Successful Writer Blog

I feel that I’m on some sort of a quest. I could have published a novel or poetry collection years ago, but in a sense, I feel that would only limit me, because like in The Serpent, to publish something means that you are giving up on what it could have been.  I know that Walt Whitman changed ‘Leaves of Grass’ repeatedly and there are writers and poets that obsessively work on their creation even after it’s finished but still this is not the point.

John Truby’s The Anatomy of a Story is the first book that made me feel like I am a true story teller and that I can be a master storyteller no matter which vessel I use to tell my tale. The book pinpoints principals that one might say are driven from the world of script-writing such as ‘premise’ but are still true to everyone and anyone who tells a story.

Truby is very encouraging and covers everything: structure, characters, moral argument (which you probably know I think is highly important), scene, dialogue, symbols, and plot. He also gives key points that need to be defined like “the most important step in creating your hero, as well as all other characters is to connect and compare each to the other”. This is golden advice because our characters are sometimes just a state of mind (for instance we create a character to represent generosity or madness) but sometimes you want them to be contradictory, as in real life, where people are much more complicated and surprising. I highly recommend this book as it is written by an expert and it explains storytelling on a large scale and multiple genres. No wonder people see it as ‘The Bible of Telling Stories’.

While I was busy reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf, I came to the conclusion that this book was also a wonderful manual about writing. In the beginning Orlando’s problem in creating a poem is the dissonance between reality and the way he imagines colors and objects. Then there was a knock on the door and I received several books about writing from Amazon.com that I want to share with you this week.

The first book is The Making of a Story – A Norton Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LaPlante. This book holds in a nutshell everything one needs to know about writing. This book is read very easily, starting with the basic definitions of terms like ‘creative non-fiction’, which is a relatively new genre. The book is mostly written in second person and one feels that the writer is actually taken along on a journey with the reader.

A couple of exercises that I very much connected to because of my ideology and point of view on how to write books were the first exercises called, “Don’t know why I remember” and “I am a camera”. The goal of these exercises is explained as to “pinpoint some previously unexplored material that remains ‘hot’ for you in some important emotional way”. During this exercise you are asked to think of an important event which is not obviously apparent every day, like a birth, long-forgotten death or birthday and you render them on a page with the opening sentence, “Don’t know why I remember…” The point isn’t just to explain the reasons why the event is important, but to simply write it and put it down on a page.

The other exercise is to write a stream of consciousness passage, acting almost like a camera. The goal is to notice what you notice and to convey it without trying to explain or interpret it.

This book doesn’t give you a classroom solution but it does give you answers of other people, who completed the exercise, so even if you don’t have a writing group you can learn by yourself at home.  

I wonder if all these books over-simplify the process of writing. In many ways, writing is a science and since these ‘manuals’ are important, I will write about them this week.

Yiddish literature in Poland at the beginning of the 20^th century was fighting a losing battle against Polish literature. Uri Zvi Greenberg, the great Hebrew poet, once said that the sons of the Yiddish writers read better Polish than Yiddish. The most popular literature in Yiddish during that time was the Shund literature. I’m tempted to describe it as the ‘B-movie’ version of Yiddish literature, but some might presume it was more close to an Ed Wood film. A typical plot would tell about a Jew falling in love with Napoleon’s mistress and eventually she comes back with him to his hometown, becomes a Jew and marries him. Many honorable writers such as Isaac Bashevis Singer? had to take part in this sort of literature to make ends meet. There were even voices in Poland at the time who called to take the license to write from those who took part in this literature.

Israel Rabon’s answer to Shund literature is his book, The Street, which describes the city of Lodz during the depression of the 1920’s, following the Russo-Polish War of 1921-22. The novel is about a soldier who tries to build a life in Lodz and fails miserably. Inspired by Norwegian author Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, Israel Rabon’s point of view isn’t realistic. The situations he describes lack compassion for most of the time and there are descriptions that are fully imagined like a dream, including one where the soldier becomes a loaf of bread. But, as Picasso once said, “Art is a lie that is needed to emphasize the truth”. And one of the biggest lies in literature is to speak in the other sex’s voice and we shall deal with this subject next week.

Witold Gombrowicz is one of the most influential Polish writers from the first half of the 20^th century. Pornografia is a story about the corruption of two young resistance members by the author’s alter egos, who try to draw from the youth’s zeal. He was very critical about the culture of his country and saw it as a cultural wasteland. His devotion to youth culture reminds me of Yukio Mishima, as his dualism concerning youth and the grown-up world is somewhat similar because the two books end with murder. But here, unlike The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, the youth are manipulated to commit this murder, and are not the manipulators. What is so interesting about this book’s structure is that as Gombrowicz himself admits, he used a formula to write the book:

“My literature artwork is based on classical shapes… Pornografia is based on the good old Polish countryside story, Cosmos is a kind of detective novel, my theater is a parody of Shakespeare and my last play is a kind of operetta. I use classical shapes because they are perfect and the reader has become accustomed to them, but do remember – it’s important – that the shape, in my case, is but a parody upon shape. I use it but put myself outside of it, I’m looking for a connection between readable literary types and new, fresh world experiences.” 

