Read this book: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Let's begin with what I said about Lev Grossman's first novel Codex, in my A Reading Life column in The Boston Globe: "Fabulously entertaining. By turns fascinating, compellling and deliciously disturbing. It's an intelligent thriller that is truly just that: intelligently thrilling. His second novel, The Magicians, is even better--the kind of book you really want all your friends to read, but you don't want to let your copy out of your hands.

Many thanks to Lev for answering my questions.

I raved about your first novel Codex in the Boston Globe, and for me, part of the pleasure of the book was that you turned a genre into something eerie and literate and wonderfully new. I think you’ve done it again with The Magicians, which takes all the usual tropes about magic and turns them on their head. So, where did this novel come from? What sparked it?

Well -- to extend the sparking metaphor, probably past where you intended -- the tinder had been dry for some time. I’d written a few sketchy sequences of it back in 1996 -- back when the major precedent for a novel about the education of a wizard was Ursula Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, not Harry Potter. But I began it in earnest in 2004, spurred in part by reading an early draft of my brother Austin’s novel, Soon I will Be Invincible, and also by reading Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, an amazingly accomplished work of literary fantasy. I’ve been an obsessive fantasy fan all my life. I knew I wanted to do something with that, to write fantasy, but I just couldn’t find a way into it. I couldn’t find the wardrobe. Those two books showed it to me.

Also, I was getting divorced. And all kinds of surprising things shake loose during a divorce.

I’d say this novel was the anti-Harry Potter, and all the more interesting for it. Magic here is dark, terrifying, deliciously disturbing and often causes more problems than it solves. The characters here are magicians because they want to “break the world that has tried to break them.” While kids may be entranced by all the presto chango that goes on in the Potter books, the magic you’re looking at in this book has more to do with how do we make love happen (and not disappear), how do we get to feel normal and not disappointed, and how do we make sense of all the worlds we live in—or want to live in? Alice says that “you have to find something to really care about to avoid running off the rails” because “real life is so much harder than magic.” So, can you talk about your personal worldview in the light of the novel?

I’m a massive Harry Potter fan. Another reason I started this book is that we were in the two-year trough between Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I wanted something to read -- something that was like HP, but also not. So I began noodling with something in a similar vein, which became The Magicians.

But Rowling’s books, for all their brilliance, are YA. And reading them as an A(dult), you feel aware that some things are more complex for grownups than they are for teenagers. So one of the ways in which I modified Rowling’s story, to more closely fit my personal worldview, was to subtract Voldermort from the world. In Harry's world, in most cases -- setting Snape aside -- you know who’s evil, and who’s good, and what magic is for. Magic is for fighting the evil people. In the world of The Magicians, there is no obvious paramount evil -- no Big Bad, as Joss Whedon would say. The whole world is shades of grey, and you spend a lot of time flailing around in a state of confusion, making very bad educated guesses as to what to do next. So the adventure becomes less about using magic to defeat the villain, and more about just figuring out what the hell magic is for. Which is a very different kind of adventure.

The Magicians has this wonderful dark heart, yet it is also, in parts, hilarious (I am partial to the bear who liked peach schnapps and I also loved the Dickensonian use of names—like Quentin Coldwater) What was it like writing this book? How did you keep all the many myriad plates spinning in the air so effortlessly? Did you map it all out? Did anything surprise you in the writing?

That bear is one of my favorite characters. He's actually partly a steal from Douglas Adams. One of the characters in the Hitchhiker’s trilogy learns to communicate with birds, but it turns out that all they talk about is wind shear and seeds and berries and such, and it’s very dull. I feel sure that most bears are bores at heart too.

Composing The Magicians took about 4 years, and if it ever looks effortless, that effect was created very very effortfully. Before I wrote it I carefully plotted out an outline, which I followed meticulously, point for point, and the resulting draft was an absolute shambles. I spent about three years surgically rewiring it, and adding more elements at the same time, to fix the damage my neat but terrible outline had done.

There were definitely bits in the writing that surprised me. But they’re the bits that are supposed to surprise YOU. So I’m not going to say what they are. Though generally speaking I never knew what Josh was going to say before he said it.

You have a great blog, Nerdworld and Coldwater is definitely a nerd—I know authors hate this questions, but I’m going to ask anyway: How much of him is you?Y

It’s bits and pieces. I had to have a little fun with him, so there are differences. For example, Quentin is tall; I am small-to-medium-sized. Quentin has all his hair; I don't. Quentin is a genius; I used to think I was a genius when I was in junior high. Quentin has a dangerous iron-skinned demon; I used to have a cat named Mittens who scratched people. ETC.

On the other hand it’s pretty safe to assume that all the bad bits of Quentin are me.

You’re Time Magazine’s book critic. How different does it feel being at the authors’ table right now, waiting for the critics to weigh in, rather than being the critic making the authors tremble?

It feels very different. As a critic I championed my right to present my random subjective opinion about books as if it had some lasting, universal, objective validity. Now I am at the mercy of the random subjective viewpoints of others, and I hate it. It’s cause for reflection to say the least.

So what are you working on next?

The short answer would be a sequel. I guess I’m still working on what the long answer would be.

What question should I be absolutely appalled that I didn’t ask?

