Writing and journalism: remembering why

Last Thursday I had two great opportunities to recall some basics on creative writing and my first profession, journalism. In exchange for the use of our facilities at my workplace, the Port of Seattle,  we got a seat in a creative writing seminar series. I signed up for one on getting your novel started, and it happened to be led by Seattle author Robert Dugoni. He is a the author of a number of books  and legal thrillers including the David Sloane series. I have not read any of them yet — it’s not my genre — but intend to. He won some Pacific Northwest Writers Association literary awards which I’m sure helped along the way to publication, and I believe he created a very strong character in Sloane, so I can learn from Dugoni’s work.  

My novel is historical fiction, and I’m on my fourth revision. I don’t need help getting started, but I am never satisfied with that opening line, that opening paragraph, and wondering have I started my story in the right place. I made a big shift after the first draft, to start with the action. This is the recommendation from many writers conferences I’ve attended, and from Dugoni as well. One of the other participants said if the book is a mystery “I want blood and guts in the first paragraph.” Not so much from historical fiction, but you’ve still got to hook your reader.

Another of Dugoni’s recommendations was to make sure you create a question in the reader’s mind with the first paragraph, and really with every paragraph. That’s what makes them keep going. That’s how you create a page turner. Another conference presenter said it a different way: End your chapter in the middle, never at the “end.” It’s all to keep the reader eager to find out what happens next.

One of the no-nos Dugoni called out was the use of flashback. If you need to go back in time you’ve got to put the reader right in that time. Flashbacks stop the story. So, I’ve got a flashback in my third chapter and it is one of my “darlings” that I have to decide whether to delete. A couple of literary agents have told me they like my story but could not quite connect with (fall in love with) the protagonist. The scenes from the past are, I think, what make her endearing and make her who she is in the present time. I just have to be more crafty in how I get that information across. Some days writing is a blessing, and some days it is a pain in the ass!

That same evening I met a friend for dinner and we went to see “Page One,” the documentary about the New York Times. The premise is that print journalism is not dead, because that is where the online news sites get their content. Really — how many bloggers have been to Iraq? Most just comment on what someone else has researched and written, and there is no concern about balanced reporting or truth.

My friend and I both graduated from University of Florida’s journalism school, and we had some amazing instructors so after that the passion for journalism is in your blood. I never did investigative journalism, just daily news stories and my strength really was profiles and feature stories. But I fell in love with the NYT writers who are keeping the passion alive, fighting back against those who have no care for information but only for Lady  Gaga stories that they think bring in the bucks. They talked about the struggle of reporters and editors having to work for owners and leaders who do not share the same values. I know a bit about that. And David Carr, oh my gosh what a character and what a strong person. If you are a journalist, even at heart, you must see this movie and remember why we all do it.

It’s an interesting coincidence that both of these events ended up happening on the same day, and both of them touching that writer in me. I wanted to write since I was in first grade, but for most of my life told myself I couldn’t. My college roommate encouraged me to major in journalism and I will always be grateful for that, because writing has been the cornerstone for everything in my career. Dugoni and Page One remind me I can be proud of that. Success to me has never meant NYT best seller list, Oprah, or anything like that. I heard a long time ago that, if you tell your story and it reaches the heart of one person, you have succeeded.

I’ll finish the revision of my historical novel soon, and put it out there one way or another for that one reader. It’s called “The Wideness of the Sea,” and it’s about an Irish peasant girl who, in 1650, vows to avenge the destruction of her village by assassinating Oliver Cromwell, so keep an eye out in case that one reader is you.

Blog to Book and Podiobook

At the Association for Women In Communication conference last month I had the chance to talk with Tom Masters, author of Blog to Books and Beyond: A New Path to Publishing Success. His book gives a general overview of what blogs are and what makes them successful, and takes a look at specific cases like Julie Powell and The Julie/Julia Project — which also became a motion picture, and Diablo Cody, whose first blog Darling Girl led to a book about her life as a stripper, and eventually to her book, Juno. You know the rest of that story.

Tom is also president of Book Publishers Northwest, so he is particularly aware of some of the options in my region. He offers some advice for how best to structure a blog, and things to think about if you want to blog your novel. I’ve been looking at differences in blogs and blog strategies a lot because there is some interest in establishing one for my employer, so much of what Tom talks about is familiar to me. What was new to me was the idea of podcasting a novel.

