How authors write

I'm enthralled about how authors write. Also fun is going to readings, where they discuss their process. Some crabby writers claim they hate this question, asking what difference it makes if they use lined yellow legal pads, voice dictation, or a Ouija board. But in the aggregate it does matter because there are so many interesting ways to do a job. One of Booklab's faculty authors sent along this article from The Wall Street Journal about how writers write. It's terrific.

NaNoWriMo Loves You

Picture sez it all. November!

(Jennifer, this is all your fault.)

Journal Experiments: Starting Again, and Again

I'm still energized by the Journal Experiments, and every time I return it is with wonder and amazement at just how useful/fruitful they are. For those of you unfamiliar with them, the original post is here, from a year ago. We examined some cool journals between then and now, but with the new faculty fiction-writing group starting last week, it's time to get into them again even more seriously.

This week's journal is The Missouri Review, a 30-year-old literary magazine based at the University of Missouri. It is extremely high on my list of must-subscribes, and I encourage anyone who is thinking about submitting to it to read back issues from the library to get a feel for it, and then subscribe as a way of supporting this amazing world.

The editor, Speer Morgan, is also a literary practitioner, with several novels, plus award-winning fiction in The Atlantic Monthly. I was struck by the fact that although -- as is customary -- his essay about this edition precedes the entries, he chose to list that essay at the end of the Contents. Hard to say if that was a deliberate nod to his authors to put them first, but it sure seemed that way and I liked it. Poetry editor for the summer '09 issue Katy Didden has a number of publication credits as well, and she is a doctoral student. The poetry editor listed on the website, Marc McKee, has a similar background.

Why do I pay attention to editors? Because I have a personal bias toward knowing who editors are and thinking about them as people with tastes and preferences before submitting to a journal. Usually the individual editors do not make all decisions (it tends to be more collaborative), but they are often the first readers of submissions. I admire editors, and I consider myself as an author an applicant for a position on their lists, not just someone saying "Hey you! Publish me!"

Journals are such little worlds. The Missouri Review is a spectacular one. I will soon add it and other much-loved literary magazines to the recommended list at the upper right of this blog. As I read this issue, I'll post more about contents.

Stephen Coonts at Booklab

Steve Coonts stole the day by making an audience of Georgetown faculty laugh... he is quite funny! Yes, he talked about book publishing, and yes, the outlook was bleak for fiction writers (it is as tough or tougher now than ever), but he offered some heartening statistics. Did you know that almost half of the books published in the U.S. today are fiction? Granted, much of that is by established writers, but it's still a good number. At one point he said "Remember this, class, because it will be on the quiz: trade publishing is a for-profit business!" He stamped his foot on each of the last three words for emphasis. Authors like to come to trade publishers with artistic work, but publishers like (and need) to turn a profit. Genre writing isn't the only way to do it (just ask Anne Tyler, A. S. Byatt or Paul Auster), but there has to be some consideration of what will make the book successful.

Coonts is convinced that it's all about characters. He does not believe that strictly plot-driven or gimmick-driven fiction can last long, although he acknowledges that it sometimes makes it out there. He emphasized both how he draws his own characters, and how he suggests that authors think about them. He prefers fiction with larger-than-life characters to that which reflects reality too faithfully, and he has a resistance to heroes who too closely resemble the author him or herself. I've heard debates on this either way, and I think it boils down to the artistry and skill of the author. Some can pull off autobiographical main characters and some can't, but for Coonts's money it's better to look outside oneself. As realistic as he was about how hard it is to get an agent these days for fiction, he also added that most manuscripts bobble not for lack of an agent, but because their authors need to learn their craft. He's also a big fan of writer's conferences (this was a surprise to me, as he seems a bit iconoclastic for that sort of thing), and he believes valuable author-agent relationships can be forged there.

The above photo was taken later yesterday evening at Book Fair.

And what about the Nobel prize?

Oh yes, and they announced the Nobel Prize for literature today. I'm not sure with which book of winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio to begin, so I'll ask for input.

Reading a book just because it won a prize

There are many ways to decide what to read. Though overwhelmed with manuscripts, I still like to keep up with new books, and following prize winners is one great way to do it.

But prize committees are complicated organisms, and many of us have read the confessions of past participants who admit they skim the books (how can you not, if you have to get through 70 or 100 to make a decision, and you also have a full-time job?). Also, inherent in a group vote is everyone picking the same book as a lower-rung choice, but with many books vying for #1, so the prize ends up going to a book everyone liked but nobody loved. Finally, the prize is usually awarded every year, even if a great choice isn't available each year. So sometimes an author gets a prize for being the best of a lesser bunch, whereas other times an author does not get a prize simply because someone amazing was in the running that year (or cynically, someone more famous whom prize judges thinks finally deserves a win).

