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When I had the chance to interview Sherry Shahan, author of Purple Daze, for the Figment.com blog, I jumped on it. Figment is a website that gives young adult writers a place to experiment, write and share their stories with each other. It’s pretty cool, and you can join even if (like me) you aren’t quite a teenager anymore.
Purple Daze is a novel comprised of interconnected poems, letters and journal entries, and tells the story of six teens in an LA suburb throughout 1965. One of my favorite aspects is how she weaves the characters’ personal stories into the broader story of the year: Malcolm X’s assassination, race riots in LA, the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Rather than just contextualize the characters’ stories, it allows us to see how their experiences truly represent the time, and the difficulties young people faced coming of age in that era.
Since Figment is a site for writers, I based many of my questions around that theme. Some of them, though, also speak to the themes I often address on this blog: those of storytelling and how to put a story together. Many of the questions I asked about how she wrote the book, and in what order, didn’t make it into the final interview cut, so I’ve included them here. Please read the whole interview first over at Figment: Interview with Sherry Shahan.
Sherry Shahan Interview “Outtakes”:
Q: Which poem was the hardest to write?*
A: While cleaning out a closet I found a shoe box jammed with letters from a friend who was a Marine in Vietnam. I’d kept his letters more than 40 years. The character Phil in the novel evolved from them. Developing his story arc was quite painful, since I had to be inside his skin while during the living hell of Vietnam. Even now, after years of writing and revising, I have a hard time reading the poem about Phil’s friend getting shot.
Q: The easiest?
A: This haiku appears about three-quarters of the way into the novel. It’s from Cheryl’s perspective, after she learns that her boyfriend (Don) has had sex with her best friend:
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
I HATE DONALD DUCK
This was particularly gratifying to write since my boyfriend really did sleep with my best friend.
Q: Which poem was the most fun to write?
A: Downtown L.A. was burning (Watts Riots), Vietnam was raging, peaceful protesters were being attacked with billy clubs. At the same time, these kids had the pressure of high school, expectations of parents, and relationship issues. Amazingly enough, they still had an absolute blast. I wrote the rock concert poem while listening to Jefferson Airplane.
Q: Which poem did you write first?
A: I don’t remember which piece came first. I began by scribbling notes on a lined pad. Sketching characters and playing around with ideas. I sometimes wrote letters from the viewpoint of my characters. I let them ramble on and on. Later, I highlighted passages that showed insight into their innermost thoughts and feelings.
Q: Last?
A: The manuscript had been accepted by the editor when I found an article about Norman Morrison, a devout Quaker and father of three young children who set himself on fire in an act of self-sacrifice to protest the Vietnam War. I knew this had to go in the book.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?
A: When I began I didn’t have a support group or know any other writers. Today it’s much easier to connect with like-minded people online. Check the local newspapers for events that include writers, such as poetry readings. They’re usually free and you’ll meet such interesting people. Writers are generous. We’re willing to share information, just ask.
*This question and answer did appear in the original interview, but I wanted to include it here for completeness.
For more information on Sherry and to check out her other books (she’s written more than 30!), visit www.SherryShahan.com.
Kurt Vonnegut presents an interesting theory about writers in his last novel, Timequake. In it, he says that most women writers are “swoopers” and most men are “bashers.”
Swoopers write “higgledy piggledy” and write a first draft as quickly as possible, and then go back and “painstakingly” fix everything that’s wrong. Bashers, on the other hand, write very slowly and work on each sentence until it’s perfect. “And when they’re done, they’re done,” says Vonnegut.
Now, as I stated in my introduction post to this series of posts about books I’m reading for my public library’s Read-a-Thon, the version of Timequake that I read was an abridged audio book. I make that disclaimer because whenever I read an abridged audio book (sometimes unabridged just aren’t available and I still use cassettes, so that makes them an even rarer breed) I’m terrified I will miss something important. So, in advance, I apologize if I miss something important. Blame the abridgment.
It’s interesting enough to think about the way we write and whether or not it can be more or less split down the gender line (if you’re a writer and you’re reading this, leave a comment and let me know which group you fall more into process-wise and maybe we can do an informal poll), but Vonnegut takes it a step further.
It was not entirely clear to me whether he meant “swoopers” or “women” when he said the following, but as he lumps them together I suppose we can assume he means both. He says that swoopers/women writers are happy to write about and record the lives of people who are “funny, tragic, whatever” without thinking about “why or even how they’re alive in the first place.”
Bashers/men on the other hand, chip away and break down the doors of what it means to be human and the nature of existence. Vonnegut then proceeds to tell an anecdote about World War II, in which he fought. Or as he calls it, “my war and Kilgore Trout’s war” (Kilgore Trout being Vonnegut’s fictional alter ego who appears in many of his novels). The anecdote, which shows us a former Nazi official who is dying, is meant to drive home the point that Vonnegut is a basher.
(I wish I could tell you exactly what the officer said to Vonnegut, but I don’t remember and the trouble with audio books is you can’t flip back and find what you’re looking for!)
