Elizabeth Gilbert On Creative Fear

First, I want to send a hearty congratulations to my fellow Mainer, Elizabeth Strout, who has just won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of short stories, entitled OLIVE KITTERIDGE. This brings our state's grand total of Pulitzer Prize winners to around four or five. Not bad for a small, rural state.

My dear friend Bonnie sent me this link to a video of Elizabeth Gilbert (the author of the wildly successful EAT, PRAY, LOVE) talking about creativity and fear. She also addresses the problems related to writing a follow-up to a huge bestseller, which made me think back to the old Lee vs. Patterson debate. The video is about 20 minutes long and I highly recommend you take a look.

For Word Nerds

In this chilly little part of the world, spring has finally arrived. The crocuses are in bloom and the winter blues have melted with the snow. Time for yard work, digging in the garden, and finding creative inspiration in nature. I've found tiny leaves of rhubarb unfurling in my patch, and a tuft of chives in the herb garden. All that potential energy is so exciting--like when a story is burning inside you but you have yet to sit down and write the first word. Anything feels possible.


Speaking of writing...yesterday was the 50th anniversary of that ubiquitous grammar manual, Strunk & White's THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE. Author Marc Acito pays a hilarious tribute to the book on NPR's All Things Considered, which you can listen to here.


Enjoy the weekend.

American Idol Redux (Or, How Not to Get a Big Head)

Here I am, blogging about American Idol again. I can’t help it. There’s so much the show has to teach us about being artists—maybe I should do a whole series of posts on what we can learn from watching this bit of reality fluff.

Last time, I wrote about how important it is to learn how to handle criticism well. The focus was mainly on negative criticism, but as I’ve been watching the show this season, it’s occurred to me that we need to talk about handling praise, too.

If you’ve ever watched the show, you’ll know that when a contestant stands before the judges after his performance, one of two things will happen: he’ll be praised or criticized. If he’s praised, the contestant will often sigh with relief, throw this head back, and close his eyes as if to say, I’m good, I’m really good—even Simon thinks so! The crowd will cheer, affirming that this praise is the gospel truth. If he’s criticized, he’ll make excuses, become defensive, or declare it is “simply the judges’ opinion” and the crowd will boo. Apparently, if the comments are negative, they can’t be true.

Where does this attitude that praise is always true and criticism isn’t come from? As I mentioned before, automatically dismissing negative criticism is harmful to artists, who should always be striving to improve their craft. What may be even more harmful, though, is believing every nice thing said about you.

Now, I’m all for self-confidence—you can’t send your art into the world without having true faith in yourself—but I am against believing your own hype. Everyone in the entertainment industry, from movie producers to publishers, is always on the lookout for the next BIG thing. They want it so badly that when they find a project they really love, they hype it to the high heavens, sometimes forgetting that there is a person attached to this project who might be getting their hopes up.

This happens to new writers all the time. You sell your book to a publishing house and suddenly your agent and your editor are telling you about all the important people who loved your book. They tell you about the movie scouts who called. They tell you about the foreign publishers who are lined up to buy it and all the marketing campaigns that are planned. There is loose talk about trips, tours, TV shows. Oprah. Awards. Soon, the reviews come in and you’re compared to Mark Twain or Charles Dickens.

And it this point it would be so, so easy to sit back and think “I’ve made it.” For a few, this will be the case. For most, it won’t. And while your agent and editor were genuine in their excitement, neither one has the power to control the market nor the ability to know just what will strike a chord with the reading public. Sadly, if you’ve bought into all the grand predictions and none of them pan out, you’ll end up feeling like a failure, when you’re nothing of the sort.

Or maybe all the predictions hold true and you become a superstar. Wonderful. But be on guard—the moment you begin to believe the hype, you’ll be in danger of becoming complacent and your work will suffer.

A few years ago I had the terrific opportunity to sign copies of my book at Book Expo America. I can’t tell you what a thrill it was to be sitting only a few booths away from people I’ve long admired—Michael Cunningham, Spike Lee, Bill Maher. There were posters and stacks of post cards with the cover of my book on them and a long line of people who wanted to get a copy. I did a reading, a phone interview, met some of my foreign publishers. At night I collapsed in my hotel room overlooking Central Park and in the morning I woke up to room service. I was in heaven.

But after a few days, I have to say that I was starting to get a little sick of myself. All that praise and special attention was addictive, but it was also beginning to ring a little hollow. And here I was, just a first-time novelist. I could only imagine what it felt like to be a true celebrity, when people licked your boots all day, every day.