Appalled? Never. But let me try to think of something. Somebody once asked me who I would cast as the main characters in The Magicians if they made it as a movie. Answer; Quentin = Withnail-era Richard E. Grant. Alice = Ghost World-era Thora Birch.

Oh, and I always get asked about my fantasy influences, but I like to talk about my non-fantasy ones too, which are just as important. Among them are Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections -- I often try (and fail) to imitate his style -- and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History -- you might think of Brakebills as a hybrid of Hogwarts and Tartt’s Hampden College. And above all Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, the 20th century’s great novel of innocence and experience, hope and disillusionment. I borrowed heavily from Waugh. So heavily that maybe it’s just as well you didn’t ask that question.

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Read this Book: A Better View of Paradise

A movie made me interested in this novel, A Better View of Paradise. Randy Sue Coburn wrote the script for Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle, which is one of my favorite films. Her novel, about fathers, daughters, secrets, family and the Islands hooked me with her first sentence and I am delighted Randy offered to let me pepper her with questions.

The Hawaiian islands hold sway in this remarkable novel and truly cast a spell. Did you live out there to research? What was it like?

Hawaiian life can be so alive to the elements that many children are taught to ask permission of the appropriate god or goddess before they step into a stream or pick a flower. I’d visited the island of Kaua`i a handful of times, but when I returned knowing I’d like to set a book there, it was almost like the entire trip was a continuous request for permission to do just that. And I’m just nuts enough to think that I received answers all over the place! First I found an old plantation-style house to rent just like the one where I imagined my protagonist Stevie lived when she was a child, and discovered a locally published memoir about growing up in Kaua`i written by Waimea Williams. Two major sources of inspiration right there, since I couldn’t get off the dime until Stevie’s childhood felt real to me. On Sunday mornings I would listen to a local veterinarian’s call- in show on Kaua`i’s NPR affiliate station, and when my husband and I found a lost puppy one day, I knew that both a radio vet and that little dog belonged in the book. As did the Hawaiian language church, where the congregation’s ethereal harmonies make you feel as though you’ve just had your ticket to heaven punched. Maybe I’m more superstitious than most writers (I doubt it!), but even putting Hawai`i aside, such synchronicities seem like little blessings that help make another book possible.

You've written about the creative life before, in your screenplay for Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a film I loved. What drew you to Dorothy Parker and to the story?

I’m so glad the film spoke to you! Dorothy Parker was deeply embedded in my maternal lineage. My flapper grandmother, who wrote poetry, adored her. And my mother, who’s a painter, always had a copy of “The Portable Dorothy Parker” on the shelf of her bedside table. When I was thirteen and imagining myself heartbroken, I would copy Parker poems into my journal. Then when I went to work at a big city newspaper (I’m from small town South Carolina), Parker was a role model for me and all my twenty-something female colleagues (including Maureen Dowd) who wanted to write with Parker’s kind of precision and wit. Maybe the Parker deal was sealed by the fact that I became pals with Nat Benchley, the grandson of Parker’s great friend and fellow Round Tabler, the humorist Robert Benchley? Sometimes I wonder. What’s for sure is that when the director Alan Rudolph suggested that I write for him a script based on someone like Dorothy Parker, I said why not the genuine article?

Which do you prefer, writing scripts or novels, and why?

I love writing screenplays, though compared to novels, they’re a bit like writing haiku. Plus with movies, the director always has the last laugh—it’s her or his medium. The advantage of novel writing, as John Sayles says, is that nobody’s going to tell you, “Hey, we just ran out of money, get rid of all your adjectives.” But with movies, that kind of thing happens all the time. I remember being so sad when the dinner party seduction I wrote for Dottie in “Mrs. Parker” turned into a teatime quickie behind bushes because we could only afford to rent our faux Long Island mansion for exteriors. What this all boils down to, I guess, is a preference for writing novels. But brother, if another good project came my way, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Even Guild minimum buys someone like me a whole heap of time to work on a novel.

I always ask about process because I find it so fascinating. How do you work? Do you outline? Fly by the seat of your pants? What rituals do you have when you work?

I’m of the school that says if you want to make God laugh, show him your outline. I do find outlines useful, though, in giving the illusion that you know where you’re heading. I’m just way too left-brained to find the kind of juice in outlining that some of my more right-brained writer pals do. What gets my engines revving more is stream of consciousness, present-tense writing that lets ideas pop out unedited, and noting what scenes might be suggested by those ideas. So I try to keep track of those things in a journal. And when all else fails, I knit. If I can turn a heel on a sock, which always seems like a small miracle, then maybe I can write a scene. Or so I tell myself.

What rituals do you have when you work?

First of all, I work in bed. Which I’ve been told is not a great thing to announce to the world at large, but you know what I mean. And I do this on an old, brain damaged computer with absolutely no internet capability so I won’t be tempted to check e-mail or go online. But probably the most important ritual in my writing life is that most every Wednesday, I meet for lunch with my pal Jack Remick. We always go to the same place, and always split a burger, French fries, and salad, and after we eat, we read our pages for the week—which we do aloud, alternating paragraphs (very handy when you get to a dialogue passage), not stopping to discuss until we’re finished. Jack’s a poet as well as a novelist, so his ear for language is terrific, and he’s great at helping me get my guy characters’ dialogue sounding more guy-ish. I seriously doubt that I would have finished my last two books if it weren’t for weekly lunches with Jack. I don’t think it’s just the old journalist in me responding to a deadline, either. When I put those pages on the table, even if they suck, working on them with Jack gives the book a more solid reality outside my head. I also—and this sounds really retarded—read finished chapters to my mother on the phone. She’s a creative person, too, and always gets what I’m going for. I’m lucky she likes being read to because I often catch stuff doing this that I wouldn’t otherwise.

