(Apologies to Rage Against the Machine)

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. One of the many truths I’ve internalized about writing is how much imitation plays an important role in the creative process. This feels wrong, at first. Isn’t copying someone else plagiarism?

Life is gray, as is the line between copying and inspiration. We are hard-wired as students never to quote sources, to read and absorb and write in our own language. Upon entering the business world, my boss told me to copy because no one cared about “that stuff” in the real world. But the creative process is funny. There’s a book called “Steal Like an Artist.” A great podcast, Song Exploder, describes the inspiration behind creating songs. Many of these stories start with taking a beat or a rhythm from another song and playing with it. By the time they release these songs, the pilfered part is un-recognizable… it turned into something new.

Authors do the same. Developing authors copy the prose of another, more famous author. Sofi Bahcall studied small passages of Nabokov every night. I’ve tried this as well… early on, I’d start my writing sessions with ten minutes of copying passage from The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises or Dubliners. I’m not sure these books were useful (Gatsby and Dubliners are written in an old-fashioned way) but it felt good. It forces the examination of sentences and word choice and how these masters jump between dialogue, story-telling, and exposition.

I used Wool by Hugh Howey to discern the rules to follow for backstory and explanation. My copy of that book is dog-eared to the start of Chapter 3… a scene between Holden and his wife, Allison. A transitory scene, not very important to the story. Howey interspersed conversation regarding the surrounding room. These references set the scene and provided the rules for the world (describing their ancient, claustrophobic rooms, computer systems, etc.).

Authors copy themes and stories. How many stories are re-telling of Biblical tales, or legend of King Arthur, but in modern times? This resonates with me; sans an editor, I wandered deeply into un-helpful writing patterns. No exposition or basic descriptions of setting or people were allowed. Everything started en res. The result is stories that read more like screenplays than short stories. I wanted to re-boot this rule set and check back with my favorite authors and see how they handle the mechanics of their writing.

And wow, my favorite authors don’t follow any of these self-imposed rules. Exposition, descriptions of people when they are introduced, backstory, time-shifting… the things I had convinced myself were verboten.

So my new, new plan is to re-read David Mitchell and pay close attention to how he handles voice, exposition, description, and, of course, his intertwined plots. I can’t copy him, per se, as he writes in the first person. I’ve tried, but whenever I do, my characters become super whiny and introspective. And part of his magic as a writer is capturing the voice of the distinct characters (Dutch from the 1800s, old sea captains, musicians from Europe, Horologists, etc.). I won’t ever write as well as Mitchell, but I need to break free from this rut.

A classic conversation starter is, “What four people from history, alive or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?” I hear this query a lot on podcasts, especially with authors. What four authors would I invite to a dinner party?

I’ve struggled with this question for two reasons. One, am I putting together a party of just my favorite authors? Like an all-star team? Or assemble a group who could converse? How much conversation can an old Russian master have with Murakami and Mark Twain? Different languages, different time periods, etc. The second element of the question I’ve struggled with is hosting a dinner party… I’m not George Plimpton. Seems like something out of a seventies playbook.

I’m practical and will error on the side of realism. My invited authors need to share a language and a time. As to not limit myself too much, I’ll have a modern guest list and another from authors active in the 20th century.

The modern party is easy. David Mitchell, Neil Gaiman, Emily St. Mandel and Haruki Murakami. This list won’t surprise readers of this site, as these are my favorite authors. This group speaks English (I don’t know how good Murakami’s English is, but he lived in the US for years) and is living. Much of their writing is based in the modern world with otherworldly/supernatural elements. All have had books adapted for either movies or series. I can’t know for sure if they are fans of each other, but Mitchell wrote Number9Dream like Murakami, so he is a fan. And someone who writes about Japan.

Oddly, none of these authors are American (by birth)… maybe this adds to the mix? I picture the four of them sitting in a private room in a nice restaurant in NYC in the early afternoon. Mixed fare, some wine, but nothing crazy. Conversation is slow to start, but picks up eventually, swapping publishing stories and Hollywood gossip and life on book tours. The glue is their commonality.

