Archive for category Writing Craft

Book Review and Recommendation: ‘After the Workshop’ by John McNally

Feb 23

Posted by Rocky Cole in Fiction Writing, Freelance Writing, Writing 101 | No Comments

After the Workshop by John McNally

I was a media escort.

With those five words, John McNally begins his fictional biography of Jack Hercules Sheahan, a once promising graduate of “The famous Iowa Writers Workshop”, who is suffering one of the greatest bouts of writers-block and underachievement to come out of The Workshop since its founding in 1939. For those of us blessed (or cursed) with the need to write, the travails of Jack Hercules Sheahan will be, if not memories, then nightmares and fears that keep us up at night. Jack, who had his story, “The Self-Adhesive Postage Stamp”, published in The New Yorker prior to graduation and also selected for The Best American Short Stories, has not written one word on his post-MFA novel in ten years. (Now that is an impressive block even by my standards.) Jack, who still lives in Iowa City in a small Victorian apartment near the campus has survived by escorting authors around Iowa on book tours. The media escort, as Jack describes it, is the lowest rung of the publishing industry. Through Jack we get a glimpse of the crazies called writers.

John McNally knows of which he speaks, having been a media escort himself and also holding an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. But McNally, unlike his fictional protagonist, has several critically acclaimed works to his credit, including, America’s report Card (2006) and The Book of Ralph (2004). The travails of Jack Sheahan will resonate with people drawn to writing, and especially to anyone who has even contemplated an MFA in writing. Iowa City is definitely an odd place at times (I’ve been there), and Jack’s adventures in trying to locate a missing writer he is escorting who may have gone over the edge, his encounter with a best-selling author who has been hiding out for ten years and may have caused Jack’s writers-block, are as humorous as his dealings with his perpetually nude neighbor, M. Cat during a raging Iowa blizzard.

McNally knocked one out of the park with this one, and I could not put the book down. I found myself snickering as I read because Jack is the everyman-writer, and there but for the grace of the Goddess, go I.

The book was originally due for release on the first of March, but you can get your hands on it now through most online booksellers or through the publisher.

There is no plan B

Feb 11

Posted by Rocky Cole in Fiction Writing, Freelance Writing, Writing 101, Writing Craft | No Comments

Anne Perry

Recently I have been reading Anne Perry’s early books and trying to discern the secrets of her popularity and longevity as a writer. Perry published her first Victorian detective novel when she was 39 years old and has since published more than 50 books. The amazing thing is that not one of her books has ever been out of print and she has sold an estimated 50 million copies worldwide. By any standard Anne Perry is a success as a writer.

As far as popularity, I would venture that her books appeal to readers because they provide interesting characters people care about and there is always a satisfactory conclusion to her tales. Her stories have beginnings, middles, and endings, and that is surprisingly rare for novels these days. She knows how to craft mysteries and has a knack for evocation of place and character.

But how did she begin as a writer? In a recent interview, Perry was asked about her career and coming to writing fairly late in life. She explained that her first novel, The Cater Street Hangman, was published in 1979 when she was 39. “… it took a long time,” she said. When asked how she stayed motivated, she replied with what I think is the key to becoming a published author.

“There was no plan B. If you’ve got an alternative, it’s easy to give up; but if you haven’t, there’s no plan to fall back on. When I want something, I want it very much.”

I have heard this advice from other writers and I have found that it is true in my own case as well. When you begin to treat writing as your job and not just your quiet hobby, you can make a quantum leap forward as a writer. A writer I know who teaches at various MFA programs and writing conferences around the country told me that some of the most talented writers he has taught simply gave up. “It is not the most talented that always succeed,” he explained, “but the ones that refuse to stop writing and know how to finish things… The ones that trust the process and are trying to produce good writing rather than achieve success are the ones that find success.”

Commit to your writing and take yourself seriously. Finish what you begin and then start something else. Do this and you will find your path as a writer.

