Books on Writing: Spicer's Picks

Several of my favorite books on writing, such as Stephen King's On Writing and The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, have already been discussed on Novel Spaces over the past weeks. My approach to writing differs somewhat from the "craftsman" approach mentioned by Kevin Killiany in "Kevin's Picks: Books on Writing". I like to believe mine is more holistic--embracing both the preeminence of craft and the mysterious, subliminal, sometimes magical nature of writing.

Stephen King puts it well: “At its most basic we are discussing a learned skill (writing), but do we not agree that sometimes the most basic skills can create things far beyond our expectations? We are talking about tools and carpentry, about words and style... but as we move along, you’d do well to remember that we are also talking about magic.” Spanish writer Luis Buñuel writes: “Mystery is the basic element of all works of art.” And Jorge Luis Borges views writing as "Nothing more than a guided dream."

I'm not King or Borges, or Buñuel, or Steinbeck who famously said, “I have written a great many stories and I still don’t know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.” But I'm in good company. When Joan Baez claims "...those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page” I feel the hairs raise up on my arm because this has been my lived experience. My very best stories come to me in an intuitive flash and these rare gifts invariably eclipse the ones that I consciously, deliberately and laboriously craft. It makes sense that the books on writing which I choose to read are eclectic rather than craft-heavy. Here are two of my favorites.

Page After Page by Heather Sellers is one writing book that I hardly ever see other writers mention. It's for those who are just starting out and it does an excellent job of dispelling the illusions with which most of us begin. Sellers is a teacher of fiction, poetry and nonfiction writing workshops and she brings a wealth of experience in coaching writers to the table. There are chapters on the state of mind you bring to starting something new, on balance, on tools for getting the work done, on reading, on the influence of parents on your work, on managing anxiety, on daring to suck, on mentors, rejection, workshops, ambition... In short, it covers everything beginning writers need to know about what they're getting themselves into. I'm glad I read it early on. Bonus: There are exercises at the end of each chapter. I admit I did very few of them.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, Gates of Fire, Tides of War and Last of the Amazons) is all about breaking through the blocks to creativity, or put another way, about overcoming potentially paralyzing fears and doubts. Pressfield says:

"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance."

He defines the many forms that resistance takes, shows how to combat it, then discusses the powerful psychic forces that sustain artists on their journey.

I've given away one writing book because I knew I was never going to read it again. That was Zen in the Art of Writing, a collection of essays by Ray Bradbury. There are others languishing on my bookshelf: A Writer's Space by Eric Maisel, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, and Letters to a Young Artist, also by Julia Cameron. I have no idea when or if I'll read them. I called a moratorium on buying books on writing, but given all the intriguing suggestions I've seen on the blog this month, my resolve is crumbling fast. Thank you Novelnauts for introducing me to all these resources!

~Liane Spicer

What have you done for your writing lately?

As a writer you're never done learning. This can be daunting, especially when you stumble across a book that blows you away—like The Portrait of Dorian Gray did to me two years ago—and you realize that even given multiple lifetimes you might never attain anything close to the genius of an Oscar Wilde.

But few of us have such lofty aspirations anyway. We just want to write what we enjoy in such a way that readers enjoy it as well. Many readers, preferably. We gain pleasure from the realization that each book we write is better, craft-wise, than the one that went before. And the way we ensure that we get better at what we do is to hone our skills. How do we achieve this?

• Reading widely should not even be on this list because it's a given: writers of fiction are--or should be--great consumers of fiction. The former state grows out of the latter. I have met too many aspiring writers who say they don't have time to read, or only read the Bible, or only read sci-fi, or romance, or some other narrow slice of the wealth out there. To paraphrase Stephen King: anyone who doesn't have the time to read has neither the time nor the tools to write.

• Fall in love with words, if you aren't already. I know people, including some editors, who are miffed when they stumble across unfamiliar words in a manuscript. I happen to love authors who challenge my vocabulary and teach me exciting new words. I'm not referring to to those, particularly in the literary arena, whose paragraphs are minefields strewn with obstacles to clarity, or the ones who engage in thesaurus overkill. Expand your vocabulary and use your new tools to telling effect. 

• Challenge yourself by taking writing courses. I did a fiction writing course last year, and followed up this year with a poetry writing course. I can tell you, that poetry class was a challenge! The class days were the highlight of my week; it was fulfilling to spend three hours reading, critiquing, discussing, learning, and just being in the creative zone with like-minded people. As a consequence, I wrote more, and I wrote better. 

• Befriend writers on social networks. Most of my online contacts are writers. I have learned much from them about the business of publishing, about writing craft via their favorite books on the subject, about their workspaces, their problems and their solutions to writing and publishing issues. I've learned where to go for cover art and marketing advice. These writers are my lifeline. 

