My experience might be of interest for a perspective on writing (novels, novellas, short stories, poems, memoir, non-fiction (actually, no, not non-fiction, or maybe yes actually, writing anything). I'm now 61. The first writing I did of a personal nature was largely stream of consciousness, with a huge debt to David Bowie's lyrics. It was dreadful. I didn't keep it. But I knew I wanted to be a writer. It went with my view of myself as highly intelligent, sensitive and creative, and was a good shield. Like many, my childhood left me deeply disturbed (childhood is disturbing anyway, with the heightened perceptual mechanism of a forming mind, without adding emotional or physical domestic abuse).
London in my twenties, drifting, taking drugs, living for sensation. The inevitable breakdown came, and when the voices in my head stopped, my writing began in earnest: monologues, plays, screenplays, absurd, cynical comedies. I somehow managed to get an agent for tv writing, but nothing came of it. I still have a few things I wrote in that period. I was 20 years ahead of the curve, but lacked discipline and story-telling.
I went to live an itinerant life in the highlands at 30, to become a writer of novels (v. serious and profound endeavour, taking Nietzsche (to this day I still get the z and the s the wrong way round), Heidegger, Beckett and Dante for company). I had fine and grand solitude for a year or 2, but when I stopped moving around I was struck down by the illness of loneliness. I wrote a diary all the way through, full of descriptions, ideas, feelings. I didn't realise it at the time, but I was developing the language I would use ever after. I left after 5 years, about 3 years later than I should, with a whisky habit that has been hard to shake off. The writing habit had taken hold though, so perhaps 5 years was the correct time to be lost and alone in the wilderness.
Then it was trying to make a living, and writing. I managed somehow. But for 10 years I never finished anything. Rather, I never revised it. I wrote like a train. I've never had a blank page problem. The opposite of that is still a problem. It took me a long time to realise this.
Everything I wrote was from my experience, the people I knew, the things I'd done, or been a part of, re-imagined with a strange distorted sensibility leading directly back to the troubled childhood. Naturally, memory seems of the utmost importance to the life of any of my characters. The central character is somehow always a version of me. I took an MLitt in creative writing the year after our first child arrived, didn't work, lived off a small inheritance and wrote and fathered. It was a great year. I don't recommend creative writing courses, apart from being forced to go public, take the cold shower of indifference and go on. After that, I spent 10 years on an epic heterotopia, working out an idea of tyranny and stasis, and escape from the same. I revised for 5 years, hard, but it was flawed in its conception and is now in the graveyard of my SSD external drive. The fact I refer to it as an epic heterotopia is a clue there. But, but-but-but, I finished it and began learning the craft.
I've never plotted a novel out. I find my way to the end. This is a little risky, but I need the stimulus. I used to go for long trips in the wilderness alone and without a map or compass.
What I've learnt from finishing and editing boils down to how hard you must revise. I mean really, really hard, with a slowly developing skill at getting my carcass out the way of the story.
I've just finished another novel, short (50,000 words), 2 years to write and 2 years to revise (full-time demanding job is my excuse), and I believe it to be engaging, to be enjoyed by the reader all the way through, and funny.
This has been my aim all along: to write a good comic novel. I believe a writer needs at least one idol. Mine was Samuel Beckett. It took me 20 years to stop trying to be him. This was time well-spent.
I've taken a month to write a 1 page synopsis. I've somehow managed to stop now. I've selected about 5 agents from the W&A yearbook and am about to launch it at them. Which is why I posted this, by way of thanks for the insights on submission. Many thanks. I'm new-ish to substack, but it's a great place.
Oh yes, and I write because it's where I've most of my wits, curated experience, arcane language, where I am most free of others. Also, I have to write or I get depressed...
Dear Edy Pullman, your journey is now part of our answer. I thank you for your openness here and have my own tales to tell of the struggle to create and of its gift of making something other that expands the heart.
Annie Dillard says in _Living by Fiction_, "The most extreme, cheerful, and fantastic view of art to which I ever subscribe is one in which the art object requires no viewer or listener—no audience whatever—in order to do what it does, which is nothing less than hold up the universe.
