I had to stop working on a project for two weeks and now the thing feels cold as a corpse. I’ve lost contact with the whole fucking thing. When I was working on it every day, scenes were coming to me in the shower and on the bus. Okay, I don’t take the bus, but you know what I mean. Yes, I know when I spend the time, it will come alive. Only who wants to touch a corpse?

I used to make pottery and it was the same damn thing. You had to touch the clay every day to make sure it didn’t dry out so you could trim the bottom and make designs. Air goes out of tires, love goes out of friendships, time slips by, books die.

How are you today?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 24 Comments »

Who is your first reader? The person you trust with your baby bird? The person whose opinion you value above all. The person who knows you, knows your work, knows what you’re capable of? The friend you met in grad school, or at a writer’s conference or in the fiction aisle of the local bookstore. That person who can look you in the eye, whose comments are right and make sense and you can use,  who sees the metaphor for the trees. I always tell people that your first reader should never be your wife, husband, lover, or mother.

Who is your first reader?f

Filed under: Uncategorized | 13 Comments »

I was approached by a writer at a conference this summer. He asked me if I thought his memoir would ever get published. Then he told me about his life, “basically a rags to riches story.” Then he told me that he’d been working with a ghost writer, only that didn’t work out so he hired an independent editor. What did I think? What were his chances? I thought that the book had basically no chance of getting published (unless he planned to self-publish). Memoirs by famous people are ghostwritten, but memoirs otherwise need to be written by real writers. It’s not the story, it’s the writing that distinguishes a memoir, the literary merits, often taking years to develop and hone. Most first time writers don’t seem to realize that.

What would you have told him?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 18 Comments »

“People in their right minds never take pride in their own talents.” –Harper Lee

Okay, but why? Because you sound like a horse’s ass, because the moment you go braying about your novel a train will run you over, a wrecking ball will squish you, the contract you just signed will be revoked. Or maybe it’s because you have no talent, you overestimate yourself, you set your peg too high. Because pride is a seventh wonder of the world, a potent cocktail, a codicil, a moment you can’t take back. “I’m at the height of my career,” a writer recently said to me. I thought, “You’re not in your right mind.”

Are you?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 18 Comments »

You’re a first novelist and your mentor from the Iowa Writer’s Conference has referred you to her agent. You send your book to the agent who replies right away. At the same time, your uncle’s high school friend is a famous agent, famous for his A-list writers and unscrupulous ways. Both agents read your novel in under a week and offer representation. Your mentor’s agent has a great reputation, has launched a number of other young literary writers and is known for being hands-on. People says she’s amazing, but not that aggressive. The uncle’s friend is dazzling, seductive, represents writers who are your heroes. He is known for being all about the deal and landing big advances.

Who do you go with?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 22 Comments »

The first time you sent out a story the first time you got rejected the first time you got accepted the first time you kissed a boy the first time you started a novel the first short story the first time you saw a play and cried when the convict died. The first time you got a bad review, a good review, lukewarm, no review. What am I chopped liver? Baby in a corner. Ship in a bottle. Port in a storm. The first time you couldn’t write. The millionth time you couldn’t write. The dictionary. The dinosaur. The first time you wrote a character that didn’t smell like you. The first moment you realized you were a goner.

What was your first time?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 15 Comments »

Pip, Holden Caulfield, Lily Bart, Humbert, Ethan Frome, Miss Havisham, Portnoy. How do you name your characters? Phone book, high school year book, book of names? Or do they come to you in a dream, visions of Johanna. Do you start with a name and build from there, or does it emerge later, organically. Do you give your character a name the way you do with an infant and hope it fits. Can a name mean too little or too much? Have too much import or not enough. I once started a novel called the The Resignation of Rochelle Epstein.

What’s your favorite character name?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

I can’t tell if I’m a writer because I’m unhappy or if I’m unhappy because I’m a writer. I can’t tell when everything first went wrong or right. For me writing has always been about keeping secrets, which probably explains why my first loves were the confessional poets. I’m talking about writing in a notebook in front of a painting, in front of dramatic cliff, a ditch, the front seat of your boyfriend’s Monte Carlo if you had a boyfriend or feelings for anything except yourself. I don’t know why I wanted to sit in a crawlspace under the staircase by myself writing shit down.

Where’s your writing spot?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 11 Comments »

Writers in the summer not pretty. We are indoor people. We are lumpy or bony with bad hair. We are not poolside, oceanside, hikers, bikers, or amusement park riders. We are bad houseguests, self-absorbed and antsy to get home. Brunch brunch brunch brunch. I fucking hate it. I don’t want to pick berries. I don’t want pale ale. I don’t like chicken thighs. I hate summer because I don’t know how relax.

What’s your summer?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 18 Comments »

Do you ever have one of those days when you mistake your life for a short story? When every detail is telling, every person a character, every snippet of conversation a witty quip? Do you see yourself leaving the deli after flirting with the counter man? Do you see the gumsplat and grit in the sidewalk as a constellation of stars. Is that you saying hey to Pat, the weather, the weekend, the holiday. Are those the trains pulling in or pulling out? Did a stranger leave or come to town? Are the best days ahead or behind? Do not look at yourself in a mirror.

What am I talking about?

Filed under: Uncategorized | 16 Comments »