This idea of basing a novel upon shape is one important lesson that I have learnt from Pornografia. The other great aspect is the alter-ego of the author who narrows the distance between the writer and the character – a character who tries to direct the events in the book and in turn makes the book more interesting.

The following article will be on another borrower of sorts – Israel Rabon.

I chose to finish this week with Horacio Quiroga, not only because he is one of the forefathers of modern Latino short stories, and not only because he wrote a manifesto of how to be the perfect storyteller, (he wrote for example: “believe in the master Poe, Maupassant, Kipling and Chekov, like god himself”), but also in order to show that the psychological understanding of a master like this can be defected by the spirit of his times. The horror story ‘The Butchered Chicken’, is about a family whose four mentally-disabled sons kill their young normal sister when they imitate the deeds of the kitchen servant a few hours before, would probably not be accepted today. On the other hand, there is more than meets the eye here; in the first reading or like Tal Nitzan, his translator into Hebrew writes in the conclusion of his selected stories book:

‘The Butchered Chicken’ from 1909, one of Quiroga’s most famous stories, was built with the confident hand of a ripe artist, a line of tensions between sick and healthy, whole and defected, loved and rejected, and a line of clues – the effect of the sunset colors on the children their imitation ability, the cruel technique of the butchering of the chicken – all lead the plot to the gruesome-monstrous, as much as it is an inevitable ending.

All this reminds me that Quiroga once wrote that “fate isn’t blind, only we can’t understand its logic.” I think that there’s something very religious in this point of view and very fatalistic, but perhaps this enabled Latino writers to view the world in a different manner to other writers. Maimonides, writing in 12th century Spain, said that everything is expected, yet still God has given us a choice to be good or evil, and to choose between heaven and hell.

One must remember while reading a story such as ‘The Butchered Chicken’ that psychology was only taking its very first steps in the world in the beginning of the 20th century. The way Latino writers were trying to understand the difference between madness and mentally-challenged people, is a very interesting subject to read and write about to this day, and I hope to have a chance to do that soon.

I think I’m going to stay with Quiroga for a little while longer, next week we shall deal with death in South American and Latino literature.

Nobody Nowhere is a book by Donna Williams, an autistic woman from Australia. It tells her tragic life story until she was diagnosed and afterwards. What makes this book so special is that autistic people can’t normally express feelings, and Williams can, and she is also blessed with a wonderful memory or so it may seem. More than that, the question of autistic imagination is being answered wonderfully in this book and it shows that an autistic life can be filled with imagination. The notion that I take from this book is the knowledge that when it comes to autism there really is no question taken for granted. Being considered ‘normal’, family relationships and personal identity, which are seemingly straight-forward become a complex challenge.  Not only this kind of book can show you the relationships in the family and in the outside world, it can teach you how autistic people think from firsthand experience.

Another thing that I would like to refer to is the question of identity. When she describes her childhood, she says that she had three personalities that were created in her to meet different challenges and it took her a very long time to return to who she was in the beginning. There are poets in different literatures that create an alter ego who writes on their behalf, examples include Tzvika Szternfeld and Amir Or in Israeli literature as well as John Berryman and Pessoa in Portuguese literature, but none of these poets lose themselves and their own personalities the way autistic people do.

As much as I can’t stand Steve Martin in most of his films, I adore him as a writer. From his books, such as Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, which were translated into Hebrew that I read, it seems that he always picks the point of view of the outsider and deals with it with great sensibility.

I had a struggle within me whether to write about this book or to write about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time but even though there is much to learn from Mark Haddon who uses the English language and mathematics for his own needs; I still wanted to write about Martin because he represents a different approach to weirdness. The story teller in his book doesn’t know that he is mentally challenged. He is sure he belongs in Mensa and last Friday I met a man who had a brain aneurism and I noticed, while he was talking that he views himself as normal, like the hero of this book. Another thing I take from this book is his realism and sense of humor, as well as the way I could identify with his point of view and ceremonies, (even though after Monk it might seem less odd). Needless to say, Martin’s books teach us a lesson in humbleness and are very highly recommended.

Lao Tzu

‘Those who speak know nothing;

Those who know are silent.’

Those words, I am told,

Were spoken by Lao-tzu

If we are to believe that Lao-tzu

                Was himself one who knew,

How comes it that he wrote a book

Of five thousand words?

This poem was not written in the 20^th century but in the 9^th century, by Po Chu-I one of the clerks of the Chinese regime. Unlike our officials today who are loyal to the state, among his poems one can find an anti-war satire, when he talks about his work he writes lines like, “I begin to think that those who hold office/get no rest except by falling ill!” which are lines every hi-tech worker can Identify with.

What I find most astonishing is the fact that the old Chinese writers had lots of sense of humor. For instance, in a poem about a man who was so lazy he had wine in his hand but was too lazy to drink it, but at the same time could ask philosophical questions and let their poetry take part in all the aspects of their life. The poems Po wrote in his old age are heart-felt, and I can really identify with the opening words to this anthology that is simply called Chinese Poems  which was collected and translated by Arthur Waley:

“A taste for Chinese poetry is not too hard to acquire. It is as easy to enjoy as chop suey and has in fact something of the same quality being many favorite and subtle, yet full of honest nourishment.”