"This is a fundamentally insane notion, which developed in my own mind from an idea of Buckminster Fuller’s. Every so often I try to encourage other writers by telling them this cheerful set of thoughts; always they gaze at me absolutely appalled. Fuller’s assertion was roughly to this effect: The purpose of people on earth is to counteract the tide of entropy described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Physical things are falling apart at a terrific rate; people, on the other hand, put things together. People build bridges and cities and roads. They write music and novels and constitutions. They have ideas. That is why people are here; the universe as it were needs somebody or something to keep it from falling apart. … Thoughts count. A completed novel in a trunk in the attic is an order added to the sum of the universe’s order."
Thanks for your kind reply. It's given me an idea for a short story. A writer who has an attic (more an eaves space, but roomy). He prints the epic out. It weighs in at 280,000 words, so a small font is a must, buys a trunk to store it, briefly quenching his online consumer's thirst, print the next novel out and add it to the first. Then he completes the graphic novel he's currently planning out, about a writer who's 40 years of work didn't make it into print and him having vowed to stop at 40 if he's not published, a cartoon epic of resilience and madness. The one fly trapped in that ointment jar being he can't draw to save his life. Perhaps he finds a collaborator. Either way, he's not the sort of artist to let small roadblocks deter him from making the journey. It's possible the roadblocks are the thing for him. Who knows? He's a rather opaque character at the moment. I might get answers once I start working on it though. Once that's completed, in the trunk it goes.
Phew! That's me escaping a meta-narrative maelstrom! Phew again!
Wisdom says, I should probably get a larger trunk to start with, or I'll have to buy another before too long. Either is fine with me, but I'll have to make a decision sooner rather than later. It's already making me anxious.
@Mary L Tabor and @Eleanor Anstruther. Hello! I have a question. Some writers are proposing writing their unpublished book through chapters on Substack. If I were to do that, how would I go about it, and should we promote said chapters on Notes?
Great question, Rene, I’ve lots to share about this. I’m doing this exact thing with my novel In Judgement Of Others, publishing it right here on Substack in serial form, so this is a question dear to my heart. Very much looking forward to getting to it. Mary & I will be in touch!
I'm not sure what you mean, Rene. My guess as to your q here: Each q. will be a new episode of Write it! and This Writing Life -- Is that what you mean? ~ Mary
My apologies. I should've made it clear. I was just asking Eleonor if she will be using one cover for all her chapters when she post them here on Substack.
She'll be posting our joint video and her answer under her section: The link is in her name at the top of our joint post here. I'll be posting our joint video and my answer to each question in this section: Write it! Hope that makes things clearer.
Sorry for the late reply: we've been doing the video and learning stuff about how to do all this--and being open and brave, I hope. xo ~ Mary
Dear Rene, I love this question. Lots to talk about here! Eleanor and I will add it to the current queue! You're definitely on the list! Thank you! xo, Mary
Hi again, Rene, It would help if you subscribed. Free is fine if you don't want a personal email from both of us. A free subscription will make sure you see the video and the posts when your turn comes. If you've already subscribed, I can't find you via your name and, if so, write me at marytabor@substack.com and I'll find you! xo Mary
I'll toss out a question: what are your rules for invention in memoir? I inadvertently touched off a debate about this in a comment on one of David Roberts's posts recently. I have my own thoughts about this, which I will share in a craft essay soon. But I'm curious how both of you navigate those perennial questions about acceptable levels of fiction in memoir writing. How much "emotional truth" is too much? How does one write dialogue in memoir without fabricating the past and destroying one's reliability in the process?
@Mary L. Tabor and @Eleanor Anstruther, Write it! and This Writing Life: what a super idea! I have one that I'd be delighted to ask not only for myself but for my students.