Ah, the dreaded question: What are you working on now and why?

I’ve just finished an outline (ha!) and the first few chapters of a novel about a woman who writes historical fiction, and is alarmed when instead of writing herself into the past, as she’s always done, she seems to be writing herself into the future—her future. More than that, I’m too superstitious to say!

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Hmmm, How about:

The father in your book is an avid Chicago Cubs fan; why did you decide to make baseball such a bond between Stevie and her dad?

Because I knew all about that bond from my own father—a lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, like Stevie’s. The 2003 season, when the Cubs were just one game away from the World Series before blowing it, was my dad’s last chance to see his team go the distance. I gave to Stevie all my own hopes that Cubs wins would extend my dad’s life. Which is not quite so insane as it sounds, when Wrigley Field is your father’s only church of the resurrection. I haven’t been to Wrigley Field since my dad died, but I plan to sneak in a handful of his ashes to scatter under the bleachers next time I go.

More bad jobs I remember

Job From Hell One.

When I was in high school I worked for an answering service. The whole board terrified me and I never knew what to plug in where or who I was talking to, even though there were little name tags above each connection, and the owner was a loud, brassy woman who wore laced-up striped pants and teased her hair and kept yelling at me, "What are you, stupid?" The worst was when we had to page someone because the microphone you were supposed to use always shocked you. At one point, my boss picked it up and yelled, "Paging Mr. --got shocked-- Jesus Goddamned Christ --" And how did I get fired? There were two doctors named Dr. Foot. One was a podiatrist and the other was an obstetrician. A woman called frantic, having her baby and guess which doctor I called up?

Job From Hell Two.

I was hired to type for a small company run by a woman who was 500 pounds. Really. She could barely walk but she was very vain and she had lots of boyfriends who came to see her, all of them swooning over this special bath tub she had built for her house. I walked her poodles for her and gave them the Valium she insisted they needed. I got her lunch every day --three cheeseburgers, a piece of cake and a diet Coke. The first time I had to write a letter for someone on special letterhead, I made so many mistakes, that when I had to give it to the client, I lied and said, Oh, it's a new girl. I'm sure we'll fire her. The guy shook his head. "I would like to fire her myself," he said. I then went into my boss, hung my head and admitted my screw up. She said, "Well, you can paint glitter on the stars for the Kirby Vacuum Cleaner conventions. Just don't wear those little halter tops anymore and don't flirt with the salesmen because their wives won't like it."

So that was my new career. Painting glitter on paper stars and talking to the salesmen who taught me their spiel. "Madame, what's the dirtiest room in your home? That's right, the bedroom!" Then you stride, with confidence, into the bedroom and tug down the blankets while the housewife looks at you askance. "See that? Looks clean but it isn't!" Then you vacuum and empty the bag and show them the dirt. Everybody likes that.

Job From Hell Three.

A dirty puzzle factory. They made Bridgett in The Buff puzzles-Bridgett being nude and about 5o pounds. Very scary machines. On my first day, there was screaming. A girl got her hair caught in the glue press and her head was bleeding. While I was shaking, the foreman strode out and began yelling at all the women. "You have GOT to put your hair back in a ponytail!" he ordered. "Or cut it all off!" The girl came out with her hair tied back in a bandana and a sheepish look on her face. I looked at the woman next to me. She was missing a finger. I quit within the next hour.

Job From Hell Four.

Pittsburgh. Job Corps. Me in a sea of 15 to 17 year old boys, many of them married with kids, half on parole, some sent here rather than jail, to learn a trade, to live together, to stay out of trouble. On special searches, you could hear the clanking of the knives and razor blades they hid a mile away. But they were polite around me, even protective and chivalrous. They spoke softly, even as they told me how they were planning to smuggle dangerous goods from state to state so they could buy their 16 year old wives the horse the wives wanted. One handed me a poem he had written (I was supposed to get them writing a newspaper). I thought it was so good, I wanted to enter it into a contest, but he refused. I could not understand why until one day I was at the Giant Eagle supermarket and I heard the same lines piped in on a Frank Sinatra song. Word for word. I wasn't fired, but I left when they decided to make the program co-ed. All the boys I worked with--many of parole--warned me to quit because they said the girls were really tough. They would throw acid in my face or beat me up. "Please," one boy said, taking my arms. "Don't make me make you leave." But the powers that be were mad at me anyway because I allowed the boys to have a gripe page in the newspaper--the only writing they were enthusiastic about. What I learned? That you can give yourself a tattoo using a sewing needle, thread and some ink from a fountain pen, but it is very hard not to get it infected.

Job I loved

I taught at a private high school, one on one. I had to teach grammar, so I made it Bizarro grammar. Please tell those/them ants not to wear so much lipstick. I like them/those vampires over there wearing the pink shoes.

