY, LOVE Talks on Nurturing Creativity, Overcoming Fear
January 14, 2011
Ever found yourself feeling shy or awkward in telling someone about the writing project you’re working on–or wish you were working on–if you could just find the time or the divine inspiration or the super-human strength to say no to a few more things in life?
Whether or not you’ve read the bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love (or seen the movie with Julia Roberts), you’ll find yourself laughing with and learning from the
author Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk on fighting the onset of fear as a creative person, dealing with writer’s block, and where artistic genius really comes from. It’s a talk I like to share with my creative writing students, or anyone working in the arts. Click below, enjoy, and let us hear what you think!
Connect with Joy