My dinner party for authors of a different era is more complicated. It has to start with Hemingway. He’s the star of the team (warts and all), so I’ll build around him. F. Scott Fitzgerald is easy to slot in, as they (for a short time) were friends and confidants. John Cheever in the third seat. I’ve only read a handful of his short stories (The Swimmer is one of my favorites), but his reputation as bon vivant, the celebrity hard-drinking author from the fifties and sixties, makes him a lively choice. And perhaps he was a fan of both Hemingway and Fitzgerald, who were of a similar era.

The final slot is hard. Can I get away with an author from a different time? Hemingway listed Mark Twain as an influence, stating all modern American literature comes from Huck Finn. Twain was from an earlier era… barely. Twain passed around 1910 and Hemingway was born in 1899. Or adding Gertrude Stein instead. I’d recreate Paris in the twenties, but is that so terrible?

This group would enjoy their dinner either in a Parisian cafe or a hot, open-air bar in Cuba, complete with waiters in white jackets, bottomless rum and slow-turning fans, tucked away from a chaotic street.

The list for a modern party was so easy. I’m disappointed I couldn’t make it happen. Maybe an indie documentarian or short series producer on Apple TV plus could pull them together. The older party feels more like a re-creation.

I’ve written about my bookshelves in an earlier post. Since then, I’ve collected more books but not shelving. I have a space issue.

I banished my leather bound morning pages journals to the closet and consolidated my growing collection of magazines. Now to choose books to get rid of… first were the terrible books I’d acquired “for free”. Then the seemingly important but ultimately unreadable books like The Origin of Species . Finally, the garbage books that I’d purchased but discovered weren’t worth reading, or hopelessly dated books (environmental best practices from the late 1980s).

The excess books filled a large plastic bin destined for donation to the local library.

Now to the fun part; how to organize? My guiding principle is make books easy to find, rather than systems based on size or color. Authors with the highest number of books dominate the central stack; Hemingway, Gaiman, Mitchell, etc. and are bunched together. Below them are “classics”, anything from A River Runs Through It to Cheever’s short stories.

The second stack is organized by topic like writing, poetry, philosophy, history. Heavy programming books, along with old dictionaries and picture books on the bottom shelf. And the newer butcher block shelves get “everything else”… fiction but not classics or literature or bunched by author. I used the top for the larger books and items that don’t fit on shelves.

It’s neater, for now. And I can find the books I need when I need them. This exercise yielded some interesting findings… like how many books I have by authors I don’t read anymore (Ed Abbey or T. C. Boyle). And, sadly, I’ve confirmed certain books I used to own (Dubliners, The Road) are gone.

Paul McCartney claims to have heard the entire melody for Yesterday in a dream. My dreams are more pedestrian. If I’m stressed, I dream I’m in high school and cannot find my next classroom. If I read about someone during the day, they may appear in my dreams. Binge-watching almost guarantees characters or scenes from the show settling into my dream world.

I’m struck by the connection between creating during the day and generative dreams. Is it related to one of my recurring themes on this site: the importance of continually working the creative muscle?

Working ten hours a day creates work dreams. If I, instead, spent three or four hours working on stories and writing, would my dreams reflect the same? If I didn’t dream about TV shows or manifestations of stress, would my Yesterday appear?

It’s naïve to think I wouldn’t have stressors. Other things would fill that space. But maybe a little more room would help? And if my mind reacted to the increased effort of working through writing problems rather than politics at work, all the better.

One of my frustrations is my story ideas are based in reality, with real people working through problems. I’ve recently encountered a term for this: low stakes. And that’s not a compliment. If my unconscious would do more work, could my ideas become larger? More surreal? Include different worlds or incredible characters?

