Los Angeles Writers Conference

I went to the Los Angeles Writers Conference on Friday and Saturday. I've considered going to this in the past and decided to take the plunge this year. I found the website hard to figure out and didn't really have a good idea of what the classes would be, so I showed up on Friday afternoon thinking I might end up ditching most of the weekend. To my surprise, I stumbled into something called "Novel Cram," led by Drusilla Campbell and I found it very worthwhile.

We spent a day and a half learning about some of the essential elements of planning a novel and an overview of how to plot a novel. The emphasis of the class was definitely on writing a book that can be sold. Campbell was very good at listening to the ideas for novels of people in the class and making on the fly suggestions for ways to think about gaps in plotting, etc. The people in the class were generous and interesting and it was fun to hear what people are cooking up. And not a vampire plot in the group.

On the first afternoon I got a number of ideas of how to address some of the gaps in the novel I am working on and felt very energized. It was interesting to think of my novel in a structured way and take a little step back. But as the second day wore on and we got into some more technical discussions of plot points, when they should come in the book, how the resolution needed to work, it began to feel more and more formulaic to me. I could come up with ways to accomplish these things within the story I have in mind, but it felt like a party trick rather than putting together a story I am interested in writing. As the day went on I kept thinking of books I've enjoyed reading and realizing that most of them broke the rules I was learning about.

I've attended other classes on the novel and I've left with the same feeling. Is it just me?

After I left I listened to an interview with E.L. Doctorow, talking about his new book "Homer & Langley." He talked about writing it and how he didn't know how it was going to end as he wrote, etc. Of course, I was already familiar with his famous quotation about writing: “It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I've always loved that quotation and find great daily comfort in it. It's the opposite of what I spent the weekend learning about.

I realized something as I drove home. I'm not interested in writing a book in order to sell it. I want to write a good book. I'll take all the input I can and write what I think is right. And if it sells, that would be great. But I think I'm more of a night driver than a plotter.

Turning My Back on Reading Novels

I've decided -- the project for the rest of the year is my novel. I had a breakthrough idea on a key character yesterday and this afternoon I'm going to sit down with a stack of index cards and see what happens with putting some scenes in order. This is a new approach for me. So far, I'm the kind of writer who sits down each day and picks a part of the story to work on, whether or not it's the next thing in order. For this novel, I have 30 sequential beginning pages and then bits and pieces of about ten other scenes, some almost stream of consciousness and in the wrong person and others at least in the right tense and everything but unfinished. So I have some work to do. But it will be fun.

But I've also decided to give up reading fiction while I am working in earnest on this book. Or at least to try to. I've heard of writers who are very firm about not reading the genre of work they are working on, but it hasn't bothered me so far. But maybe that was because the big thing I was working on was a memoir and I didn't need to be so worried about having someone else's story and voice infect me. I can see the point more now that I am trying to put together a longer work.

I went through the stack on my bedside table and removed all of the fiction. I placed the pile in another room. The remaining pile is an odd collection of memoir and history. I think I am most looking forward to the biography of the woman who made Veuve Clicquot what it is today. And maybe now I will get to those biographies of George Gershwin and Jerome Robbins that have always looked a little too thick to be intriguing.

I wonder if I can really get to the end of the year without reading fiction.

My one exception -- I just got "Brooklyn" by Colm Toibin off the reserve list at the library and I am going to finish it.

Writing Groups

I am always on the lookout for a writing group. It's as if I'm on the trail of a mythical creature -- I've heard they exist, I was in a good one for a while, and I'm eager to hear lore of how they work. The one that makes me drool is the one ZZ Packer is in, which was profiled in "O" (Oprah) Magazine. The participants fly up and down the west coast for meetings and they all sounded totally committed to the group and to each other's work. Very inspirational.

I was in a group that worked well for a year and a half. There were three of us, all working on memoirs. We met every other Thursday night and we paid a writing teacher to facilitate our work. No one was flaky and we took the commitment seriously. We got a lot done but then we each felt like we needed a break and never reconstituted.

After that I tried to start a group after I took a class at UCI but it was too much work to get it going. I watched someone else try the same thing, unsuccessfully, after a UCLA seminar. I don't know why it's so hard. In some ways it seems worse than dating.

I am in one group now whcih is very different from any writing group I've ever heard of. We meet every other Thursday morning at one person's house. We sit around her square dining room table and we each work silently on whatever we want for an house. Then, in the next hour each person recounts to the group how their writing is going -- their accomplishments, their obstacles, their goals. We have even started writing down something we will accomplish before the next meeting on an index card and giving it to the leader. Scary! Then we end with a short writing exercise.

It's so much fun and so energizing. No pressure about having something to read -- I just have to show up and work. We are all working on very different projects -- an entire spectrum of non-fiction from family narrative to almost academic self-help, with me being the only one working on fiction. We are at different points in our projects and our commitment. I'm finding myself looking forward to each meeting. I know I will have a good writing afternoon after I leave and that my momemtum might carry me through a good part of the weekend.

Back to School

Back at my desk after a one week trip. My sons are firmly in school -- the oldest just went away to college and the other is head down in APs already. So our household can return to a routine.

I have three and a half months of my year-long experiment. The days on the calendar spread out before me like jewels of opportunity. I am eager to decide on a project to fill these last months. So far I am having trouble settling on the project I want to become buried in.

I think I will give myself the rest of this week to decide.

Regimen - 1,000 Words

A lazy Labor Day, even for those of us who no longer have office jobs to be away from. In the afternoon I went to Peet's with my little orange notebook to face the rigor of my daily one thousand words. Now that I'm done with the big edit of my memoir I need to get back to fresh work.

I've read countless interviews with well-known writers in which they talk about the importance of writing a thousand words a day. I heard Lisa See talk about this last week -- she says she starts her books at the beginning and marches through to the end, one thousand words at a time. Sometimes that a short amount of time at the desk each day and sometimes it's endless. I have more trouble with the idea of going through a book in the order in which it will appear at the end than I do with the wisdom of a thousand words a day.

So I got my cappuccino and a nice table in the shade outside. I opened my book and thought about where I could pick up. I have three things in progress -- a short story featuring an old Russian woman who was a ballet dancer in her youth, a novel about a middle-aged woman contemplating whether to take up again with her boyfriend from college, and a novel about the "guitar woman" (for lack of a better label). All are sitting ready for my attention.

So what happens? A young woman named Sophie appears under my pen, who is sitting at a cafe in a small town in Italy waiting to meet the man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with until he unceremoniously threw her out of his apartment three months before. Why? I have no idea. But maybe I will find out tomorrow.

Hallelujah! I Get To Make Things Up Again

I'm finalizing my book proposal for my memoir today. It is so weird to be writing something that brags about how great my book is and how many people will want to read it, when of course, I have my doubts about every part of this project. I found myself using my best litigation skills -- acting like I was writing a brief for a shy client who has something compelling to say. Very odd feeling.

But now! I get to go back to fiction! The protagonist of a short story I started earlier in the summer is nagging at me today -- she went on my early morning walk, just a few steps behind me, trodding on my heels from time to time. And I'm so glad to get to spend time with her again. I can make things up! What liberation!

As much as I enjoyed the research part of my memoir, I am ready to be free of the factual aspect of it. When people have read different portions of the manuscript and given me feedback along the lines of, "Why don't you have your father come into the kitchen in Chapter 3?" -- it's hard to know how to react. Yes, that would make it a more compelling story, but that didn't happen.

So now I'm ready to run into the arms of make believe. And I'm ready to not listen to any ballet music for a while.