Sometimes things just hit you out of the blue. You don’t plan on it, you’re not particularly thinking of it but there it is --- Bam! --- and suddenly everything just starts to make sense. This happened to me one cold January morning while riding the subway, on my way to work, not looking forward to those dreaded Mondays we’ve all learned to ‘love’ so much. I was reading a novel, and pretty much getting engrossed in it, when I suddenly had some sort of creative epiphany.
2010, this year, began much like all the others. Having had a nice Christmas holiday and having a nice, albeit laid back New Years, the time had come for getting back to the routine of getting up, getting ready and heading out to work. I read a lot. Voraciously, in fact. There literally hasn’t been a day in the last 15 years or so where I hadn’t had some book in my hand, reading something or another. For the past couple of years I hadn’t been reading much fiction at all. I’d been indulging in many history books, memoirs, travelogues, biographies, literary criticism and philosophy. It had been a long time since I had picked up a novel to read. Having tired of reading all this non-fiction (and sometimes ‘heavy’ stuff), I decided to pull a novel out of the pile and just read to enjoy it and help me lose myself during the often manic morning commute. I had forgotten how good a novel could be, and after reading so many non-fiction books over the course of two and a half years, I suppose I forgot how much fun they could be as well.
I happened to be really enjoying this particular novel at the time (Niccolò Ammaniti’s “I’ll Steal You Away”), so much so that I was having a very hard time putting it down, almost missing my stop on some occasions. One morning, while reading this wonderful book, something suddenly hit me. I literally began to understand what it was that was holding me back for so long, what it was that was keeping me from sitting down and actually getting down to the business of writing that next elusive novel.
For a very long time, my approach to writing fiction was to look inside myself and draw on my own personal experiences, thoughts, ideas, etc and somehow create a fictional framework around it all in which to write. Not a story, per se, but Albert Camus’s idea that “a novel is nothing more than a philosophy put into images”. I became so involved with the ideas I was trying to get across that the actual story, which is essential in any writing of fiction, was taking a back seat to everything else. Immediately, I realized the main flaw in “November Rust”. There really wasn’t much of a story there at all, merely a whole stew of ideas in which some semblance of “story” being used to sort of thread it all together. “November Rust” is essentially plotless. The “story”, for as much as there is one, is mainly about a guy who runs away from his life, sets up shop in Paris in order to pursue his creative dreams. But in the telling of this story, it got more involved in the narrator’s thoughts, ideas, philosophy, views on art, literature; the story and the characters merely vehicles in order to put these ideas across. I was so concerned about it being as “realistic” as possible that I almost, but not quite, approached it as if I were writing a memoir rather than a novel. That was part of the idea too, though. I wanted to make the book so “real” that the reader would ask themselves whether or not all of it had really happened. In some cases, this worked better than I could have ever imagined. There had been a few who had read this novel and took the “I” of the narrator to actually be myself. In some instances, this certainly was the case, but in many instances throughout the book, the narrator was far removed from myself and what I actually believed and thought. I approached the story like this: If I were to have really been in this situation, how would I have reacted, and in most cases, made the “I” in the story do the exact opposite. But getting so wrapped up in this idea of trying to project some sort of “realism” I had lost what makes fiction special. I consciously avoided many paths I could have taken because in “real life”, certain things just wouldn’t happen. (I do realize that there are things in this story that wouldn’t happen in ‘real life’ anyway...but that was about the extent of how much I fictionalized things). Basically it came down to this, for those who read the book and are familiar with it: The “New York” sections are virtually autobiographical, with some names, places and events either exaggerated and/or distorted to a certain degree. The “Paris” sections are completely fictional, except for the observations and the little things I had absorbed while spending time there. There have been a few who read this book who swear to this day that the “I” in that story was actually me. Nothing could be further from the truth. I suppose what I thought was a great idea --- to blur the lines between the real and the fictional --- turned out to be a source of frustration in some cases. I, personally, was “held” to what was written, as if it was how I actually thought about things in my personal life. I suppose if no one knew me all that well, it would be easy to see how this could happen. Those who have known me all their lives and know me better than anyone would appreciate the “irony” and the dry humor I tried to inject into the story. Believe me, the life I live and the life of the narrator couldn’t be more different from one another.
So it was while I was reading Ammaniti’s novel that I began to appreciate what it was about fiction that I always enjoyed in the first place: the idea that one could create their own world, so to speak, to sort of be the “master” of his creations, to be able to make just about anything happen one wanted to happen and tell a good story; one that not only makes you think but entertains as well. It was the very thing that I always enjoyed about reading fiction on the first place. I began to realize that my steady absorption of non-fiction books was interfering with what was essential in fiction writing: letting the imagination go, being creative, not being so concerned about what would “actually happen” and just get down to the business of telling a good story. The “ideas” I wanted to get across could come across through the narrative without all the preaching, soapbox posturing and the millions of “asides” in order to get them across. In other words, it was the wrong approach. What I was doing would have been perfect had I actually been writing a memoir. It wasn’t a good approach in writing fiction. Being that I was basically trying to make the transition from writing poetry to fiction (having not really written any fiction at all over the years) it was obvious to me I had a hell of a lot to learn. First thing, and most importantly, I had to start reading more and more fiction and putting aside all the non-fiction books for the time being. It was time to get educated.