Is there a way to hack the process? One of the stoic habits I’ve always considered but never implemented is writing out all of my thoughts and worries before going to bed. This works with Morning Pages… clearing out my head in the morning leaves me free to write and face a new day.

LNK: [https://www.biography.com/musicians/paul-mccartney-the-beatles-yesterday-dream]

Sometimes it’s easier to disprove than prove.

Many books on creativity and the writing process speak of a universe of abundance. Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artist’s Way‘ brought the concept to my attention initially; I’m sure I’d heard it somewhere, but never in this context. Others mentioned it as well, most recently (for me and my reading) Rick Rubin in the delightful “Way of Being”.

Julia explains,

“If you think of the universe as a vast electrical sea in which you are immersed and from which you are formed, opening to your creativity changes you from something bobbing in that sea to a more fully functioning, more conscious, more cooperative part of that ecosystem…

1. Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.
2. There is an underlying, in-dwelling creative force infusing all of life—including ourselves.
3. When we open ourselves to our creativity, we open ourselves to the creator’s creativity within us and our lives.
4. We are, ourselves, creations. And we, in turn, are meant to continue creativity by being creative ourselves.”

When I first read this, I was skeptical about the universe and energy. It’s far from my “real” world in corporate career technology. Hard to swallow.

Rubin has a similar take: “Creativity is not a rare ability. It is not difficult to access. Creativity is a fundamental aspect of being human. It’s our birthright. And it’s for all of us.”

I don’t know if I’d describe my experience in the same way, but I agree with the general effect; opening up every day and listening brings results. Working the habit, or training the muscle, opens one to a bottomless well of ideas.

This state is easier to disprove that to prove. When I fall out of the habit of generating with ideas, or jot down notes, or to work through story ideas… it’s very difficult to begin. Instead of too many ideas and too many thoughts, I have none. What I assume is referred to as writer’s block (closer to idea block). And it’s so, so easy to fall out of this rhythm. Currently, life is very busy between home and work. I’m still following my writing routine, but many mornings a week I’m rushed, and short either morning pages, my meditation or writing five-hundred words. The quality and quantity of ideas have slowed, almost to a crawl.

Simply getting back on track with a few weeks of focus always helps. My idea notebook fills up with ideas and fragments. Is it the universe, or a very finicky muscle that needs to be well-tuned to work? The process is the same for both. Only the story is different.

I’m focused on three writing contests.

The first is from On the Premises. I’ve submitted twice to their contests and worked on two more (but didn’t submit). I like their prompts and support of the community. The editors have taste similar to mine… their advice is so start in medias res, constantly escalate action or tension, and add nothing extraneous. Tight, controlled, interesting. Music to my ears, and the opposite of what a typical literary magazine seeks. I also feel like I have unfinished business with their contests; Wasted Crisis wasn’t considered for a prize because I included my name on the manuscript, but the editor showed it would have been in the running. And I made the second round of consideration for 5:59 a story about a couple on a train.

The second contest story is from Ireland Writing Retreat. I found their site while looking for an editor. They are based in Donegal, Ireland where they host week-long workshops. I’d taken a stab at their earlier Time contest, but couldn’t get the story to work. This contest calls for a story about Hope… but it can only be 500 words and can only use the word “Hope” one time between the title and the main text. Interesting! Love the guardrails. I came up with a story featuring a runner trying to beat his rival… I took a chance with the writing style and tried to incorporate things I’ve learned from George Saunders and others. We’ll see.

Finally, the third contest is from a new group, to me at least: Hungry Shadows Press. They asked for a story in my wheelhouse… what happened the first five minutes after the end of the world? Not what caused the apocalypse, but what happens next. Great premise… so, no stories about people walking through ruins or rebuilding. It tempted me to write in the ATSW universe… but that required an explanation (a wave of people differs from the typical infection/flu/EMP/nuclear event scenario). So I created a new story… I started late and am worried it won’t have enough polish.

Hopefully, this respite from ATSW will leave me in a better spot. These contests are fun and I love the restrictions. If I learned anything from books and essays on creativity, it’s working within guardrails can bring out the best.