At the end of my trip, at a special dinner thrown by my publisher, I asked my college mentor, Richard Russo, how he handled praise. He’s certainly had his share, especially after winning the Pulitzer Prize for his novel EMPIRE FALLS. In answer to my question, he pointed to his wife, saying that she helped keep him steady. He also said that no matter who you are, there will inevitably come a time when people won’t talk about you anymore—or at least not as much as they did—and if you aren’t secure in yourself, you risk falling apart.

It seems to me that when it comes to praise and criticism, it’s important to keep a certain baseline of confidence that holds steady in the face of scathing reviews or spectacular praise. Any comment thrown your way should be received with proper perspective and a little distance. Remember that the work is being judged, not you. Your value as a person has nothing to do with your level of fame or talent, and cannot be altered even if you become a giant success or spectacular failure.

Harper Lee vs. James Patterson

This is my sixth day of being stuck in a house full of sick people—bad colds for my husband and me, pneumonia for my little girls. Nothing serious, thank goodness, just a lot of fevers and runny noses and cranky moods all around. And ramen noodles. Loads of them. Even though I’m sleep-deprived, I thought I’d attempt a post anyway, since it beats watching yet another kids’ movie. So forgive me if the following is a bit pointless—it’s the best I can conjure under the circumstances.

A few years ago, when I spoke with a group of high school students who had read my novel, one young man posed an interesting question: “If you had the choice of having the career of Harper Lee or James Patterson, which would you choose?”

It’s a surprisingly tough question to answer. On one hand we have Lee, whose only novel, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, so elegantly written yet politically powerful, has become a staple of the literary canon. On the other, we have the wildly popular and prolific Patterson, a mainstay of the bestseller lists. I can see the battle lines being drawn right now—literary writers for Lee and genre writers for Patterson. But let’s not kid ourselves. Every literary writer secretly hopes for popularity and every bestselling author yearns for respect. Unfortunately, the two intersect only for a very lucky few.

So, which is better—critical acclaim or popularity? In a way, it’s a moot question since both are largely out of one’s control. Getting reviewed at all (let alone getting a favorable review) is often a function of economics, taste, and dumb luck. Popularity is largely a function of timing and dumb luck, though an author with a great deal of savvy and excellent resources can affect this somewhat. Sustaining one’s critical acclaim or popularity over time is another story. Lee’s book remains one of the best American novels because it lives up to the hype. Patterson still reigns over the bestseller lists because he consistently delivers gripping stories. So while it’s easy to play the literary snob and say Lee, Patterson also deserves some respect.

The key to this question, for me, was the number of books each writer produced. Although I would love nothing more to create a work with lasting impact, the idea of writing only one novel in the course of a lifetime seems, well, a bit depressing to me. Creating a single masterpiece makes you a god forever, but it also leads a void, where everyone (including you) wonders what else you could have done.

So, to my surprise, my answer was Patterson. Not because I care about sales over quality, but because I want writing to be my lifelong career, and not just a brilliant spark that burns out too soon.

It’s funny, though. Even now, I keep asking myself if that was the right answer.

Space

John Cheever’s short story, “Reunion” is a marvel of economy. This story is so tight it squeaks. If you have twelve minutes to spare, check out The New Yorker podcast featuring Richard Ford reading this masterful story and the brief discussion that follows. Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker, mentions in the podcast that even though the story is only around 1,000 words, it feels more like a 10,000 word story with 9,000 words left unspoken.

As writers, we are often so concerned with choosing the perfect words and not leaving anything out that the idea of shifting our focus to what can be left out really turns writing on its head. It’s often easier to say everything there is to be said instead of giving the reader a little empty space to piece things together on his own. Cheever reminds us that a story can be defined as much by the written as the unwritten. Empty space doesn’t have to be empty at all.

Space is important in all art forms. Sculptors consider ‘negative space’, or the area surrounding the piece, when they create. In music, the rests are nearly as important as the notes, working in tandem with the beat to create rhythm. Listen to reggae and you’ll know what I mean. In pop and rock, the beat falls on the one and three, whereas in reggae it falls on the two and four. This subtle shift creates space where there usually is none, giving the music an entirely different feel.

Space is crucial in the dramatic arts. Think about spoken dialogue and how the meaning of what is being said changes or is heightened by the use of pauses. When I think of pauses in acting, I immediately think of Christopher Walken in the classic watch scene from PULP FICTION. Notice how he uses space for both dramatic and comedic effect (warning--clip contains offensive language).

Deciding to put space into your writing is easy to do; executing it is another matter. There is danger in trimming too much, leaving the reader feeling confused or feeling that something crucial has been left out. If you’re unsure where to start, try the “10% Rule”—get your story as tight as you can, then trim another 10%. An even better way is to study the stories of masters, like Cheever. With your writer’s eye, pay attention to what has been left out.

