The Best Simple Advice

To be a better writer:  READ. 

Here are the novels that have had the biggest impact on me as a writer.  They’ve taught me how to tell a story, how to write a sentence, how to make a plot, how to write a scene of dialogue.  They’ve proven to me that all good writing is about emotion.  They’ve taught me about life and about writing.  This is an ever-changing, evolving list, but today these are the most important novels to me (lots of poetry and nonfiction has been important, too, but I'm focusing here on fiction).

Isabel Allende-The House of the Spirits

Harriette Arnow-The Dollmaker

Margaret Atwood-Alias Grace, The Handmaid’s Tale

Larry Brown-Father and Son, Joe, Facing the Music

Chris Cleave-Little Bee

Emma Donoghoe-Room

Willa Cather-My Antonia, O Pioneers, Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Song of the Lark

Michael Dorris-A Yellow Raft in Blue Water

Louise Erdrich-Love Medicine,  The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No-Horse

Denise Giardina-Storming Heaven, The Unquiet Earth

Graham Greene-The Power and the Glory, The End of the Affair

Thomas Hardy-Jude the Obscure, The Woodlanders, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

S.E. Hinton-The Outsiders

Zora Neale Hurston-Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Their Eyes Were Watching God

Garbriel Garcia Marquez-Of Love and Other Demons, Chronicle of a Death Foretold

John Irving-A Prayer for Owen Meany

D.H. Lawrence-Sons and Lovers, The Fox

Harper Lee-To Kill a Mockingbird

Toni Morrison-Beloved

Micahel Onndaatje-Coming Through Slaughter

Marilynne Robinson-Housekeeping, Gilead, Home

Lee Smith-Fair and Tender Ladies, Saving Grace, Black Mountain Breakdown

Wallace Stegner-Angle of Repose

Alice Walker-The Color Purple

Make Biscuits, Not War

Make art everyday, any way you can.

Work on your novel.  Or poem, essay, short story, play, screenplay.  Or a painting, song, sculpture.  film, photograph.  Most of all, expand your notion of what art is.  Anything that is made with care can be art, too.  The art is what goes into it almost as much as what comes out.  The art is in the making as much as the end product.  So if you can't put your energies to that novel today, keep your creative juices flowing by making art in your own way.

Bake homemade biscuits.  Plant tomatoes.  Hoe your garden.  Make a pie (give it to a neighbor).  Read a book to a child (performance art).  Walk in the woods and make an art of observation.  Have a dance party in your living room.  When my daughters were little, we did this almost every night and those are some of my best memories.  Develop all those pictures that are stored on your laptop and make a photo album that you can actually show to people.  Find a recipe you always wanted to make, go to the store and buy all the ingredients, and do it.  Get your mother to teach you how to make those aforementioned biscuits.  Cut flowers from your yard and make arrangements throughout your house.  Change the oil in your car.  Build that deck you've been wanting.  Rearrange your porch furniture.  Rearrange your bedroom furniture.  Organize your tool shed.

My point, of course, is that we must stay creative.  We must never become those people who just come in from a long day of work and plop down in front of the television or computer to numb ourselves for hours.  Okay, sometimes plopping down in front of the television for a numbing session is required, but it should definitely be the exception and not the rule...and I know plenty of folks for whom it is the rule.  For God's sake, put away your damn cell phone for awhile (unless you're using it to create a film or a song or a photograph or a blog, but put it away for awhile after you've done that.  Your hands need to be free).  Keep your mind working,  churning, turning.

I've made my point.  Now I'm going to eat those biscuits.

Revelation

Very often when I am on the road and do a Q&A after a reading or presentation, people will hesitantly raise their hands and when called upon will ask:  "What inspires you?"  It's a question I always dread because the answer is too simple, and too complex, all at the same time.  When I give my honest answer:  "Everything," half the audience might think I'm being  facetious while the other half may think I'm corny.  But it's true.  As writers, we must be open to everything in the whole world moving us to write.  For me--and it doesn't have to be like this for everyone--writing feels like a kind of worship, or prayer.  Not just the act of tapping out words on the keyboard, but the actual thinking process of writing.  It is meditation, prayer, worship, living.  If that sounds overwrought, so be it.  

In my new novel I am often looking to the writings of Thomas Merton to guide my lead characters.  Merton was a Catholic writer,  poet, activist, mystic, and a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky although he was a native of France.  He lived from 1915 until 1968 and became a priest in 1949, the year after his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, became an international bestseller and inspired thousands of people to flock to monasteries in the United States.   He wrote more than 70 books that often focused on spirituality, social justice, and interfaith religion.  His most enduring legacy is probably his ecumenical work.  He was a pioneer of melding the Christian tradition with Asian spiritual leaders, including the Dalai Lama.   