He gives a brief case study of Scott Sigler, science fiction writer, whose novel EarthCore got picked up by AOL/TimeWarner, but they “scrapped the imprint” just before his book was to be printed. So, he decided to put his book out for free via podcast. He created 22 audio eposides, 45 mins each, by recording in a closet. Tom likens it to the old 1940s radio shows. Sigler had to provide all the character voices and generate enough drama to keep the listeners interested, but evidently was successful because he quickly built an audience of 5,000 listeners. His second novel Ancestor drew 30,000 listeners. I believe he had some help getting the word out via an online science fiction network.

I have not investigated this yet but I am intrigued by it. His podcasting success attracted a Canadian publisher which published both books. It comes down to the same story I’ve been hearing for a while — pubishers are reluctant to take a risk on an unknown author, especially in these economic times, so if you can prove to them you already have a sizeable audience, they’re more willing to give you real consideration.

Of course, podcasting is an investment. Maybe not as much as self-publishing a book, but you would have to create a quality product that people wanted to listen to, and then you have to promote it to people who know nothing about you or your work. Sigler used the Garage Band program on his Mac to create and edit his episodes, including background noises just like they do now for radio feature stories. Tom told me Sigler got criticized by one of his listeners who said a character voice in his second novel was too similar to a character in his first novel. You might need some help, like drawing in friends to be some of the characters. It could be fun, or, not so much if you are a demanding and exacting producer.

My characters would have to have Irish and British accents — which I’m afraid I’m not so good at.  But, I think podcasting would be a great option for historical fiction if done right. I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried this approach for historical fiction.

No time for sociopaths

I had to put down Phillippa Gregory’s The Wise Woman the other day. I hated doing it. I like to see stories through to the end. And this is one of the two books I selected from a big box of freebies offered by the organizers of the Historical Novel Society for volunteers at the June conference. I had not read this one and love Gregory’s work, so I was all set for a great read.

And, for the most part it was. Gregory is a great storyteller. Her knowledge of the history and her descriptions are hard to beat anywhere. And this story was published, I believe, in 2001, so maybe I should have given her a break. But there were two things that really annoyed me. The first I could have lived with, but the second I could not.

My training is both in literature and journalism, but it is in journalism that I got the real workhorse experience — like 25 years of it. In journalism you learn very quickly that your work is limited by space and time: The space alloted in column inches, and the time the reader has over cereal and coffee. Gregory’s dialog in this book was good, but I found in many instances it was repetitious. A question would be asked and answered, and then in the next few paragraphs it would be asked and answered again. It was almost as if she had written it two ways and could not decide which one she liked best, so she kept both of them. Unfortunately I can’t quote from the book directly because I got rid of it. That’s how annoyed I was.

But the real thing that caused me to get rid of the book was the protagonist herself. As fiction writers, we learn that the reader must relate to or at least empathize with the main character, because this is the person he or she has to spend the most time with in the book. If they don’t like that person, it’s a tall order to expect them to stay. Well, I could empathize with Alys in the beginning chapters, even though she left her mother and sisters (nuns) to die in a fire. She’s allowed one character-forming flaw/mistake, right? Something that drives her choices later in the story? But as I moved through the book with her, I lost track of her redeeming qualities. She would turn on anyone, and in fact began to betray everyone, even those she needed the most. They happened to be the maternal figures in her life. (Wonder if Gregory was working out some of her own mother issues?)

But Alys had no remorse. She was, in fact, a sociopath.

Now, I know there must be a dark side to everything in order to have the light. There is ying and yang, there is full moon and new moon, there is good and evil. In novels, bad things have to happen or you’ve got a dull book. And, I saw the word “horror” on the back cover. Normally I would have already put the book down. Horror is not for me. But it was Phillippa, so how bad could it be?

But that brings me back to my own time/space issue. In this world that seems to abound with sociopaths, do I need to spend time reading about one? Do we need to create another such creature to inhabit the spaces of our minds?  I want a character I can care about, a story I can learn from, a message of hope even if it ends in tragedy. I believe that some of this negative imagery takes up mental spaces to our detriment, just as violent scenes in movies are sometimes indelible. I don’t know whether this book did in fact offer hope in the end, because I did not have time in my life to keep looking for it.