As I said, this is for me as much as for my personal essay/memoir writing students. First, a general question: We're told that it's important to give the reader a sense of place when telling a story. Sometimes that's not as easy as it seems. Giving a sense of place too often reads like throat-clearing or a static 'setting the scene.' It's also difficult to make description of place free of cliche. Advice about how to avoid that? Perhaps some examples? Next, a question specific to the memoir I'm writing. In the first 16 years of my life, I lived with my family in the Gulf Coast area of Texas, southern California, beachfront Brazil, beachfront Australia, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (lots of beach). As a family, we moved because of the nature of my father's work, not for any really interesting reason, like evading gambling debts or fleeing mob connections. The places were lived were all lovely to look at. Even with glossing over Brazil and (so far) leaving out Australia altogether, I'm finding it hard to give a sense of place for every incident. It's especially hard with Brazil and St. Croix. Lots of palm trees and moonlit seas and salt-smelling air and surprising cultural differences. I don't want to make my book a travelogue. But the beauty and difference of those places was important to me, and my enduring disbelief that I have lived in one central Connecticut town for the last 35 years means that all the moving around remains too important to just touch upon. So...what to do? I'll try to narrow this down if need be. Thank you!
Hi, Elizabeth, Check your email for my suggestion as to how we handle these FAB questions and write me back directly to my personal email. I will pass all along to Eleanor-- we both definitely want to talk about all that you're presented here: great q's.
Thank you, Mary. If you want to leave my particular issue out, that's fine. After writing it, I realized that it would take a deep dive into what I'm working on to answer. Still, even though I'm a more experienced writer than my students, giving a sense of place is something I find challenging.
Maybe you'll even have one! We're excited, too, and want to be in conversation with folks like you who are creating--and want to talk about the sticky stuff, the tough stuff or anything that's on your mind ... . We'll direct our answers to the questioner, as in "Dear Zina, what a great question ... xo Mary
@Mary L Tabor @eleanor Anstruther
My experience might be of interest for a perspective on writing (novels, novellas, short stories, poems, memoir, non-fiction (actually, no, not non-fiction, or maybe yes actually, writing anything). I'm now 61. The first writing I did of a personal nature was largely stream of consciousness, with a huge debt to David Bowie's lyrics. It was dreadful. I didn't keep it. But I knew I wanted to be a writer. It went with my view of myself as highly intelligent, sensitive and creative, and was a good shield. Like many, my childhood left me deeply disturbed (childhood is disturbing anyway, with the heightened perceptual mechanism of a forming mind, without adding emotional or physical domestic abuse).
London in my twenties, drifting, taking drugs, living for sensation. The inevitable breakdown came, and when the voices in my head stopped, my writing began in earnest: monologues, plays, screenplays, absurd, cynical comedies. I somehow managed to get an agent for tv writing, but nothing came of it. I still have a few things I wrote in that period. I was 20 years ahead of the curve, but lacked discipline and story-telling.
I went to live an itinerant life in the highlands at 30, to become a writer of novels (v. serious and profound endeavour, taking Nietzsche (to this day I still get the z and the s the wrong way round), Heidegger, Beckett and Dante for company). I had fine and grand solitude for a year or 2, but when I stopped moving around I was struck down by the illness of loneliness. I wrote a diary all the way through, full of descriptions, ideas, feelings. I didn't realise it at the time, but I was developing the language I would use ever after. I left after 5 years, about 3 years later than I should, with a whisky habit that has been hard to shake off. The writing habit had taken hold though, so perhaps 5 years was the correct time to be lost and alone in the wilderness.
Then it was trying to make a living, and writing. I managed somehow. But for 10 years I never finished anything. Rather, I never revised it. I wrote like a train. I've never had a blank page problem. The opposite of that is still a problem. It took me a long time to realise this.
Everything I wrote was from my experience, the people I knew, the things I'd done, or been a part of, re-imagined with a strange distorted sensibility leading directly back to the troubled childhood. Naturally, memory seems of the utmost importance to the life of any of my characters. The central character is somehow always a version of me. I took an MLitt in creative writing the year after our first child arrived, didn't work, lived off a small inheritance and wrote and fathered. It was a great year. I don't recommend creative writing courses, apart from being forced to go public, take the cold shower of indifference and go on. After that, I spent 10 years on an epic heterotopia, working out an idea of tyranny and stasis, and escape from the same. I revised for 5 years, hard, but it was flawed in its conception and is now in the graveyard of my SSD external drive. The fact I refer to it as an epic heterotopia is a clue there. But, but-but-but, I finished it and began learning the craft.