Here was the other thing that dawned on me: All those years being involved in music, I was always open to learning more and more. One is never so great that they can’t always learn and improve. It is what is essential in improving your, well, craft, for lack of a better word. (I always cringe when I hear that, but it’s oh so true). Musically, I was always open to many differing styles, my musical taste being literally all over the map. There is hardly a genre of music that I don’t like at least something from and can learn from and incorporate into my own creative possibilities. Why was it then, when it came to reading, was I limiting myself to one type of thing, refusing to open up to other kinds of fiction? I hadn’t taken this approach to music, why this, then? I really don’t have an answer for it. So, I started to take this same approach, reading widely, seeing how many different authors worked, seeing their strengths, their weaknesses, how they wrote, why they did what they did, why this particular structure instead of that one, why third person instead of first person, and so on and so on. I also began reading more widely for another reason: to simply enjoy the book for the sake of the story being told. In other words, reading like I used to read when I was much younger. When I was a kid, I didn’t discriminate between what was “literary” and what was “commercial”. I just read whatever the hell I wanted to, much like how I listen to music. Some days you want Led Zeppelin, other days you want The Beatles, and other times you want John Coltrane or Italian folk music. In other words, it depended on your particular mood. Why not approach reading the same way and just get back to enjoying the process of reading and enjoying a book for its own sake rather than ruminating on whether or not something is “worthy” of your attention? You can learn a lot even from the most horribly written novels, much like you can learn a lot from the most horrid of musical forms. (For the record, it can show you what to avoid in your own work). So this is what I did. I sorted out “The Pile” as I have begun to refer to it (that is, the pile of bought but unread books) separating the fiction from the poetry from the non-fiction and began to start immersing myself in the fiction again. It was time to get back to basics.
The other thing I decided to do, even though I tended to avoid this over the years, was to start reading some “books on writing” in an attempt to gather some information and perhaps stumble upon something, anything, that would help me move forward. I had always done the same thing with music, buying books on theory, for instance, to help me improve my playing. Logically, it should work for writing as well, right? Well...yes and no. I suppose it depends on which book you read. Not having any idea which ones were helpful and which ones were completely full of shit, I began to look at them and buying the ones that looked like ones that would be of use to me. It was when I learned that many of these so-called books on writing were essentially useless for anyone who didn’t set out to write the next Dan Brown styled potboiler. There was absolutely nothing in these books to help guide a writer who sought to do something other than that. In other words, they are geared towards those who aim to write a “bestseller” in the sense as we all understand it today: very commercial fiction that is heavily reliant on plot in the manner of John Grisham, Dan Brown or Stephen King. This is fine, if that’s the book you want to write and if so, there are no shortage of these books to help guide you. What about something for those who want to write something else, a more, dare I say, “literary” type book? There seemed to be few and far between.
So I started to read some of these and found myself getting very frustrated. They were filled with all kinds of bullshit (in my opinion), everything from what you “must” do when writing fiction to writing exercises that included lighting candles, doing yoga and contemplating dime store, pseudo-Eastern philosophical principals to find your “inner writer”. What kind of shit is this? I thought. Then someone pointed out a book on writing to me, one she recommended highly. Stephen King’s “On Writing”. Right off the bat, I was hesitant. Stephen King, huh? I didn’t think it would be helpful to me mainly because he was the master at writing commercial and popular fiction, the kind of book I wasn’t intending to write. How could that help me? I thought it would be pretty much filled with the same nonsense and platitudes most of these other books I had been reading had in them. But I did think about it and thought, you know, what the hell? It can’t hurt. If it turned out to be one of those, I could always toss it aside and ignore it. So I went out, on the advice of this woman (a very talented singer and musician, by the way), and bought it. To my amazement, it helped me more than any of these other books had. Here’s why:
I was never much of a “fan” of Stephen King. Up until that point, I had only read “The Shining” and that was when I was 14 years old. I did enjoy it, though, but I wasn’t interested at all in writing that kind of book. While reading the meat of this book, so to speak, I was surprised and amazed at his attitude toward writing fiction. He didn’t patronize anyone who aspired to write something other than commercial fiction. The advice he gives in this book seems to apply to any and all genres in which one wishes to write. It was essentially eschewing all the bullshit I had been coming across in most of these books on writing. He talked about what he thought was essential in what he saw as good writing and it dawned on me that it wasn’t much different from what I heard from George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway. I began to have a different opinion about him after reading this book. I certainly didn’t agree with everything he said, but it did make me curious to read more of his books, to see how he applied what he advised to his own writing. The problem was I wasn’t all that into the horror genre at all. I like some of those books but a lot of the time I find it hard to suspend my disbelief. It was then I caught myself and realized therein lied my problem. I was being way too “picky”, too willing to dismiss something without even bothering to look at it. I made a conscious decision to change that mindset. Open up, much like I opened up to all kinds of music. I certainly wouldn’t like everything but at least my opinion would be based on my own judgement, my own examination of the work, and not merely dismiss something just because it was “popular”. As I said here previously, just because something is popular, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s automatically bad. If so, The Beatles would be the worst rock band on the face of the earth.
So along with reading the more “literary” authors, I began to mix Stephen King into the pile. I started with his non-horror books, though. “Hearts in Atlantis”, “Different Seasons” and “Misery”. I loved “Misery”. Was it perfect? No. Was the writing in it going to change your world? No. But there was one essential thing about this book that I loved more than anything else: The story; and if there is one strength Stephen King has it’s exactly that. He knows how to tell a great story. The writing may be sketchy in some cases but he can tell a damn good story when he wants to; and story was the essential ingredient missing from my own writing. It was an eye opener. Did that mean I was going to start writing books like Stephen King? Absolutely not. But it did open my head up to the idea of telling a story first and foremost; to lose myself in a fictional world that I enjoyed so much when I used to write stories as a kid and a young man. I was getting too hung up on reading only one kind of novel. This is not helpful at all, much like it isn’t helpful for a musician to listen to only one kind of music. It suddenly occurred to me that if I approach the art of fiction the same way I had always approached the art of music, things would start happening and the creative floodgates would open.
I was right.
(To be continued...)