I am so so happy I am a writer. Remember your awful jobs? I'd love to hear about them.

Writing in pieces and job history

Usually, when I write my novels, I write from the beginning to the end, but lately, I have begun writing in pieces. When I was 1/4 through Breathe, I felt so stuck I was hyperventilating just looking at the pages, but I kept hearing the voice of this new character in my head, so I wrote his scenes, which come at the very end of the novel. The coda to Breathe came early, too, and I wrote that one in a fever state. At the time, I had no idea what it was, or where these sections might fit in. But somewhere, around the 4th draft, I began to realize what those pieces meant, and the novel suddenly began to stretch its legs and ..well, breathe.

With this new novel (I still do not have the title I want), I'm also moving about. I thought this process might make me crazy, but it is ridiculously liberating. I like having all these mysterious puzzle pieces floating up to the surface. Sooner or later, I'm going to know just how they will all fit together. The best thing about this process is because I have done it this way before, I don't have all the angst about whether or not it will work. I'm just going to trust.

I was thinking how much I adore what I do with a passion, and feeling guilty about not working harder yesterday when a friend reminded me of how little work gets done at 9 to 5 jobs. Maybe it is different now, because of the economy, but I do remember how at my video company job, I would spend the first hour discussing my personal life with the art director sharing the office, then I'd do a little writing about movies, then we would take off three hours to go SEE a movie (paid for by the company), then we would have lunch, then talk more about our personal life, and then do..oh, about an hour of work. (Bruce is back and better than ever in the high octane thriller, Die Hard 14)

When I worked as a fashion writer for Macy's (this is very funny, considering I wear mostly black and I live in jeans and sneakers), most of my day was taken up with meetings. The buyers would come in with $5,000 dresses or blouses that sometimes I could talk them into letting me try on, and they would always raise their brows at my attire and my complicated earrings, but mostly we talked. While I wrote about expensive dresses, I often cut out photos of rings from the catalogs and wrapped them around my finger for my own amusement. I made up copy for friends' clothing to make them laugh (Sheared Genius! Corduroy goes to great lengths to make a new statement.) I hung out and in the down time, I worked on my novel and no one complained.

I was full-time freelance at Macy's and they loved me. I was full-time staff at the video company and they made my life a living hell. I was told never to tell anyone I was a novelist because they would know I was thinking about plot rather than selling videos. I was told my desk was too messy. I was told not to use titles like "stallion stories" because no one would know a stallion was a horse. I was told to "walk the halls" and ask everyone in marketing how their weekend was because I was perceived as not being a team player.

Well, that company is no longer. And I'm on my own team now.

Read This Book: Happily Ever After Divorce

I had a truly unhappy first marriage. Stuck in Pittsburgh when I yearned to be in NYC, married to a man who vanished for days, who seldom talked and who tomcatted all over town, the end of that marriage came when a strange woman, who just so happened to be his girlfriend of five years, called me up and asked me why I couldn't let go of the man we both loved? Divorce for me was a blessing. After the initial shock and grief, I fell in love--with my new life. I lived in Manhattan, I was a novelist, I could shape my life the way I wanted to. Plus, divorce gave me lots of fodder to write about (Several of my essays are still up at Salon.com) and divorce taught me to refuse to stay in relationships that were just plain toxic (more writing fodder!) I'm happily remarried now, with a son, and when I heard about this new book, Happily Ever After Divorce:Notes of a Joyful Journey by Jessica Bram, I wanted to read it--and talk with the author.

At what point did you feel divorce could be joyful?

From that very first moment when he walked out, and I spent the rest of the night sobbing, hysterical, on the phone to my sister for hours, terrified about what this would mean to our home, our children, all the rest. And the whole time I could hear a faint, faint, tiny voice inside my head, not cheering but whispering, “Hooray. Hooray.” Because deep in my heart and soul I knew that this was the right thing to happen. There was a tiny suspicion that from this moment on, it would get better. And although it first had to get a lot worse, eventually it did.

What was your writing process like?

My writing process was not a deliberate “I’m going to sit down and write a memoir.” I write personal essays – I always have – that take ordinary moments of my life and look deeply at them. While I was raising babies and young children, when I lost a cherished friend to breast cancer, those are the things I wrote about. Some were published, and later, after I wrote a piece musing about all the security at the first post-9/11 presidential election, they became radio commentaries on NPR and my local NPR station. (They can be heard as podcasts on my web site.) So while I was going through those days of rebuilding a life after my divorce, that’s naturally what I wrote about. When I later realized that they seemed to fall together into a theme, I conceived of the collection of essays on the subject. Only about twelve were written when I found an agent and got a book contract from HCI Books. After that I spent about six months going through notes, memories, and reworking old pieces, and filling in gaps, for what became the final collection.

I should mention that they were not written in the order that they appear in the book. They were written whenever the mood struck, or the topic was on my mind. Only after the entire collection was finished did I order them into a sequence that could somehow constitute a memoir. (This is how I teach memoir writing in the Westport Writers' Workshop I founded. I encourage writers to write about vignettes from their lives as the spirit moves them, and not to be constrained by sequential order.)