Now reading God’s Executioner

This is the book I wish I’d had while I was writing The Snow Path to Dingle. I had many sources that helped me track the path of destruction, Oliver Cromwell’s march across Ireland. But most, including Antonia Fraser’s in-depth biography of Cromwell, watched from a distance, giving the story from the English point of view. Micheal O’Siochru naturally comes from the Irish viewpoint, and brings in some voices from letters that I had not read about before. I did not find this book until I happened upon the Sept. 2008 edition of BBC History Magazine, and then I was able to order the book from a bookseller who had bought it while traveling in Ireland (even left the bookmark in it from the pub/bookstore where he bought it).

This book has more of a militaristic approach, but it helps to corroborate what I had already learned and adds detail. It appears from this source that Cromwell went as far as Dungarvan in Munster by December 1649, and perhaps not much farther as I had put him, past Kinsale and near Skibbereen. Ah, but I am still reading. More to come.

Four Queens Rock

I found this book, Four Queens, the Provencal Sisters who Ruled Europe, completely entertaining. This book covers the fascinating story of the four daughters of the count of Provence, and how they each ended up as queens — of France, England, Germany and Sicily — during the 13th century. How’s that for a family of achievers? If only my own father could have done half as well with his three daughters! Well, actually they were all arranged marriages, and we never would have sat still for that. In any case, Nancy Goldstone’s telling has you almost reading the minds of these women as they strategize for allegiances and alliances for fundraising and army-raising.

I loved the beautiful names — Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia and Beatrice — which are used as chapter titles throughout the book. It was fascinating to learn how castles and lands were leveraged to get money for the next battle or the next crusade, and how the sisters sometimes competed for the same property. I often wondered how Goldstone could possibly know the reasons for their strategies, but the reading was so entertaining I stopped caring. The book also includes an explanation of Medieval money, which I found interesting, and the family tree starting with the grandfather of the four.

Very interesting. If you like books like A World Lit Only By Fire, add this one to your list.

Enduring the Duchess

 If you have seen the movie, Duchess, starring Kiera Knightly, then I would suggest you have enjoyed the best of The Duchess, the book on which it was based – unless you are an academic. I’m pretty determined, once I begin a book, to finish it because I’m sure if I don’t I’ll miss something I needed to learn. But I could not make it through this one. There were, of course, interesting facts and information but it was written very much from an academic standpoint, and the goings on in the day-to-day life of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire, became quite tedious. I enjoyed learning about her relationship with her mother, what was expected of her, how she influenced the fashions of the day, etc., but when it got into her political campaigns I’m afraid I lost my grip on the binding.

The author, Amanda Foreman, was certainly meticulous in her work. Her notes and index alone take up nearly 70 pages of the book — clearly there is much I could learn from her there. I love the research but I am not so good at the careful recording of information gleaned (“Now I know I saw that fact somewhere…”) sometimes costing me dear time.

Still, I prefer the literary style of Susan Holloway Scott. Even thought I did not care much for the personality of the Duchess, Sarah Churchill, as Scott portrayed her, the fact that I did not like her shows Scott’s ability to bring her to life on the page.

A Mercy is merciless

Make no mistake, Toni Morrison’s prose is beautiful and poetic. She writes from a heart that has known pain and experienced hardships I have never touched. She is to be admired and studied for her mastery of the novel. But this book, in my humble opinion, showed mercy only in its ending. The subject matter is something dear to me, for I’ve been reading and writing about the early years of sugar plantations in the British West Indies, and this book is in the same time period and focuses on the trade of a girl to clear a debt. During this time period slavery was certainly taking place, but in the mid-17th century it had not reached the scale of the late century or early 18th century when the slave ships were at their zenith. In the mid-century, a white indentured servant might be on the same level as an African slave, working side by side. Morrison captured this, and of this book she said she wanted to write about a time when slavery was not about race. It was about people of all descents who were considered less-than by those in political and economic power. My writing focuses on an Irish girl instead of a black girl, in a time when genocide was taking place across what is now one of the most expensive tourist destinations on the globe.

Morrison’s book has its beauty of course, but for me the story was for a long time hard to follow. The reader does not learn until the end of the book who speaks in the beginning, and what they mean. I struggled because I had little understanding of this person, and could not get my heart into the story. I forced myself through, and later found some parts that carried me forward. But I mean it when I say the book is without mercy. There are no light parts, there is no joy, and at the end when one discovers the mercy she is driving at — well, what difference did it make, if the girl was let go from one hell to find yet another? It is a little like Sophie’s Choice, except the mother lets her daughter go for life, not to her death. But if you are looking for pain, sorrow, toil and madness, A Mercy or Sophie’s Choice will certainly deliver.