More information on writing and books on writing can be found at our bookstore tab and at www.creative-writing-mfa.org.

When Your Novel Gets Stuck – Consider Writing a Short-Story

Feb 5

Posted by Rocky Cole in Fiction Writing, Writing Craft | No Comments

I was writing. All kinds of things: articles, letters, amusing emails (my curse), and of course blog posts. Yet I was not finishing my novel. At the time, I happened to be in the library and picked up a biography about Raymond Carver. Carver is arguably the best short-story writer the U.S. ever produced. At the time of his death in 1988, he was compared to Anton Chekov. The guy was good, yet he never wrote a novel. The short-story was his form.

The biography was fascinating, and in it it described Carver’s main method of writing. He would draft his short stories long-hand on typing paper or legal pads. Generally, he would try and get the first draft down in one sitting, though longer stories might take three or four sessions of writing. Then Carver would sit the story aside for a bit, and work on something else. He’d come back to his hand written draft a few days later and go through it and make notes and corrections. Then he would type it up and revise as he went. Then, he’d revise again, and again, and again.

Carver once said that when he started putting back the punctuation he had already taken out, he figured the story was done. Early in his career, when he was studying writing under John Gardner at Chico State, he spent an entire term writing and revising one short-story. I was fascinated when I read this in his biography and I thought I’d give his method of short-story writing a try.

I sat down at the kitchen table away from my computer with a stack of slightly crumpled computer paper. I just started writing a story based on something that happened to me when I was nine or ten. I did not try for perfect prose, just to get it down and to write in the voice of that ten year-old kid that I was. It was fiction, but based on my experience. In the end, I was pleased with what I’d accomplished. I placed it aside for a couple days and then re-read it and while it wasn’t bad, I saw how I could improve it during the next step of typing and revising.

The funny thing was, now that I had written that short-story – actually completed a draft – I started to feel motivated to complete my novel draft with the same kind of idea about getting it down and then revising. Maybe it was the act of completing something that had the positive effect. Possibly, it was writing a different voice in a different genre that made the difference.

If you are stuck on a project as I was, try writing a short-story in a different voice, genre, POV, etc… This simple act of completing something can give you benefits you may not even be aware of. If you try this, let me know how it goes with a comment or an email.

Raymond Carver

Have you ever been working on a longer piece of writing, a novel for instance, and just gotten stuck or bogged down? This happened to me, recently, in fact. I had been working on a novel for more than a year and was on the downhill slope with the finish line clearly in sight. Yet, for some unknown reason I was finding it hard to get to my writing desk and finish. It seemed silly, really. I knew the characters, I understood what they all wanted and how they were in conflict, I even knew where the story was heading and had written a draft of the ending (this, by the way may have been my problem but more on that in a later post) but for some reason I just could not get the work done.

I was still writing, all kinds of things in fact: Articles, letters, amusing emails (my curse), and of course blog posts. Yet I was not finishing my novel. At the time, I happened to be in the library and picked up a biography about Raymond Carver. Carver is arguably the best short-story writer the U.S. ever produced. At the time of his death in 1988 he was compared to Anton Chekov. The guy was good, yet he never wrote a novel. The short-story was his form.

The biography was fascinating and in it it described Carver’s main method of writing. He would draft his short stories long-hand on typing paper or legal pads. Generally, he would try and get the first draft down in one sitting, though longer stories might take three or four sessions of writing. Then Carver would set the story aside for a bit and work on something else. He’d come back to his hand written draft a few days later and go through it and make notes and corrections. Later he would type it up and revise as he went. Then, he’d revise again, and again, and again.

The funny thing was, now that I had written that short-story – actually completed a draft – I started to feel motivated to complete my novel draft with the same kind of idea about getting it down and then revising. Maybe it was the act of completing something that had the positive effect. Possibly it was writing in a different voice or a different genre that made the difference. I’m not exactly sure, but it did make a difference.