Although I was born and raised in Southeastern Kentucky just about two hours from where Merton lived most of his life, I was brought up in a very anti-Catholic environment and never knew about him until I was studying for my Master of Fine Arts at Spalding University (a Catholic school, coincidentally) in Louisville, Kentucky.  While out on a stroll I found a historical marker about Merton--only about a block from my dormitory--that changed my life forever.  On the corner of 4th Street and Muhammad Ali Boulevard in the heart of downtown Louisville the historical marker gives a nice, brief biography of Merton on one side, and on the other states:

A Revelation

Merton had a sudden insight at this corner Mar. 18, 1956, that led him to redefine his monastic identity with greater involvement in social justice issues.  He was "suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people..." He found them "walking around shining like the sun."  Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander. 

This is a strange kind of historical marker to be found in America.  In this country we are not much on marking mystical sites, as would be much more common in Europe and Asia.  So I continue to be surprised that this plaque exists.  And I continue to be so very glad.

Because it was another sign to me that we must constantly be on the lookout for discovering new things, which has been the key mantra I have adopted as a writer and have talked about many times before, including a few times on this blog.  

And because it made me know that I had to find out more about Merton.  The first book I bought by him was New Seeds of Contemplation.  It is now one of my all-time favorite books and is definitely the one that had the most tremendous impact on my spiritual education.   

As soon as I read that plaque, I looked around, and I had a better empathy for the people around me.  I remembered a favorite quote by Plato:  "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  And I thought:  that'd be a good thesis for a novel.  And that's when Little Fire was born.  

Years went by before I was able to start that novel that I tucked in the back of my mind until other projects were borne.  And finally I was able to work in a scene where someone else has a revelation like Merton's.  After a long battle with doubt, my character has an epiphany of goodness around him that changes everything.  

The lesson here, again, is that we must always be on the lookout for everything to inspire us to write.  When people ask what inspires writers they expect us to say our children, or nature, or something like that.  But we must be inspired by everything.  As Merton said, Everything that is, is holy.  And if that's true (I think it is), then everything is worthy of our attention and can feed our creativity.  

---

To learn more about Merton's revelation, including reading his journal entry about the moment, visit this great page.  There is also a beautifully written look at the marker here.  

Photo credit (Merton): www.internetmonk.com 

Photo credit (marker):  www.spiritualtravels.info 

Geography of Fiction

When writing fiction, it always helps to have a geography in your mind, a space within which you can walk around and orient yourself so that your characters know where they are, which way to move, where to stand, how to be in that space.

In my new novel most of the action takes place in Key West, Florida, although my main character is a man from rural Tennessee.  He sees the island from the point of view of an outsider so he thinks of it as exotic, foreign, even like a world that is the opposite of his own.  As one of the lines in the novel says, he has gone from "a world of trees to one of the sea."  He loves Key West, but he is forever missing his home, the fictional community of Harpeth River, Tennessee (based on several small communities along the Harpeth River in the area just outside Nashville).

Throughout the novel he is drawn back to a pivotal moment in his life that happened near the banks of the Harpeth River.  It's a moment that haunts him.  This is just one example of how I have created a geography of fiction to fuel my writing.  Whenever I needed to feel I was with that character in this integral moment in his life, I would often go to the banks of the Laurel River, very near where I grew up, and where my parents still lived.  A couple times I went to the actual Harpeth River of the book but since that is about three hours from me, in times of need I let the Laurel stand in for the Harpeth.  The same elements are there:  a quality of light that is filtered through river-fed leaves, the slow, barely noticeable movement of the river in summertime, wildflowers waving in the sunlight just before the woods swallow me up at the river's edge.

I go there to get into my character's mind, to know his world better, to know the geography he thinks of as home.  Even if you are creating a world completely different from your own, I recommend having touchstone places that allow you to get beneath the novel's skin and roam around.

I'm including here a couple of very short videos that show you the place that has helped me know the character of Micah Sharp so well, and to create a scene that was life-changing for him and will haunt him forever.  Go here to see the Pasture.  And here to see the River. If I play my cards right, readers will feel as if they've been to this place, too.

And a not-so-gentle reminder to all writers, and all people:  get outside more often.  Nothing will do a better job of making you a better writer, or a better person.

The Urge for Going

My new novel is largely populated by people who are running away with something.  Some of them are running from love, others from hate.  Some are trying to outrun their grief while others are in self-exile because of past mistakes.  All of them have had the urge for going that is so perfectly articulated in one of Joni Mitchell's best songs, and one of the cornerstones for my novel's soundtrack.  I encourage everyone to create a soundtrack for any long piece of writing they're doing.  My novel soundtracks usually have about 75 or 80 songs.  Some of the pieces show up in the actual piece of work but others simply inform scenes.  All of them help me to get to the emotional truths of my characters and even sometimes reveal things about my characters that I wouldn't have known had I not tried to understand the music with which they identify.  In this particular video it is not only the words and music that are important, but the images, too.  I must have listened to this song a hundred times while working on Little Fire.  And each time I learned something new.