Right in the beginning of the novel, Vonnegut tells us he’s been working on a novel called Timequake, but it didn’t work, and instead he wrote the novel we’re reading now. He refers to the failed version as Timequake One, and mentions it frequently, telling us what happened in the original draft. The fact that he abandoned a novel and entirely re-wrote it as a hybrid novel/memoir means that, in essence, his “bashing” did not work. His process failed (as the writing process is often wont to do). He may have struggled and sweated over every sentence, but in the end he had to go back to ground zero and start from scratch.
Granted, that doesn’t necessarily mean he got lost in swooper territory, and yes, sometimes stories and novels just don’t work. Because he does keep parts of Timequake One in the final, published version of Timequake, I will argue that he probably did have to “painstakingly” fix what was wrong, throw out what didn’t work and re-work what he wanted to keep to make it fit the new novel.
So, can anyone really be solely a swooper or solely a basher? Kurt Vonnegut, who claims to be a basher, shows us that sometimes it doesn’t always work to write that way, so based on that evidence, I have to go with “No”.
I will give him one thing, though: Vonnegut certainly chips away at the meaning of what it is to be human and the nature of existence. (But does that mean women writers can’t? No way! Margaret Atwood, is, I think, a prime example of a woman writer who does something similar to Vonnegut in her appraisal and exploration of human nature — but that’s another argument altogether.)
During the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s 2011 Winter Read-a-Thon, Jan. 8 – Feb. 19, I will be blogging about the books I read. For more information, to see a list of books I’m reading, and to make a pledge, go here.
- Hours read as of 2/6: 33.5
- Funds raised as of 2/6: $160.75
*Join the Facebook group, or Follow @metafictionblog on Twitter!
I’m back! You can once again look forward to weekly posts on metafiction, structure in fiction, and storytelling! This post is a bit of a mash-up, but lately my thoughts have been a bit scattered, so there. Also, daily views have been way up, even though I haven’t been posting, so thanks for reading, internet people!
I also added “the art of storytelling” to my tag line, because it’s pretty much true. Not sure I’m 100% happy with how long it is now, but I feel it’s much more accurate.
Never fear failure
Well, I “failed” NaNoWriMo. And I also failed at updating you, the reader, on my progress! It doesn’t feel like a failure, though. I figured out what made NaNoWriMo important to me, and why perhaps it will become much less important in the future–or perhaps not.
NaNoWriMo taught me one very important thing: I can write a novel. A whole, complete, finished (if imperfect) novel. I am capable of putting pen to page for 50,000+ words, and taking my characters from the beginning, to the middle, to the end.
I tried Nano in 2007 but quit after a few days because of some boy trouble, and in 2008 I came back at it with a strong sense of determination that paid off. I had a blast, and I proved to myself that I could finish a large writing project. 2009, was in some ways, I think, a reaffirmation of that. The first time wasn’t just a fluke. When I won in 2009, I was proving to myself that I had more than one novel in me.
This year, I didn’t need to reassure myself. I had, the week before, finished another book (the infamous metafictional travel memoir). I knew I could write a novel, and I knew I could write it in 30 days. Maybe I was tired from writing the other book (true). Maybe I was too busy with work and hosting my first Thanksgiving (true). Maybe I was busy with the book drive (also true). But in the end, at the very heart of the reason I gave up on Nano this year, is that I didn’t need it, and I wasn’t having fun doing it.
It felt kind of like riding a bicycle with training wheels, after you’ve graduated to a “real” bike and have been riding it for months or years. It doesn’t feel the same. You feel constricted, like you’re not really free, because you have to write x number of words per day for x number of days. That’s how I felt during November, until I gave up, and said to myself “I might finish this novel, but not right now.”
So will I do Nano next year? I don’t know. Probably not, as I will be up to my ears in an MFA program. Will I ever do Nano again? I’m positive I will. The next time I come to a mountain I can’t climb, or a hill I’m terrified to go down, or I have to graduate to a unicycle, I know NaNoWriMo will be there to help me through it, and teach me what I need to know about the grand adventure that is writing. So it goes.
Audio books, or why my car rides will never be the same again
The first audio book I ever listened to. Awww.
I always thought audio books were “cheating.” You’re not really reading, you’re listening. And maybe I still think that, a little bit.
But I LOVE them! I decided to give them a try during my monthly newspaper deliveries to help the time pass and make delivering 4,000 newspapers in all kinds of weather tolerable, if not fun. I found a few audio books on cassette for sale at my local library, and have been working my way through them. I’ve listened to three book so far, and am on the fourth. I wrote a review of the first one I listened to, which you can find over at The Figment Review!
In a way, I feel as if I’m rediscovering reading for the first time. I’m hungry for audio books. I suddenly want to drive places alone so I can listen to them (no cassette player in the house). Whenever I see one now I want it, no matter what genre, no matter what author. I’ve yet to almost get into an accident, but if I find driving has distracted me from listening, I rewind the tape to make sure I didn’t miss anything. In other words, it’s wonderful.