Still, even though I understand all of this this (and I've served on several prize committees, one of which I resigned in disgust after the ranking phenomenon, when everyone's #3 won a huge scholarship, and the higher-ranked ones were left thinking they hadn't rated because we could not agree on them), I'm going to take a chance and read the book that just won the Thurber Prize because (a) I love humor and don't read enough of it; and (b) I've never read a Thurber-prize book before.

The book is Larry Doyle's I Love You Beth Cooper, and the publisher is Harper Perennial. I'll read it on my trusty Kindle and post my thoughts about it later.

Weedle tidbit

Ploughshares magazine at Emerson College has a new editor who used to be at a university press. Here's the blurb from their website: Ploughshares is proud to welcome our new Director / Editor-in-Chief, Ladette Randolph. Prior to her move to Emerson College, she was associate director and humanities editor at University of Nebraska Press. She is the author of a short story collection, This Is Not the Tropics (winner of a Nebraska Book Award), and the editor of two award-winning anthologies: A Different Plain: Contemporary Nebraska Fiction Writers and The Big Empty: Contemporary Nebraska Nonfiction Writers. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe grant, the Virginia Faulkner Award, and her work has been reprinted in Best New American Voices. Her novel, A Sandhills Ballad, is forthcoming this spring from University of New Mexico Press.

Ploughshares is certainly on the list of journals to write about in the occasional series.

The shown cover is from the Winter 1992-93 issue, where Georgetown poet David Gewanter published "Conduct of Our Lives."

Deeply touching conversation

Today I met with an author. We were talking about our respective publishing interests, and she mentioned that she worked on a novel for years, and re-worked it to the point where it felt over-revised. It hurt because she poured a lot of love and energy into it, and she couldn't let it go, but she also couldn't get it to the point she wanted. Agents and editors gave her positive feedback, and all sorts of professionals had an opinion about what it needed. She agreed that it needed something, but she couldn't decide whose counsel to heed and whose to discount. Over time it became a burden for her; she described it as something like pie crust that can become overworked, and no longer tender and flaky when baked. I loved that image, and I also ached in an empathetic and connective way to hear her talk about her novel, because something similar happened to me.

I started a novel back in 1993, in graduate school, in response to a specific event (a helplessly deteriorating friendship, the demise of which felt like mostly my fault). Years later even though the friendship had long since slipped away, I still futzed with it, producing three chapters that an editor at a major house said she liked and would be willing to publish if the rest of the book maintained that momentum. That plus the jealous feedback of a love interest who didn't want to compete with a book for my attention was enough to freeze me up for years. When I finally finished it with the help of a writing group in 2002, it was so old, marbled, re-worked and memorized that I had lost all objectivity. It sits in boxes under my bed today, technically finished but spiritually unloved, and a symbol of what felt like the Longest (and ickiest) Learning Experience Ever.

Do you have an overworked piece of long fiction that has bothered you far too long? Would you be willing to post about it?

It felt so comforting to hear another author say that she had suffered with a novel that wouldn't resolve itself, but also wouldn't go to sleep and let her be. I thought I was the only one! Perhaps you have thought you're the only one, too.

Interestingly, while writing this post, I searched on the words "unfinished novel" and found what looks like a lovely new book about an unfinished novel by the late Lionel Trilling by Geraldine Murphy from Columbia University Press. Pure serendipity! I've ordered a copy, and there's a photo of it here.

New fiction imprint at Northern Illinois University Press

This is from a recent edition of Publisher's Weekly. I'll try to get more news on it:

Northern Illinois To Launch Fiction Imprint
by Claire Kirch -- Publishers Weekly, 9/26/2008 1:19:00 PM

Northern Illinois University Press in Dekalb, Ill. is launching a new regional fiction imprint, Switchgrass Books. NIU said Switchgrass is “committed to enhancing the cultural landscape of the Midwest” by focusing on literary fiction set in or about the Midwest and written by authors with significant ties to the region. According to Alex Schwartz, NIU Press/Switchgrass Books director, agented manuscripts will not be accepted for consideration, in order to provide both emerging and established writers a venue to “have their Midwestern voices heard.” Two books will be released under the Switchgrass imprint each season, with the first release scheduled for fall 2009. NIU Press will continue to focus its nonfiction line of books on U.S. history, Russian studies, transportation, religion, and regional studies.

Cool piece of NIU trivia: One of its graduates is Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson! NIU also boasts Dennis Hastert, and Tim Bennett, the president of Harpo Productions.