Only use songs in your books that truly play an important role in the work of art.  Never use a song just because you like it.  In this novel, Joni Mitchell herself becomes a sort of character because for a couple of my characters her music articulates all of the heartbreak and pining they have felt throughout their lives.  Mitchell is an artist who has always incorporated motifs of travel, loneliness, and heartbreak into her work so it's only natural that she be a musician featured in a book that deals with the same themes.

Also it is important to point out that when listening to a song that is this perfectly written I am not only learning some emotional truth about the characters' lives but I am also being inspired by such perfect writing as Mitchell's.  Every line is a wonder.  Surround yourself with art--music, photographs, paintings, films, whatever--that inspires you with its beauty and complexity.

Note:  Don't let the French at the beginning throw you; that only lasts the first few seconds of the film.


Urge for Going, by Joni Mitchell

I awoke today and found the frost perched on the town

It hovered in a frozen sky, then it gobbled summer down

When the sun turns traitor cold

And shivering trees are standing in a naked row

I get the urge for going but I never seem to go

I get the urge for going

When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I had me a man in summertime

He had summer-colored skin

And not another girl in town

My darling's heart could win

But when the leaves fell trembling down

Bully winds did rub their faces in the snow

He got the urge for going And I had to let him go

He got the urge for going

When the meadow grass was turning brown

Summertime was falling down and winter was closing in

The warriors of winter they gave a cold triumphant shout

And all that stays is dying and all that lives is getting out

See the geese in chevron flight flapping and racing on before the snow

They've got the urge for going, they've got the wings to go

They get the urge for going

When the meadow grass is turning brown

Summertime is falling down and winter is closing in

I'll ply the fire with kindling and pull the blankets to my chin

And I'll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in

I'd like to call back summertime and have her stay jut another month or so

She's got the urge for going and I guess she'll have to go

And she get the urge for going when meadow grass is turning brown

All her empires are falling down

Winter's closing in

Listen to Your Elders

I grew up surrounded by older people, and I stuck as close to them as I could.  I hid beneath kitchen tables, porches, and quilting racks so I could eavesdrop on their juiciest stories.  But I also piled into cars with them when they went to town and told stories about each house we passed, sat in John boats with them while they fished and gave tips on the best way to reel in a bluegill, walked the hills with them while they announced the names of trees and plants and tuned their ears to birdcalls so they could identify their songs.  Most of all, I listened to their stories.  Stories about hard times, old times.  Stories about ways of life that were gone with the wind.  But within those tales there was always something to apply to the right here and now.  There was always wisdom weaving itself in and out and around their words.

We don't mix generationally enough any more.  The young stay with the young, the old with the old.  And something incredibly valuable is lost because of that.

To become a better writer--to become a better person--talk to your elders.  Listen to them.  Ask them to tell you stories.  Or let them be.  You will learn something, no matter how you go about it.

In this picture is my aunt, Sis.  She is almost 80.  I have been listening to her tell stories my entire life.  She has informed my writing more than anyone else and my character Anneth, featured in Clay's Quilt and The Coal Tattoo, is loosely based on her.  She has worked hard all of her life.  She has laughed and cried and done everything in a big, beautiful, messy way.  That's life.  That's the way I want to live. And that's how I want my characters to live:  by giving it their all.  By experiencing everything they can and loving all of it while they are able.  Sis taught me that.

Last winter she and I visited the holler where she lived as a little girl.  Puncheon Camp, deep in the hills of Leslie County, Kentucky.  In this picture you can see the hill behind her where she took a shortcut across to get to elementary school.  The creek was twice as big when she was a girl, half of it pushed underground when the road was built.  Back then the creek served as road, too, with horses and even some trucks rumbling their ways over the rocks and little waterfalls to get to the top of the ridge.  Her family had some terrible times on Puncheon Camp.  But some great ones, too.  That day she told me dozens of stories I had never heard before, even though she's been telling me stories every since the mid 1970s.  She is an endless font of good tales.

If I hadn't been listening to my elders as a child, and even now, as an adult, I would have missed out on so much.  My writing would not have bloomed without them.  We live in a world where people know more about vapid celebrities than they do about their grandparents.  We live in a world where we never go over to visit our elderly neighbors.  Change that about yourself and it will make your life and your writing better.  I guarantee it.

Going to Key West (Using Music-2)

Litte Fire is my first novel to be set completely outside somewhere I have actually lived.  The novel is essentially a road novel with the majority of the action set in Key West, Florida.  Since the book is about a man from rural Tennessee who has kidnapped his child and is on the run, he feels like Key West is the most exotic yet reachable place for him.  While writing the novel I was lucky to have help from friends like Annie Dillard, a resident of Key West, and the Studios of Key West, which offers lodging for artists.  I came to know Key West very well, spending a lot of time there not as a tourist but experiencing it through the eyes of my main characters, who were on the run and found it to be their strange new home.  One of the things that absolutely helped to put me there was choosing music that not only talked about the ocean but also songs that made me feel as if I was in Key West, even when I was back home in Kentucky, conjuring it while I tapped away on my laptop.  Here are a couple of the songs that helped put me there the best.