This is how I felt when I was a kid, and I read anything I could get my hands on. Of course I still read constantly, but never as much as I like. Or perhaps I’m only striving toward some childhood ideal that I’ve inflated in my mind but never really existed, you know, a childhood in which I never watched TV (false) and spent all day curled up with a book (also false). I read a ton, but I also watched cartoons and spent lots of time playing outside (riding my bike, catching minnows and salamanders in the creek, roller blading, shooting my brother with super soakers, etc.) Of course, many of my pretend games were inspired by books (Narnia and Big Red are two examples), though that doesn’t count as reading.
That was kind of a tangent, but you get the point. I feel like that again, listening to audio books. The act of listening, absorbing and understanding the spoken word is so similar, and yet so different, from the act of reading those same words. I think I still prefer reading, because it feels more active, but there is something to be said about the way the human voice delivers these stories to my ears.
In all the audio books I’ve “read”, the readers subtly change their voices for different characters. This creates an effect beyond the differences in characters’ written dialogue. It adds to the book. I like it, because that’s what I do in my head when I read, but I also don’t like it, because the reader’s voice is forcing the idea of a character onto me (kind of like watching a movie and then reading a book, the image of the character from the movie is probably all you can think about while you’re reading).
Even still, the thing that matters the most is the words that the author has put down. The reader can only bring so much to what’s already there. A great reader isn’t going to save a crappy book, and a crappy reader probably won’t ruin a great book. So I think the difference between reading a book and listening to an audio book is subtle, but something I’d like to explore in more detail as I listen to more audio books. I’ve recently got a copy of 1984 in audio book format, and since I’ve actually read that already, I’m looking forward to being able to compare the two versions/experiences.
How about you, do you listen to audio books? Like them, love them, hate them? Let me know in the comments!
There are over 200,000 books about writing listed on Amazon.com. Woah.
Recently I’ve become, ahem, fascinated by books on writing. In the past year or so, I’ve read quite a few, but they always leave me wanting something more. Perhaps I expect reading this books to make my own works magically complete themselves, but I daresay it’s something more than that.
In the year since I’ve graduated college, I’ve read The Constant Art of Being a Writer by N.M. Kelby, Fondling Your Muse by John Warner, Some Writers Deserve to Starve! by Elaura Niles, in addition to about a million books on publishing and freelance writing.
Most writers who write about writing have already published novels or memoirs or what have you, so why turn to writing a book about craft (which I would say is a bit different than a “writing memoir,” which is what ((having not read them)) I assume Stephen King’s On Writing and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird should be classified as)?
One thing that most books on writing (that I’ve read) lack is self-awareness. You are a writer, writing about writing! Show me some emotion, let me know that you aren’t trying to stand in for a professor in a classroom (a book can never do that), give me something I can relate to!
The Constant Art of Being a Writer
So far, this is the only writing book that’s touched upon metafiction. So, Ms. Kelby, props for that, even though you got Don Quixote’s publication date wrong—it came out in the sixteenth century, not the ninth.
At any rate, while reading the sections on craft, all I could think about was whether or not Kelby was following her own advice in each section, especially the sections on voice, style and tone.
Kelby blithely ignores her chance to call attention to the fact that she’s writing about writing, and instead plays it straight. On page 94, she says, “A writer’s style is like a fingerprint, and every writer should try to cultivate a unique approach to the page—the best often do.”
How can I, as another writer (remember, writers are this book’s target audience) read that sentence without examining Kelby’s style? My conclusion is that she’s not very confident. “Every writer should try to cultivate” rather than “every writer should cultivate” and “the best often do” rather than “the best do.”
(Think of iconic writers like Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, J.D. Salinger or Jane Austen. You’d never read Hemingway and think it was Salinger, would you? No, of course not. So why the unnecessary, strength-sapping words?)
I would have said something like “Now read that last sentence again, and think about my style. Then pick up the closest book, read the first sentence, and think about that style.”
Fondling Your Muse
On the other end of the spectrum is John Warner’s Fondling Your Muse, which constantly calls attention to the fact that Warner can’t write a real book so instead he’s writing a writing advice book. I definitely appreciated Warner’s humor and honesty, and he certainly didn’t miss any opportunity to point out that he is writing about writing.
But the trade off is that this is a humor book at the end of the day, not a book on craft or style or the writing life.
Some Writers Deserve to Starve
I picked up this little bugger for $2 at Half Price Books (one of my favorite Pittsburgh book stores) thinking it would be funny, harsh and unforgiving. I was greatly disappointed.
Niles breaks her book up into “truths” about the writing industry meant to burst the happy little bubbles of author-wannabes. Unfortunately, anyone who is actually serious about writing and has done any research on it (really, any at all) and has half a brain will not be shocked, surprised, or chagrined at anything Niles says. And she’s pretty patronizing about it, to boot.
She talks about craft in an ancillary way, so I can forgive her for not being entirely self-aware. However, a bit of self-awareness and acknowledgement of the fact that she is writing about writing would have helped when those “chapters/truths” started going from New York to Tokyo via Sydney and Mexico City (in other words, all over the freaking map) when they should have been much shorter and less tangential.
Be more self aware, please
So, basically, writers shouldn’t ignore the fact that they are writing about writing. Ignoring that makes you look amateurish and pretentious, and drives the meta-crazy lady up a wall.
Why do you write about writing? What are your favorite books on writing?