I've never plotted a novel out. I find my way to the end. This is a little risky, but I need the stimulus. I used to go for long trips in the wilderness alone and without a map or compass.
What I've learnt from finishing and editing boils down to how hard you must revise. I mean really, really hard, with a slowly developing skill at getting my carcass out the way of the story.
I've just finished another novel, short (50,000 words), 2 years to write and 2 years to revise (full-time demanding job is my excuse), and I believe it to be engaging, to be enjoyed by the reader all the way through, and funny.
This has been my aim all along: to write a good comic novel. I believe a writer needs at least one idol. Mine was Samuel Beckett. It took me 20 years to stop trying to be him. This was time well-spent.
I've taken a month to write a 1 page synopsis. I've somehow managed to stop now. I've selected about 5 agents from the W&A yearbook and am about to launch it at them. Which is why I posted this, by way of thanks for the insights on submission. Many thanks. I'm new-ish to substack, but it's a great place.
Oh yes, and I write because it's where I've most of my wits, curated experience, arcane language, where I am most free of others. Also, I have to write or I get depressed...
Dear Edy Pullman, your journey is now part of our answer. I thank you for your openness here and have my own tales to tell of the struggle to create and of its gift of making something other that expands the heart.
Annie Dillard says in _Living by Fiction_, "The most extreme, cheerful, and fantastic view of art to which I ever subscribe is one in which the art object requires no viewer or listener—no audience whatever—in order to do what it does, which is nothing less than hold up the universe.
"This is a fundamentally insane notion, which developed in my own mind from an idea of Buckminster Fuller’s. Every so often I try to encourage other writers by telling them this cheerful set of thoughts; always they gaze at me absolutely appalled. Fuller’s assertion was roughly to this effect: The purpose of people on earth is to counteract the tide of entropy described in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Physical things are falling apart at a terrific rate; people, on the other hand, put things together. People build bridges and cities and roads. They write music and novels and constitutions. They have ideas. That is why people are here; the universe as it were needs somebody or something to keep it from falling apart. … Thoughts count. A completed novel in a trunk in the attic is an order added to the sum of the universe’s order."
Good luck and do stay in touch, ~ Mary
Thanks for your kind reply. It's given me an idea for a short story. A writer who has an attic (more an eaves space, but roomy). He prints the epic out. It weighs in at 280,000 words, so a small font is a must, buys a trunk to store it, briefly quenching his online consumer's thirst, print the next novel out and add it to the first. Then he completes the graphic novel he's currently planning out, about a writer who's 40 years of work didn't make it into print and him having vowed to stop at 40 if he's not published, a cartoon epic of resilience and madness. The one fly trapped in that ointment jar being he can't draw to save his life. Perhaps he finds a collaborator. Either way, he's not the sort of artist to let small roadblocks deter him from making the journey. It's possible the roadblocks are the thing for him. Who knows? He's a rather opaque character at the moment. I might get answers once I start working on it though. Once that's completed, in the trunk it goes.
Phew! That's me escaping a meta-narrative maelstrom! Phew again!
Wisdom says, I should probably get a larger trunk to start with, or I'll have to buy another before too long. Either is fine with me, but I'll have to make a decision sooner rather than later. It's already making me anxious.
Good luck with this new idea, Edy.
Such a great idea and project. Wishing best of luck and success, @Mary L Tabor and @Eleanor Anstruther. Looking forward to the videos!
You are a grand friend, Ollie.
@Mary L Tabor and @Eleanor Anstruther. Hello! I have a question. Some writers are proposing writing their unpublished book through chapters on Substack. If I were to do that, how would I go about it, and should we promote said chapters on Notes?
Great question, Rene, I’ve lots to share about this. I’m doing this exact thing with my novel In Judgement Of Others, publishing it right here on Substack in serial form, so this is a question dear to my heart. Very much looking forward to getting to it. Mary & I will be in touch!
Great news! Yes, please do. I have some other questions. Btw, are you using one cover for all the episodes?
I'm not sure what you mean, Rene. My guess as to your q here: Each q. will be a new episode of Write it! and This Writing Life -- Is that what you mean? ~ Mary
My apologies. I should've made it clear. I was just asking Eleonor if she will be using one cover for all her chapters when she post them here on Substack.