Book reviews were the original intent for this platform… as I started writing fiction, I pivoted to more articles about my journey and experiences. Like I mentioned before, I’ve ripped through a lot of books lately, so they are top of mind when I sit for my weekly “blog post writing.”

I prefer to read a fiction and non-fiction simultaneously to keep both fresh. My current non-fiction is Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. I’m drawn to this topic as I suspect my creativity, from working a full-time corporate job and suburban-dad-life, is low.

I’ll do a full review after I finish; I’m only one-half complete. Nothing earth-shattering or revelatory yet, but great reminders about how to think about the creative process. One set of lessons mentions opening to the world… the artist is merely a vessel for the universe to create through (very Julia Cameron).

As I read Rubin’s book, I was struggling with a story idea for After the Second Wave (potential collection of short stories). Hugo, the main character, needs to leave his current location and end up somewhere else. I had the motivation and the backdrop but was stuck in exposition. I started and at least six versions of this story.

I was frustrated.

I took one day off from the grind and caught up on my George Saunder’s Story club… we’re discussing an old story of his “CommComm”. One of his statements about starting this story slapped me in the face:

“I like this feeling of starting a story en media res. It’s like overhearing a conversation from a nearby table in a restaurant. “He said that to me and I almost hit him.” Who doesn’t want to hear the rest of that? Just with that one under-indicating line, the story is already underway and… isn’t dull. It hasn’t made the fatal error of over explaining (an error I am going to try to avoid here as well).”

Wow. Duh. Stop explaining everything and just tell the damn story. Exactly what I needed. I’d written stories with in media res previously. Maybe this isn’t the aid Rubin or Cameron had in mind, but it delivered exactly what I needed.

I got turned on to Emily St. Mandel by Tyler Cowen (he did a podcast with her). Her first big novel, Station Eleven, is a great read featuring a raging respiratory pandemic. Apple created a fantastic show on Station Eleven. The Glass Hotel followed Station Eleven (also great).

On the above podcast, Cowen asked Mandel if The Glass Hotel is a follow-up or sequel to Station Eleven. She said no. But Sea of Tranquility is definitely a follow-up to both of its predecessors. The protagonist from The Glass Hotel, Vincent, and the circumstances of her life and death are integral to the plot. And multiple references to pandemics… I couldn’t tell if they were specific to the event in Station Eleven or just a wink and nod.

The story is told by three distinct characters, in different times, ranging from Vancouver in 1912 to a space colony 500 years later. Mandel introduces what seems like a supernatural element (which surprised me, as her earlier novels were very realistic) each character experiences. What we learn minor spoiler alert is our future civilization deduced we are living in a simulation and the simulation (or, more precisely, the machine that runs the simulation) has glitches. But this understanding also enables time travel.

But this isn’t a sci-if story with pages of exposition or characters delivering deep lectures on how time travel works. We get a plausible explanation and react to it along with the characters. Sea of Tranquility is a novel about the characters and their searching, not the world of the simulation. It’s an incredibly interesting way to tell a larger story.

Mandel’ s writing style is deceptively light. Compared to many authors, the writing is easy to consume. She used brief chapters for this book but layers, subtext, and tie-backs make a fun read.

The brief chapters were a departure from her earlier style. This entire book felt different, much more personal. One of the main characters, Olive, is an author on a book tour in 2203 and reflects on hotel rooms, weird fans, publicists, longing for Olive’s husband and child… and the shadow of a pandemic hanging over the tour. I know little about Mandel, but this seemed like she took directly it from her life. It felt a little overplayed and took me out of the story; I kept asking if this was her or her character having these experiences?

I enjoyed Sea of Tranquility. It initially felt like a light read, but Mandel created a deeply layered story and world. I detected shades of David Mitchell; they both write modern stories that are part literature, part plot-driven story. The writers and stories I most admire and would love to emulate.