Stop by www-creative-writing-mfa.org for more ideas about writing and for information on writing programs.

How Much Structure Does a Writer Need?

Jan 28

Posted by Rocky Cole in Fiction Writing, Writing 101, Writing Craft | No Comments

Big Sur

Question: How much structure does a writer need?

Answer: Just enough to get the writing done.

Okay, that may be a bit flippant, but the point is that writing is a creative activity and some writers will require a lot of structure in their life and projects and others will require just a little structure. First, when we talk about structure let’s break that down into two distinct components and look at them one at a time. These components are:

1. How and when you write.

2. Your method of writing.

How and when you write is essentially your daily (hopefully it’s daily) practice of writing. It is easy to get distracted by the mundane issues of life: email, work, kids, an important NCIS or CSI episode… so establishing a routine is essential. Writers have to be self-motivated and self-structured, so if what you are doing now is not working for you, impose some structure. If you really want your writing life to take off, have a set time to write and make yourself sit down in a position to write whether or not you know what you are going to write. Keep showing up and be harsh with yourself when the thought arises, Oh, I will just check my email for a second… or, A cup of tea sure would be nice…

Your method of writing is also key and the amount of structure you require will depend on what you are working on and also on your specific temperament as a writer. Believe me, the best judge of what you need is you, and you already know if what you are doing is working. Some writers love detailed and full outlines. Whether they are using Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake method or the outline they learned in Miss Willouby’s fifth grade class, these writers would panic if facing a blank page without a roadmap of where to go.

Then, there are other writers, Michael Chabon and myself come to mind (although Michael has apparently cracked the code better than I), who find outlines stifling. But, even us “seat of the pants” writers have an idea of where we are heading and benefit from a some structure even if the structure is just notes or musings in a journal or a free-flowing mindmap. The key here is to seek to understand what you as a writer need for structure, and if something is not working then try and impose more structure until you are getting the results that you want.

I am a big believer in adapting to the situation. If something isn’t working for you as a writer then try something else. In the end, do what works for you but a good rule is that if you seem stagnant or lost in your writing and are not getting the results you want then impose a little more structure. Keep imposing structure until you achieve the perfect balance for you.

Oh, and stop reading email and wait until you have a page written before you get the tea. You are really not that thirsty.

Writing While Not Writing

Jan 26

Posted by Rocky Cole in Productivity, Writing Craft | No Comments

Alta in the old days

Recently I returned from a vacation of sorts. I live in the misty chill of the San Francisco Bay Area – on an island near San Francisco actually – but once a year I make a pilgrimage to Utah to ski with some high school friends from Florida. Florida and snow skiing seems a stretch, but it’s what we do. Mostly, these trips are just to hang out and ski, and as we have drifted apart in other ways, this is the one consistent annual event in all of our lives. In any case, long experience has taught me that there will be little creative writing done during the annual ski trip. There will be banter, drinking, over-eating, and of course skiing, but little writing.

Yet as I think back over the week just spent sitting in a Subaru named “Scoobie” on the way to Alta, Solitude, Brighton and Park City ski resorts, and the hours spent riding silent ski lifts through steady snowfalls, I see that the writing was never far away and that all my literary ambitions benefitted by the break. Routines for writers are good, don’t misunderstand that, but at times just getting away from the writing table gives you a new perspective on writing in general and on specific scenes in particular. Vida Winter, the fictional writer in The Thirteenth Tale tells her biographer, Margaret, that writing comes from the composting of the writer’s life. Well, a ski trip with friends you’ve known for over twenty years definitely is filled with compost – believe me on that one.

So don’t be afraid to take a break or go off on a little adventure and see what happens. Take along a notebook for writing down thoughts and imaginings (I’m never without one) but leave your expectations and plans at home and just see what happens. You may find that you do some of your best writing while not writing.

Cole Writing

Writing with precision and passion