Update on Pat

T.S. Eliot thought April was the cruelest month, but for many of us in Maine, it’s March. With January and February behind us, it seems as though we ought to be this close to Spring, but we really have another two or three months before there is any warmth or signs of growth. Ever the optimist, I keep thinking it will be different this year, and every year it drags on and on. I’ve spent many Easter Sundays wearing thick sweaters.

One way to battle the late winter blues is to reconnect with friends. To that end, I have contacted my old college buddy Patrick Robbins. For those of you who haven’t read my previous posts about Patrick, he’s a writer who finished grad school last year and spent the summer in an Airstream trailer writing a novel. The novel poured out of him in an adrenaline rush that left me envious. For his update, I thought I’d share with you what he wrote to our alumni magazine when they asked him what he was up to:

Patrick Robbins made under six thousand dollars last year, which should start putting a dent in his $55,000 worth of grad school bills. He is unemployed, as his last position, working the third shift in a warehouse, was only a seasonal one. His car, a 1997 Ford Escort, recently passed the 135,000 mile mark - and won't pass any others, as it failed inspection spectacularly. He can't get an agent to read his novel (or at least not the first 20 he asked). He would probably be living with his girlfriend, if he had one; as it is, once this housesitting gig is over, it looks like another summer staying with his parents. All of which serves to distract him from his prehypertension and slight weight gain, though the receding hairline is harder to miss…

While Pat was having a bad day when he wrote this, he assures me that he has his share of good days, too. He still hasn’t given up on his novel, and is currently waiting to hear back from two agents. He has eight stories in circulation. And best of all, he is now writing regularly as a pop culture blogger for Examiner.com. I hope you’ll take a minute to check out his informative and always entertaining blog. I truly think he’s found his niche.

You Can Have It All--Just Not at the Same Time

The winter blues have officially set in—and not just because we're buried in fifteen inches of new snow and vacation is now a fading memory. It dawned on me this morning that in June it will be five years since my novel, THE GREATEST MAN IN CEDAR HOLE, was released in hardcover.

Oh, my. Time has certainly slipped away from me.

Knowing that five years have passed and I have not published anything makes me feel quite panicky, I assure you, though I’m a little less panicky than I used to be. The first and second anniversaries of the paperback edition gave me the prickly sweats and led to many sleepless nights. If I had had a project in the pipeline, it wouldn’t have been so bad. But I had nothing. I was losing momentum. The more I white-knuckled it, the harder it was to write.

So, I relaxed. An idea finally did come to me, but the problem was more about time than will. Being the mother of very active, preschool-aged twins leaves me with very little mental or physical energy to be productive. It used to be that when I had a moment to be still, a narrative would constantly be flowing in my head. Now, when I find that rare moment of quiet, I hear nothing.

When I started my writing career, I was single, living in New York, and producing four books a year as a ghostwriter in addition to working full-time at a literary agency. I lived with a constant adrenaline rush, always facing a deadline or having a book coming out. It felt great to be doing the very thing I loved the most. In six years, I produced 14 books, though I won’t pretend for a minute that ghostwriting teen books is anywhere as difficult as writing an adult literary novel. It took me five years to do that, largely because I am a very slow, deliberate writer.

I remember a conversation I had with some housemates (I lived in a boarding house) about work and relationships, and someone brought up an old adage that has many different permutations, but his version was this: “You can have a great relationship, a great social life, and a career, but not all three at the same time.” Everyone at the table looked at me, as though I was the apparent exception to this, but I assured them that even though I had a great relationship and a career I loved, I had no social life at all. This seemed to bring great relief to my housemates, who all felt that they were lacking in some aspect of this trinity of happiness.

I used to think that people who complained about not being able to “have it all” just weren’t trying hard enough, but now I’m thinking that the rule of three is probably true for most of us. I still have the great relationship (and now family life), I have a great network of friends (though some of you keep moving away), but at the moment, no career. There are some people who appear to have no trouble with this balancing act—Soule Mama, for example—but I have yet to figure out the trick to having success on all fronts. Every time I focus on one aspect of my life—writing, for example—something else goes to hell, like the housekeeping. Every time I put out a fire, I inadvertently start a new one someplace else.

I take the edge off my panic by telling myself that there is a time for everything, and right now, it’s my time to be a mother. In two years they’ll be in school full time and I’ll have a much easier time with my juggling act, so enjoy the moment. And I really do. But I’ll never fully surrender to literary idleness, either. My moments of creation are so rare but they still give me such deep satisfaction that giving up just isn’t an option. As far as my career goes, I'm thinking I may have to re-adjust my expectations just a little.

(P.S. If anyone familiar with Blogger can help me with my inconsistent fonts, I would really appreciate it. For some reason, I can't fix this problem.)