What advice would you give someone contemplating divorce?

That’s a tough one, because the whole point of my book is that I do not give advice –especially because I am not a family therapist, marriage counselor or divorce attorney. When I was going through my divorce, I myself did not want advice. All I wanted was to ask divorced friends who now appeared happy or successfully remarried, “How did you do it? … What was it like for you?” When you’re going through such major changes, the answers really have to come from inside oneself. Randy Pausch said it perfectly in his Last Lecture: “Don’t tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories, and they’ll figure out how to make those stories apply to themselves.”

Do you see perceptions about divorce changing?

No matter how modern our values, how far we have come, or how terrifically commonplace divorce is, I still see divorce regarded as failure, and a state of life to fear and feel shameful of. That is why I believe heart and soul that we who have gone through it must be there for the unhappily married (who fear it) and the recently divorced (certain they will never be happy again) to reassure them that just the opposite is true. This was my central mission in doing all the hard work to complete Happily Ever After Divorce: Notes of a Joyful Journey – to reach out a hand of hope to those people. I know it sounds hokey, but I truly mean that.

Office spaces

Behold the bliss of the messy office. The top photo is mine and the one below belongs to the writer Rosemary Graham. (Forgive me for not being able to supersize it.) For me, creativity comes out of chaos. My office is the size of bedroom, with two big windows, a couch for naps, more snow domes than I can handle, and various toys, including a one-legged Malibu Barbi and some vintage wooden monkeys. I'm not sure why I have two chairs, except one serves as a great catch-all for books and papers. Lots of books, some plants, photographs and oddities everywhere--and I love it.

At the one and only job job I ever held (a video corporation where I got to watch movies for a living and endure corporate culture the rest of the time), I was always criticized, and even denied a better raise because of my messy desk. I kept insisting if my desk were neat, I'd never be able to work.

True then. True now.

Why writers need blinders

One of my favorite things to do on Facebook is to look at everyone else's photos. I am always astonished at how clean and spacious and uncluttered homes or offices are, how amazing vacation pictures seem. It puts me into a kind of panic state, as if I am doing something wrong because my personal photos are not like that. I know that I love my messy home, our odd vacations and I adore my family with a passion. Of course I know that pictures do not really tell the whole story, just one of them. I know that people spruce up their space before taking a shot, that no one posts the vacation pictures of someone throwing up on the beach or the apartment where a mouse just took up residence. (It should be noted that, too when it comes to relationship photos, sometimes the most romantic portrait of love can be of a spouse bringing you tea when you have a 104 degree fever and look like the cat's dinner, but those pix are never posted.)

Today I was browsing writer blogs and reading about what everyone is writing and I had the same sort of panic. One author wrote about how easily she wrote her upcoming novel--that she finished it in six months and was now on her second, and everyone was adoring it and already awarding it prizes. (I reached for the chocolate.) Another wrote about how she knew instantly what she was supposed to be writing about and she let the characters dictate the story to her and now she is on a 450 city tour (OK, I exaggerate, but still...) I hyperventilated. I read the plot lines of both books--simple, straightforward--and thought, "Why didn't I think of that story? What's wrong with me that I didn't?"

Then I looked at my pages, which are complex, convoluted and I felt something centering. I like--no, I love what I am working on. It obsesses me. I have been trying to figure out how to write this particular novel for years and I finally figured out how to do it, and if it takes me two more years to get it right, then it takes me two more years.

I know my process is not everyone's process. I know I could no more write a book in six months then I could sing opera, nor could I write a book about something that did not speak to me in some deep and personal way.

It's difficult not to compare yourself to other writers, but I certainly don't really think that writers put up blogs for that purpose. I also think it's dangerous to think like that. Stories are like your fingerprints--yours are unique and that uniqueness is what makes them powerful. I think that's a good thing to always remember, even when other websites seem to be whispering challenges.

Happy blueberry 4th

This delicious looking blueberry pie is about to go in the oven, and it is courtesy of Coconut and Lime, one of my favorite blogs. I think the plastic Japanese monsters add a festive touch.

Good writing day followed by sloggy one

Some days, everything aligns. Yesterday was such a great writing day, so why am I surprised that today I have been staring at the page and wrote one sentence that I almost liked? The problem is I am at the stage in this first draft where the book is wildly out of control (but like a badly behaved child, I still adore it and hope it will grow up well.) My fingers feel tired. My brain feels tired. The couch in my office keeps whispering, come sleep.

They are building a sixplex a few blocks away, which is supposed to be open in August and all I can think is...this would be a perfect day for me to go and just move from theater to theater, watching everything in sight.

Does it take one to know one? And new website, She Writes

Sometimes when I am wrestling with a chapter (psst, like now), I wonder who am I to teach writing or pretend that I know anything about writing at all? Why would anyone listen to me when I can't figure out a character or when I stare at a page for hours on end and the best I can come up with is: She opened the door. Or: "No," he said.

Sometimes, I can figure out the problems for other people. Every writer should look at other writers' pages, because being able to look clear-eyed at a piece of work and be able to tell what works, what doesn't, and why, can really nudge you into figuring out your own writing.

Plus, it makes you feel smart, which leads to feeling more confidant, which leads to more writing and perhaps a bit more forgiveness of the whole thorny and wonderful process.

