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The Importance of Shades of Gray

I love this week’s theme on Wordsmith.org: eponyms.

Today’s word, as quoted from Wordsmith’s site:

manichean. adjective: Of or relating to a dualistic view of the world, dividing things into either good or evil, light or dark, black or white, involving no shades of gray.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Manes/Mani (216-276 CE), Persian founder of Manichaeism, an ancient religion espousing a doctrine of a struggle between good and evil.

***

I heard it or read it somewhere: writing is a solitary act, but it cannot be done in isolation. If you’re not a writer (and of manichean tendencies), you might think that sentence contradicts itself. Writing is, or it isn’t, a solitary act.

But, I find, in writing, there are no black and white, right or wrong answers most of the time.

Two writer’s whose blogs I frequent, Linda Cassidy and Cathryn Grant, both posted this week on the subject of genre descriptions and the struggle to find the right category for your novel. Linda posted a link to AgentQuery’s genre descriptions, and, though my novel is several rewrites away from being agent-ready, I could relate to the struggle of choosing a genre. AgentQuery starts out by comparing the job of classifying a novel to the question, “Where are you from?”

I’m from Wisconsin. Well, really I was born and raised in Texas. So, I’m from Texas. Right? I’ve lived in Wisconsin long enough, but my heart is still….

You get the point. It’s a tough question that only I know the answer to, and the answer isn’t one or the other. In the world of genre categories, nothing is clear-cut either. Genre descriptions overlap and interweave and can drive an author mad.

My struggles with my work-in-progress henge on my resistance to rewrites. I’ve been sitting on the premise that a rewrite must go from beginning to end and back again. After several encouraging comments from other writers on a recent post of mine, I thought, okay, I’ll break it down, piece by piece, and address those parts that don’t work. But until I read Linda’s and Cathryn’s posts, I stared blankly at the story and wondered, which parts don’t work?

What does all this have to do with queries and categories, you ask? Let go of the linear, and hear me out.

Linda’s and Cathryn’s posts, and AgentQuery’s descriptions, gave me pause and shed a new light my novel. I asked myself, in what genre would my story fit? I came up with an answer of what I don’t want, and then my mind flashed through several scenes in need of fixing, or deleting. That may be a minute part of the writing process for some authors, but, for me, the experience was like a jump-start.

In the last several months, I’ve connected with a number of great writers online, my own mini virtual salon. In this online community of writers, our experiences overlap. One writer’s struggle highlights my own, but in a different way. Even if I read others’ posts that describe steps and struggles in the publishing process that are well beyond my reach, I learn. When they comment on my posts, I grow in the same way as a writer who might be sitting in a cafe, sipping coffee with my colleagues, reading our work face to face. As a mother of two young children with little time to write – much less, time to get out for coffee, alone – I cherish these relations and their dialogue.

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Gearing Up for a 30 Day Workout

nano_09_red_participant_100x100_1“[W]riting is physical,” Natalie Goldberg says in her book, Writing Down the Bones (p.50). I, along with many of my other NaNoWriMo participant colleagues (I think), would agree.

Last year at this time, I dove – head on – into writing. I’d been talking about writing all summer. I registered for a writing class that would take place just after the new year. And, in a rare move contradictory to my no-risk personality, I signed up for NaNoWriMo. Even more surprising, I wrote a somewhat lucid story that inched passed the 50,000 word count. Up until the moment the purple NaNo word meter hit the 50,000 mark and flashed “you’re a winner,” I authored only short, undeveloped stories that barely registered 1000 words.

This year, I signed up for NaNoWriMo by accident. Really. I logged on to my account to check up on an old message in my inbox. When a window full of legalese popped up and asked if I would accept, I thought, sure, I’ve been here before. Click.

Wait. Accept? Accept what? Oh, boy.

I tabbed over to my author info page. Sure enough, that little purple line was back down to zero. It stared me in the face, like a digital taunt, daring me to try again.

I’ve had to remind myself, as the days inch toward November 1st, that NaNoWriMo is another exercise in writing. Natalie Goldberg emphasizes the importance of exercise when she says “[t]he rule for writing practice of “keeping your hand moving,” not stopping, actually is a way to physically break through your mental resistances and cut through the concept that writing is just about ideas and thinking” (p.50). She, of course, means pen-to-paper. But, I believe, in translating her philosophy to hand-to-keyboard, NaNoWriMo offers a 30-day plan to whip my writer’s mind in shape: “cut through” my tendency to think too hard about a story, pound out 2000 words a day (on a good day), and see what becomes of the characters and the work.

NaNoWriMo is initiation by fire for those writers who want to come out of hiding. It’s a test of tolerance and discipline. And, it’s an intervention with your mind’s editor, a reason to send her away for the next 30 days. If writing 50,000 words of one story makes you want to take a nap, if you’d rather dream up your story than put it down on “paper,” remember writing is an art to be learned and practiced. No good story comes out perfect the first time around. I’ve heard it over and over, but my stubborn (sometimes egotistical) mind refuses to listen.

To combat that stubbornness, I’ll take on another 30-day challenge of late nights, fast typing, sweat, and a maybe a few tears. Oh, and fun. NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun!

***

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc, 1986), p. 50.

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In the Moment with Sherman Alexie

Wednesday night was alive with excitement, energy, and nostalgia.

My husband stayed home with the kids, and I ventured out on my own. I met a friend for dinner — a delectable meal void of macaroni and cheese, complemented with a cloth napkin, and paid for by my sweet friend. I ordered a glass of Pinot Noir, made by a vineyard who’s name  I can’t remember, which came with an entry card for a contest the vineyard was sponsoring. I sipped my wine like I’d just come of age and filled out a form to win a new bike in December. I dotted my I’s with fervor. I felt lucky.

We skipped dessert for a more enticing event happening around the corner at the Boswell Book Company: Sherman Alexie, live and in person, speaking and reading.

The bookstore was packed, and the air electric. It was standing room only, so my friend and I weaved our way in and out of bodies to the back, where we found a niche near a bookshelf with a perfect view. I scanned the crowd: old, young, diverse. As I thought of the experience we were all about to embrace, cheers erupted and there he stood.

He spoke for an hour. He read poems from his new book, War Dances. Like in his writing, his words struck the air in an often humorous, raw, and poignant way.

He spoke with passion about the way technology is changing how we experience art. As we turn more and more towards digital and high-speed tools, the human aspect of art, whether it’s music or reading or writing, is filtered out little by little. Sherman Alexie described digitized books as sterile, robbing us of the anticipation found in a hand held object that draws us in and envelops our every sense: touch, sight, smell.

The smell of a bookstore, especially a used or antique bookstore, was a sensual image I could grasp well. I thought about the hidden stacks in the library of my alma mater, where I ventured one day in my early college years. I can’t remember the book I needed to borrow, but in my search I found a spiral staircase that took me down, down, down. The deeper I went, the older the books. It was a hidden treasure, a secret room of words, stories, and leather binding. Still today, I am drawn to antique books for the feel, the look, the character of the book itself. Years ago I bought an antique book written in French. I couldn’t read a word of it, but it didn’t matter. I bought it for the beauty of the cover and the endpaper.

On Sherman Alexie’s official website, the summary of his new book, War Dances, speaks well to the feel of the night as it settled into the recesses of my mind:

“…War Dances takes us to the heart of what it means to be human. The new beginnings, successes, mistakes, and regrets that make up our daily lives….”

I love the tactile experience of reading a good book. In that moment when I pick up the book, I am completely present. I am thinking only of the title, the author, the cover, until my hands open to the first page and my eyes begin to read. Then, I fall into the story.

Sherman Alexie made a very strong impression.