• Attend writing retreats, residential workshops, conventions. I haven't been to any of those, but from all accounts, the laser focus of a writing retreat and the energy and excitement of conventions are invigorating. In addition to learning new skills, atendees often end up making new friends for life and discovering valuable industry contacts. 

These are just a few ways in which I boost (or plan to boost) my writing. What have you done for your creativity lately?

—Liane Spicer

Novel Spaces: Why I write

Novel Spaces: Why I write: "I know you think I feed my Internet addiction with Amazon wish lists chock full of delectable perfumes and femme fatale shoes. Well, you're right, but that's not the half of it..."

What do we do when, to quote poet William Wordsworth, "The world is too much with us"? You've invited to join me on NOVEL SPACES today as I share my motivation for writing.

Novel Spaces: Why I write

Waxing philosophical

Got an exciting (okay, I'm easily excited by these things - sue me) e-mail from my lovely agent a few days ago. I know I should be calm because it isn't a commitment, just 'some interest' so far, but a publisher wants to see my non-fiction gift book for writers. I'm crossing my fingers, toes, eyes, tongue...

This path I've chosen is so precarious. I haven't seen a red cent from anything I've written thus far. The (very, very small) advance for Café au Lait is somewhere out there, wending its way toward me, I hope, and I've been told that the advances for the type of gift book I've compiled are likewise very small, but the books continue earning over a long period. So - I live in hope!

I've decided, though, that whether or not I'm ever able to turn my books into money that I can actually live on, or that can merely contribute in a meaningful way to my subsistence, I won't regret any of this. Not the years spent learning, writing, researching and polishing, not the friends I've made along the way, not the roller coaster of hope and despair, waiting and wondering, depression and euphoria. I love this life. I love not having a beaten path laid out with well worn ruts, not knowing exactly where any of my efforts will take me, not knowing if they'll take me anywhere at all.

I could've stuck with my old job. I would have had a secure income, though not one decent enough to afford me the things I'd like - like my own home, for instance. I would've had a secure pension, which would have kept me in a state of non-genteel poverty in later years. I could have had the boring predictability of knowing exactly where I'd be and what I'd be doing in any given year until I retired, tired and worn, drained and disillusioned, knowing that I'd lived my life by default.

The writing road has no guarantees. I work at a day job to support my writing, because the writing doesn't support me - yet. I could end up in a worse state financially than if I'd stuck with my teaching career.

So what's the big deal? This way, I'm doing what I love. I'm doing it the way I love to: my way. And my spirit? It has good days, and bad days, and in-between days. But it's free.

Get Myself Together Week - Day 1

This is the first day of the Week of Buckling Down and Doing the Work - the one where I gird my loins and sweat over the edits to my second book. It's the week where I do the work before I get on to the Internet to check mail, blog, browse and basically get happily lost in the catacombs of my cybercave. Yeah!

Well. I've noticed that whenever I make this kind of decision, evil cackling imps conspire to throw obstacles in my way, just for the hell of it. This morning my mother asked me to go with her to a town about 30 miles away to look at new doors for her kitchen cabinets. How could I refuse? She asks little of me. So we trotted over to El Socorro, checked out the doors, chose a colour (satin white), and left with a handful of brochures. By then it was midday, so I took her to a little hole-in-the-wall place with the best Indian delicacies in the area, and we parked and had those for lunch.

When we took off again I thought we were returning home, but I should have known. She turned in the opposite direction and I resigned myself. There's a large garden store in that area, and just as I suspected, my mother pulled up in front of it. The maniacal gleam that gets in her eyes whenever she's around green, growing things was on high beam. Once she gets into one of those places time stops, so I paced the aisles between the arborvitae, junipers and frangipani while she rooted through row after row of herb seedlings, shrubs and annuals. I like plants myself, so it was not a chore. Except for the sweltering heat.

When we finally left she was clutching (of course) a little thing with purple inflorescences that she called queen of flowers. We got home around 2.30.

I have to admit that I peeped. I booted the computer and checked the mail and the blog.

Then I settled down to work on book 2. Binned chapter 2 and immediately felt better. All that back story was just slowing the thing, and I decided to chop it up and spoon the info in small bites in other places. Worked for several hours on that. Beginning to feel much better about the book.

Tomorrow I'll print out the outline and shift stuff around to get the story moving faster, then decide where I'll introduce the other changes that I'm contemplating.

Actually looking forward to getting back into it. I hope those imps are getting the message that (to mix metaphors) they can throw curveballs at me, but they won't derail me.

Ha.