I want to mention a fab new site for literary women, She Writes. Dedicated to helping women writers thrive as professionals and as artists, She Writes is also a sort of literary salon.

Cupcakes and joy

Behold these beauties from Sweet, my favorite cupcake place in the world, which just happens to be two blocks away. This means it is often dangerous to walk on that particular block, because these cupcakes have their own siren song. These fabulous cupcakes (red velvet, banana, chocolate, coconut, vanilla, coffee, peanut butter, ginger, some with marshmallow, cream cheese and buttercream frostings) were a gift from Gina Sorell, a former UCLA writing student of mine (and now a friend) who just got an agent for her novel!

What is so amazing for me is that I saw the novel in its babyhood. I got to watch it grow and stretch and become something alive and rich.

And now I get to celebrate with Gina.

I thanked her profusely for the cupcakes, and I told her, as I truly believe: structure can be taught. All the nuts and bolts of writing can be passed on like an heirloom. But Talent--well, it cannot. Teachers, mentors, brilliant agents and editors guide you in the right direction to shore, offer life boats or new ways of swimming, cheer you on and make you better than you could ever imagine, but in the end, you have to do the strokes.

I'm just thrilled for Gina. She had the goods all along.

And now I have the baked goods and they are most delicious.

Read This Book: Vanessa & Virginia

I can't pass up a book about Virginia Woolf. Vanessa & Virginia, about the sister's lives, is ravishing, literate, and fascinating. Susan Sellers, a professor of English at St. Andrews University in Scotland was so very gracious in answering my questions.

You’re a respected Woolf scholar, but why write a novel about Vanessa and Virginia? What was the impetus?

Some of my fascination came from research. I manage a scholarly edition of Virginia Woolf’s writing and this led me to read not only her novels and essays, but also her diaries and letters. We know an extraordinary amount about Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell. And yet, there are gaps in what we know. Fiction enabled me to explore these gaps. It also allowed me to go inside the minds of both sisters, and to imagine what they were thinking and feeling.


The rivalry between the two sisters is palpable. I was wondering what elements did you bring to the novel that are not specifically factual?

I had a strict rule to myself when writing the novel that I would not contradict any definite fact. On the other hand, as I’ve suggested, I wanted to explore some of the gaps in the story, and here I gave myself permission to invent. I see this as a feminist enterprise – filling in the blanks and omissions in the historical record.

I know that I brought some of my own life-experience to the sisters’ relationship. I’ve always been fascinated by the way our early dealings with our siblings mould who we are and continue to resonate in our adult relationships. Like Vanessa Bell, I’m the eldest in my family and could empathise with Vanessa’s sense of responsibility towards the younger Virginia – as well as her pleasure in and at times intense resentment of her sister’s success!

This novel is narrated by an elderly, arthritic Vanessa, after Virginia has died. What made you choose this particular structure? And why have Vanessa be the narrator, when Virginia was the more famous of the two? What structural or story problems did you encounter doing it this way (and how did it free you?)

The honest answer is that I was too terrified of sounding like a poor pastiche of Virginia Woolf to attempt to write in her voice! Once I knew I would tell the story in Vanessa’s voice I began to see all sorts of advantages. For instance, it made it possible to give what I hope is a multifaceted portrait of Virginia: brilliant, risk-taking, intense, but also at times uncertain and needy. I think this would have been more difficult to do if I had been writing through Virginia.

The flashback structure offered great economy because Vanessa could select certain incidents rather than attempt to be all-inclusive and could also alter the chronology. This was important because some of the things that happened would have been hard to include sequentially in a novel, where as a writer you are thinking about pace, balance, contrast and so on. From this vantage point the most difficult part of the story was during the 1890s when the sisters lost first their mother then their half-sister Stella. This double tragedy would have been very difficult to handle if I had been telling the story in strict chronological order.

I also found it fascinating that it is the painter, and not the writer who does the narration of the story. What do you think painting has to say about writing and the creative process in general?

To prepare Vanessa, I spent time watching artists work and became fascinated by the way a painting is built up, brush-stroke by brush-stroke. This seemed to me a perfect metaphor for the role art played in both women’s lives. Scarcely a day went by when the sisters did not paint or write, and I think this incessant act of creation is one of the most empowering aspects of their story. No matter how difficult their lives were, they continued working. This is all the more remarkable when you think of the turbulent times they lived through – they experienced two world wars, tremendous political, social and technological change (they were the first generation of women to have the vote in Britain and Virginia wrote one of the first essays in the English language on cinema), and of course intense personal tragedy.

What was your whole writing process like in completing this book?

One very important impetus for the novel was a long period of research leave away from my University. This gave me time to write the first draft without the persistent interruption of work. After that, it was more difficult, because subsequent drafts had to be fitted around other commitments. For me, writing requires daily or near-daily space. I think you have to carry the world of your novel around in your head with you while you are working on it, and this is difficult to achieve if you have too many other demands pressing in on your time.

I tend to write my first draft in as uncensored a way as possible because if I start editing too quickly it kills all invention! Once that first draft is finished, I then read back through it and draw up a plan for what needs to be done. The second draft is always the most difficult because it’s at this point that I am thinking about the overall shape and momentum of the narrative, characterization, and so forth. After that, I could probably go on rewriting endlessly! There was a gap between the publication of the British and American editions – and the novel carried on changing…

What are you working on now?