My tip for you is to ever expand your boundaries in reading which will expand the limits of your writing. The deeper your roots the higher you’ll reach. So don’t be afraid of the unknown.

I’m taking an Independence Day vacation.

Chinese and Japanese writing is pretty much based on the Zen philosophy. What is most interesting is the way that this philosophy highlights the limits of the use of the words. Unlike the common belief, Zen and Daoism don’t attack words, but rather check how we refer to them. I mentioned someplace else that words are limited because they cannot describe the future or the present, just the past, and that’s what Zen says. Zen says that words have no connection with our true self or reality and so the Zen teacher does not teach in a regular manner. Instead, he teaches in a dialogue of traps. The Zen teacher will never teach you something you won’t discover on your own. The teacher can give you a Koan which is a riddle or a beginning of a dialogue that one can ponder for years and years to develop his consciousness. An example for a koan is, “Does the ring of the bell come from the metal or from the air?” or “Use the shovel with empty hands!” which for me feels like a metaphor for a true base of writing.

The book that I would like to recommend for you today is Ten Bulls sometimes called Ten Ox Herding Pictures, not only because of the dialogue between the pictures and writing or as the Wikipedia says it:

“The pictures, poems and short pieces of prose tell how the student ventures into the wilderness in his search for “the Bull” (or “Ox”; a common metaphor for enlightenment, or the true self, or simply a regular human being), and how his efforts prove fruitless at first. Undeterred, he keeps searching and eventually finds footprints on a riverbank. When he sees the bull for the first time he is amazed by the splendor of its features (’empty and marvelous’ is a well known phrase used to describe the perception of Buddha nature). However, the student has not tamed the bull, and must work hard to bring it under control. Eventually he reaches the highest Enlightenment, returns to the world and ‘everyone I look upon becomes enlightened’.

Taming the Bull

Common titles of the pictures in English, and common themes of the prose, include:

1. In Search of the Bull (aimless searching, only the sound of cicadas)
2. Discovery of the Footprints (a path to follow)
3. Perceiving the Bull (but only its rear, not its head)
4. Catching the Bull (a great struggle, the bull repeatedly escapes, discipline is required)
5. Taming the Bull (less straying, less discipline, the bull becomes gentle and obedient)
6. Riding the Bull Home (great joy)
7. The Bull Transcended (once home, the bull is forgotten and the discipline’s whip is idle; stillness)
8. Both Bull and Self Transcended (all forgotten and empty)
9. Reaching the Source (unconcerned with or without; the sound of cicadas)
10. Return to Society (crowded marketplace; spreading enlightenment by mingling with humankind

So check out how a story can grow throughout the generations. Try to experience some of its ideas about being lost and being found and if it really matters anyway. In a way the story of The Bull is a story of being enlightened by the idea of a story. From the moment of inspiration until the moment the story reaches out and in turn enlightens other people, is another way of reading the story of the Ox, showing that inspiration is a recyclable resource. In the next article I will try to follow a Chinese poet’s career, and hopefully we’ll see that some phenomenon in poetry are’nt new or western.

I guess there’s no need to introduce this form of poetry, but I’ll tell you the laws quickly. An ideal Haiku should be composed of three lines (with 5, 7, 5 syllables) and it should include one word or so that describes the season in which the poem was written (not necessarily the name of the season). The poem must be written in a present tense and there are those that say the three lines must not be connected literally, although there are many Haiku poems that tell a story or ask a question, and that’s completely legitimate.

More than that, I wish to say that since we’re not writing in Japanese, the natural language of this art form, we are allowed to choose to ignore some of the laws, although I believe the beauty of poetry is when you follow all of the laws. And this is what I want to show you today – a guide to the gates of poetry.

Haiku is the perfect ‘gateway to poetry’ because it forces you to write a story in 17 syllables and to make the poem as solid as concrete.

For example, the lines:

“It is raining outside. My son has not returned from the pub. Someone is knocking on my door, a cop, oh my god.”

Could be translated to a poem like:

Rain, fingers tapping
Knock on the door, the future
I cannot open.

There is a poem by Bashu that shows how refined the Haiku poem can be. One of Bashu’s teachers asked him, ‘Where is your conscience now?’ And he answered in a Haiku poem:

“Old pond…
a frog leaps in
water’s sound”

This was a criticism against his teacher who bothered his meditation. One must know that a classical Haiku has the spirit of Zen all over it. There are many genres in this ancient Eastern form and some of them are present in Western poetry, for example, there is the Death Song that wasn’t necessarily written as the final poem and could have been written several times during the poet’s lifetime. Here is a touching Haiku by Senryu:

“Like dew drops
On a Lotus leaf
I vanish”

While a modern poem can deal with such mundane matters as an escalator in the mall. We’ll deal with modern poetry next time.