And before I close this post I must confess I work really hard every day. I don’t watch movies that are shoot-em-ups or sociopathic. I cannot spare a part of my mind or my soul for that. It comes back on you like a bad meal. I choose books that lift, inspire, teach, and yes, bring me joy. For as thin and light and promising as A Mercy appeared to be on the outside, I only wish more joy could be found on the inside. If you can take pleasure in the little things, you will enjoy Morrison’s remarkable craft with imagery and words.

Cromwell’s Legacy

 BBC History Magazine’s Sept ’08 edition addressed an issue I considered in my book, The Snow Path to Dingle. The question of Oliver Cromwell’s legacy — was he all evil or simply a man of his times operating under the contemporary expectations of battle and war — has divided opinion for 350 years, the magazine says. That I am of Irish descent colors my thoughts. He slaughtered, and allowed his army to slaughter, men, women and children ruthlessly. There is no question of that.

The Irish at that time were considered barbarians — and I’m sure they must have appeared that way by Britain’s more civilized standards. It does not excuse genocide, it simply explains  his way of thinking. His famous bloody march across Ireland was fueled by reports that this is exactly what the Irish rebels had done: murder brutally to exterminate all the English on Irish soil. Historians have been unable to confirm the truth of claims on both sides.

I believe the English had to embellish the charges against the Irish to justify Cromwell’s march, and subsequent taking of Irish lands and properties — and continued oppression. What confuses the issue is Cromwell’s apparent tenderness toward his family (as described in Antonia Fraser’s biography), his fervent believe that he was led by God to do what he did, and his ideals for a commonwealth that gave more power to Parliament and the people. This is something Americans can certainly appreciate. Had we a Cromwell and lived in different times, would he have led a movement to behead George Bush (as he did King Charles I)? Hmmm.

Cromwell was a hero during his lifetime, and yet his very name still conjures pain and hatred for the Irish. The magazine says more than 150 Cromwell biographies have been published over the past 150 years, most of them favorable, but I’m betting it depends on the author and the sentiments of the times in which they were writing.

A durable duchess

Susan Holloway Scott apparently has written more than 30 historical novels, but Duchess is the first one I’ve come across. Scott had great art to work with on the cover, considering it was quite acceptable in the Restoration to have sexy portraits painted. And, she is clever with her opening lines. The story begins this way: “It is no easy trick to overthrow the King of England.”

Duchess is a novel of Sarah Churchill who, in the latter part of the17th century, became the confidant, lady of the stole and bedchamber and — I was surprised to read — lover to Princess Anne of York, who became queen of England. The book is based on the Duchess’s own autobiography published in 1710. 

The book is fascinating in detail (maybe more than I was prepared to read in the lesbian love department) — Lady Churchill offered herself up in every way to secure her position at court, but she refused to have sex with her husband before they were married. You’ve got to admire that virtue! For the most part I enjoyed this book and learned from it, but must admit it became tiresome to read at times because I did not like the princess at all (she probably was not very likable), and later in the book I no longer liked the Duchess either. She became demanding, selfish and manipulative, and ultimately lost the queen’s affections.

I intend to look into another of Scott’s books, The Royal Harlot, about King Charles II and Lady Castlemaine.

Vermeer’s Hat

I haven’t finished reading it yet, but so far have found Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World, by Timothy Brook, unusual and very engaging. We look at the paintings of Johannes Vermeer, such as “Officer and Laughing Girl” from around 1658, and select an artifact (in this case, of course, the officer’s beaverskin hat) that becomes a door into the past: What was the fashion at the time, and where did the beaver skin come from? What was going on in that period that made beaver all the rage, and worth the hardships by Champlain and his fellow explorers in Canada to return the pelts to Europe for sale? Did a fashionable hat help finance his search for a shorter route to China? Along the way there are many incidentals to learn, such as the changes in the balance of social power between men and women. In some places there is a bit more detail on the political machinations in China than can hold my interest, but one must make allowances for the author who holds the Shaw Chair in Chinese Studies at Oxford University. The book is rich in history, art and the bond between the two, and deepens the understanding of seventeenth century life from the interpersonal to the global.