I’m writing a novel about the contemporary London art world and about that moment in a woman’s life when she realises she may have left it too late to have children. The story is told partly from her point of view and partly from that of her (male) partner, so it also explores the impact childlessness can have on men.

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

I’m very glad you didn’t ask me to recommend my favourite books because I always find that very hard to answer!

Women Who Write

Vicki Abelson is amazing. A one-time publicist and promoter, she gave it up to be with her kids and started writing. Realizing how important it is to read work-in-progress aloud, and like most of us with kids, not having the evenings available to get out and do it, she created a daytime alternative in 2008, Women Who Write.

Women Who Write, now in LA and NYC, presents readings for women, by women, monthly, mid-day soirees, which feature four professional writers and are open to all women who love being read to, welcome engaging discussions and relish feasting on delectable fare. She's had Rachel Resnick (I raved over Resnick's Love Junkie here a while ago), Evan Handler of Californication, and more. Says Abelson, "Most thrilling of all, is offering a nurturing forum for writers to read, and a safe heaven for all of us to give voice to our truths. For three hours ever month, in a Montrose living room, together we construct a magical communion of mind, heart, tummy and spirit, that profoundly and deliciously unites and nourishes us."

For more info, check out Vicki on Facebook, which she points out, is hugely responsible for her connecting to so many great writers!

Why Kepler's Writers Blog is so terrific

Please check out the fabulous posts about the writing life from author Clea Simon at the amazing Kepler's Writer's blog! This writers blog is an amazing resource for writers and for readers and gives an intimate look inside the writer-mind.

Research

What is so funny for a novelist is that we have to do research, even though our greatest pleasure is making things up, creating worlds, and flying by the seat of our pants. I spent a lot of time researching open adoption for Girls in Trouble (the results didn't always please the adoption agencies, though the birth mothers made me their heroine.) In Breathe, I had little things to research. what exactly do you see on a sonogram at 16 weeks? What happens if someone dies out of state? I found a great cop to talk to (thank you, Clea!) and I had help from friends (thank you, Leora!) but when I needed to find out things about funeral homes, it got a little tricky.

I was able to talk to a great person in NY, who then told me how radically laws can differ state to state. So I put out the word to people I knew on Facebook (and got one terrific funeral director) and called two places in Mass, where I need the funeral home to be. One of them was coldly silent and said no one could talk to me. The other said, yes, ask away, and when I did, a question about autopsy, there was that funny cold silence again, and he said, "I don't feel at all comfortable discussing this with you over the phone, goodbye." And he hung up on me! Just like that!

Lucky for me, I was able to find what I needed online and from the funeral director.

The thing I do love about research is entering someone else's world. After my 1950s novel, I am writing one around coma and I already found my neurologist to talk to and have pages of notes. Still, I wish that "the more you know, the less you realize you know" would not be such a common thing in my world.

the humpty dumpty school of writing

I know a lot of writers who map out their novels. (I do know some writers who follows the pen, but to my mind, those books have a certain inbred formula or genre.) John Irving knows every single thing that happens. I am a big believer in Truby story structure myself. John Truby is a screenwriting guru who watched hundred of films to see how they worked, how they didn't work, and what makes story. He threw out the three act structure which is too static and came up with tools like psychological wants and needs and desire lines and moral choices--and it is all invaluable stuff for a novelist.

So what's with the humpty dumpty school in my tagline? It has to do with the process. Yep, I mapped out my novel, but now, 150 pages in, I have to take it apart. There are too many summaries instead of scenes. The driving desire line wobbles and the moral choice feels soft to me. Nothing feels as if it is building and where are the stakes? I am so agitated about this that I am tempted to put that novel aside and pick up another one I am working on, but I won't. This is the gritty, hard, soul crunching work. Beside Truby, I've been googling other writers' processes. It's so gratifying to read that other writers have the same issues and I am not the only one bobbing in this sea of hungry giant squid! (Hey, I know how to swim.)

Get Kids to Love Reading: Behind The Book Works!

Jo Umans is the wonderful executive director of Behind the Book, a literary arts nonprofit that promotes literacy and a reading culture among low-income students in New York City public schools. Their mission is to excite children and young adults about reading. She was gracious enough to let me pepper her with questions.

How do you excite people about reading? And concurrently, how do you think you can kill a love of reading?

Most of the kids with whom we work don’t read for pleasure. I think you have to find books that are of interest to the kids as well as authors who reflect the experiences of their readers. The book also has to leave a lot of room for discussion. One of the most successful books we work with in high school is called, Like Sisters on the Homefront by Rita Williams-Garcia. The story is about an urban teenager who has a child at 14 years old. Her mother sends her down south to live with relatives in a stricter environment where she learns a lot and grows up. I am NOT doing justice to the plot. But we had one group of students disagree with the ending so we had them rewrite it. We have had other groups reenact sections of the book, and the art projects in relation to the story have been fantastic. The book is now part of the 9^th grade curriculum at one of our schools.