She'll be posting our joint video and her answer under her section: The link is in her name at the top of our joint post here. I'll be posting our joint video and my answer to each question in this section: Write it! Hope that makes things clearer.
Sorry for the late reply: we've been doing the video and learning stuff about how to do all this--and being open and brave, I hope. xo ~ Mary
It's so good to put plans into practice. Best of luck, girls!
Dear Rene, I love this question. Lots to talk about here! Eleanor and I will add it to the current queue! You're definitely on the list! Thank you! xo, Mary
Thank you. Can't wait! xx
Hi again, Rene, It would help if you subscribed. Free is fine if you don't want a personal email from both of us. A free subscription will make sure you see the video and the posts when your turn comes. If you've already subscribed, I can't find you via your name and, if so, write me at marytabor@substack.com and I'll find you! xo Mary
Done! 🌹
❤️
Delighted to hear this! Thank you, and looking forward :)
Thank you, Kate. We've begun queue -- so you will be hearing from us.
Nice to meet you, Mary! Waving from London, and looking forward to hearing more!
Absolutely -- Waving back. 💕
This sounds wonderful- I can’t wait
Oh, lovely!
I'll toss out a question: what are your rules for invention in memoir? I inadvertently touched off a debate about this in a comment on one of David Roberts's posts recently. I have my own thoughts about this, which I will share in a craft essay soon. But I'm curious how both of you navigate those perennial questions about acceptable levels of fiction in memoir writing. How much "emotional truth" is too much? How does one write dialogue in memoir without fabricating the past and destroying one's reliability in the process?
We've put you in the queue, Josh. Great question. I love it and want to talk about this!
@Mary L. Tabor and @Eleanor Anstruther, Write it! and This Writing Life: what a super idea! I have one that I'd be delighted to ask not only for myself but for my students.
Let's hear it, Elizabeth!
Here we go, then! Warning: this is a lot.
As I said, this is for me as much as for my personal essay/memoir writing students. First, a general question: We're told that it's important to give the reader a sense of place when telling a story. Sometimes that's not as easy as it seems. Giving a sense of place too often reads like throat-clearing or a static 'setting the scene.' It's also difficult to make description of place free of cliche. Advice about how to avoid that? Perhaps some examples? Next, a question specific to the memoir I'm writing. In the first 16 years of my life, I lived with my family in the Gulf Coast area of Texas, southern California, beachfront Brazil, beachfront Australia, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (lots of beach). As a family, we moved because of the nature of my father's work, not for any really interesting reason, like evading gambling debts or fleeing mob connections. The places were lived were all lovely to look at. Even with glossing over Brazil and (so far) leaving out Australia altogether, I'm finding it hard to give a sense of place for every incident. It's especially hard with Brazil and St. Croix. Lots of palm trees and moonlit seas and salt-smelling air and surprising cultural differences. I don't want to make my book a travelogue. But the beauty and difference of those places was important to me, and my enduring disbelief that I have lived in one central Connecticut town for the last 35 years means that all the moving around remains too important to just touch upon. So...what to do? I'll try to narrow this down if need be. Thank you!
Lots of thoughts about this Kate. Thanks for raising this topic. Looking forward to getting to it.
I’ll narrow it down and send to you for your approval. Adding you to the queue. Thank you, Elizabeth.
Hi, Elizabeth, Check your email for my suggestion as to how we handle these FAB questions and write me back directly to my personal email. I will pass all along to Eleanor-- we both definitely want to talk about all that you're presented here: great q's.
Thank you, Mary. If you want to leave my particular issue out, that's fine. After writing it, I realized that it would take a deep dive into what I'm working on to answer. Still, even though I'm a more experienced writer than my students, giving a sense of place is something I find challenging.
I definitely want to talk about this!
This is so exciting! I can't wait to see what questions get asked.
Maybe you'll even have one! We're excited, too, and want to be in conversation with folks like you who are creating--and want to talk about the sticky stuff, the tough stuff or anything that's on your mind ... . We'll direct our answers to the questioner, as in "Dear Zina, what a great question ... xo Mary