Another book that’s great for some high school classes is called Tyrell, by Coe Booth. The story is about and told by a 16 year old boy who is living in a homeless shelter and taking care of his mother and little brother. Kids have a lot to say about Tyrell and his experiences. Both of these books are written beautifully, I might add.

It’s much easier with the elementary school kids because they haven’t had as many bad experiences with reading and books. They’re also more open to new experiences than teenagers.

Also, for any age group, knowing that they will meet the author and be able to ask questions is a huge motivation.

Kill a love of reading…hmmmm…. choose books that are too difficult or too easy might do it. If you give a 10^th grade student a book that is at 3^rd grade level, even if he or she is reading at that level, it’s humiliating. That would definitely kill it. Another way is to have a teacher who is not enthusiastic about the book teaching it…Kids are smart and if their teacher doesn’t like it, they probably won’t. That’s why the teacher makes the final decision on the books we work with. The teacher has to live with the book for a few months so we ask that they read the book before deciding.

You bring authors' and their books into classrooms, which is a superlative idea. Are there certain books and authors that work better than others? Do the kids have a choice? How do you fit the book into the teacher’s curriculum?

I think I answered that above…but I love to look around the classrooms and ask teachers which books are the most popular. We also ask the teachers to get input from the kids. As we all know, a good book isn’t all it takes for a successful exchange. The author has to be interesting to kids. Some of the best we’ve worked with include Doreen Rappaport, Andrea and Brian Pinkney, Brian Selznick, Mo Willems, Rita Williams-Garcia, Gail Carson Levine, and Tony Medina. We’ve had kids sing with authors and even meditate. We worked with a special ed class of 4^th and 5^th graders and the author, Katherine Leiner, wanted to take the kids through her process of preparation before writing. The teacher was skeptical, as were the staff, but when it came down to it, the kids LOVED it. Katherine brought the bell, pillows, incense and the poetry that came out of these kids blew us all away. When we walked in for the second visit, the kids were begging to meditate …pretty cool.

3 . What has the feedback been like from kids? Does this go from kindergarten to high school? Is it more successful in certain grades than others?

We work with K-12^th grade and some special ed. I am a rock star in elementary school. Whenever I am having a day, I walk into one of our elementary cafeterias and kids scream at me…where’s Tony, where’s Colin, where’s Marc Tauss…

It’s equally successful, I’d say, with all grades…in different ways. Middle school teachers associate Chris with books and when she goes into a classroom the kids who’ve worked with us are most cooperative, excited, and ready to work. Word of mouth is powerful so we’re mostly well received. In a few of our schools kids will tell authors that their book is the first one they’ve ever completed. It’s sad but gratifying to hear. Did I mention that for some kids, the books we give them, are the first they’ve ever owned? And they always get autographs…which they love.

W What can the average person do to help your organization?

We have a waiting list of 14 schools right now and can’t possibly get to them all in the next year. What makes our programs work is the individualized attention our staff gives to each teacher and to the authors. Authors don’t generally do their pre-produced presentations but have to tailor them to the needs of the students. It takes a lot of time to put together each program. We create new programs to go with the skills of the author as well as the needs of the teachers and students. We go to all visits and act as stage managers at each one. Therefore we only do about 100 visits a year. All that being said, we need more money to insure the effectiveness of our programs.

But…we do a lot of events…and I’d like to invite your readers to come and learn more about us. Today we have a rooftop networking party for young professionals at the Roosevelt Hotel and in July we’re holding a dog party in Central Park with Bill Berloni, the dog trainer who trains animals for theatre, film, and television. He will bring some of his dogs and show us how he works. We’ll also have Frosty Paws for the dogs and the Humane Society will be there will adoptable dogs. Sign up for our facebook page or email us to get involved at www.BehindtheBook.org.

We also work with volunteers in classrooms and we’re always looking for photographers, web site writers & input–ers, public relations people, and data analysis volunteers. If you have a unique skill and want to help us, we will find a way!

What question didn’t I ask that I should have?

I think you’ve covered it but I hope your readers will check out our website at www.BehindtheBook.org

Author Kate Malloy at Kepler's this week

Kate Malloy, the author of the wonderful Every Last Cuckoo has a fabulous post up at Kepler's Writers Blog, my new favorite place in the world. Please go read--and post a comment.

If it's pink, it must be written by a woman

Sigh. It is an old argument and I wish it could be put to rest.

Recently in the NYT, I read a piece about the books of summer, how if something is written by a woman and it is about a relationship it gets the dreaded title "chick lit" or "women's fiction." (Is there such a thing as "men's fiction"? Would anyone dare to say that?) The author of the piece remarked that Updike wrote about relationships, and would anyone have dared to put out his novels with frilly-looking pink covers or cartoon drawings on them? When The Corrections came out it was heralded as something revolutionary, yet this book was really about what women have been writing about for decades. If a woman had written it, would it have gotten so much press? The tired adage is that men read thrillers, historical books and if they read about relationships it had better be written by a man, but how true is that? (It isn't in my world.)

Personally, I prefer my books dark, thorny and full of interesting characters, and what is more interesting than the drama of human relationships?

On that grumpy note, I am going back to writing. It is dark. There is violence and a mystery of sorts. It is set in the 1950s. And it involves the drama of family relationships.