writing

A funny thing about writing blogs: they tend to hit similar topics all around the same time. An article about tropes over here is followed by two articles discussing tropes someplace else. One blogger writes about controlling time in your narrative, and two more follow within a week or so.

I’m not saying they swipe from one another – though they might – but it’s a funny coincidence, and very noticeable when you follow as many blogs as I do. This past week or so, three separate bloggers hit on my favorite topic – the importance of centering yourself in your creative work.

If my word wasn’t enough, here are theirs:

In a post on her blog, Tiffany Yates Martin uses Monica Lewinsky as an example of someone who had to reclaim her story after she was defined by outside sources. We all know what happened and what people said and thought about her, and yet, in later life, Lewinsky fought back to tell the story from her perspective and to define herself on her own terms.

TYM relates this to our writing, in that our characters are also pushed around by forces outside their control. We call that backstory and plot and character development – all those things we don’t want to experience in the real world, but are critical to story.

But she also connects this to our creativity. How much and how often do we allow ourselves to be defined by an editor, agent, or publisher, or a peer critique group? Are we only as good as our last rejection or review or sales report? I know published authors often fret about writing in a new genre, afraid their readers won’t “accept” it.  Pfft.

TYM extends this to our social media personas and even our personal lives, but succinctly asks “Whose definition of who I am matters but my own?”

Whose view of my creative work matters more than mine, as its creator? I don’t mean that we believe it’s always perfect—but it always holds a foundational value even if it isn’t to everyone’s taste or standards.

And the benefits of being herself? “What it’s given me is a confidence and contentment inside my own skin that I lacked for much of my teens, twenties, thirties…even into my forties,” TYM says. “It’s given me agency and autonomy in my life, and a sense of self that, while not always unshakable (those inner demons still swarm out of their cave from time to time and undercut my confidence), is a much more solid foundation than it used to be. It has given me my voice as an artist—and I’m including my editing in that too, as much a creative art as any of the writing I do.”

Hear, hear.

Two other articles popped up around this time. In a post on Jane Friedman’s blog, Laura Stanfill urges writers to always trust their instincts when it comes time to choose a project. “Write for yourself,” she says. “Not for an agent who doesn’t know you exist (yet). Not for a publisher whose taste you can only guess from a distance. Not for your writing group because they’re writing a certain genre or style.”

And in a post on Writers in the Storm, Julie Glover identifies three things you should never let anyone – peer group, beta reader, editor, publisher, friend – mess with.

• Your Voice. One of the greatest potential detriments to a writer’s voice is the peer critique group or the writing workshop. In addition to helping us hone craft, our peers may suggest alterations to voice or theme. Writers often find themselves writing to please the room, rather than themselves. And college workshops tend to produce writers who sound too similar to the half dozen favorite authors of the class advisor.
• Your Process. Do you write every day or once a week? Do you outline or discovery write? Do you edit as you go? “The right process is whatever works for you,” Glover writes. “By all means, try out different ways of writing, but once you figure out your process, stick to it. If you know what works for you, own it and protect it.”
• Your Theme. The central focus of your story is why you wrote it in the first place. Your readers may interpret it differently, but don’t let anyone tell you what your story means to you or convince you to alter it to something less personal.

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Are modern writers too pampered and precious to write great stories? In a recent post on her blog, Kristen Lamb wondered aloud if writers – those of the Western or First World persuasion anyway – have become too domesticated to truly understand and write authentically about human cares and trauma.

In developed countries, most of us have our lowest-tier needs met. We have clean running water and indoor plumbing. We know where to find food. Speaking for the middle class, we generally have shelter and access to basic healthcare, if not better than basic. Most of us have not been in a fist fight since grade school. That leaves us the time and freedom to write, or engage in almost any activity within our means and skill.

Lamb wonders if modern living has dulled both our senses and our writing. If we don’t struggle, can we relate to those who do? Can we accurately depict the efforts of a character striving for a great achievement, if we’re happy sitting on our butts? Do we care enough about any topic to write about it with passion? Can we write with intensity or do our stories reflect our marshmallow fluff lives?

She got me wondering. Could a modern writer envision the ending of The Grapes of Wrath, when Rose of Sharon suckles a starving man at her breast? Could we even imagine the depth of deprivation and desperation that would drive them to this act? Would we dare create a character capable of offering such a sacrament, simultaneously holy and debased?

Lamb turns her conversation to a discussion of how writers can inhabit characters whose lives are dramatically different from their own, through a combination of experience, observation, and imagination, but I think her original point is worth pondering.

Q. Are we too domesticated to write great stories?

1. Who’s ‘we’, Kemosabe?

Though there’s no record Steinbeck ever experienced starvation-level poverty, he worked on ranches in his youth and with migrant laborers on a sugar beet farm. At one point in his adult life, he was reportedly poor enough to steal, if not suckle. While his life was different from the Joads’, he lived close enough to observe people like them. If he didn’t come from the Dust Bowl, he knew folks who did.

While I consider myself somewhat middle class today, I’ve been on the dole and lived paycheck to paycheck working dead-end wage slave jobs. I’ve never actually gone hungry – let’s define that as no food for a day or more, or regularly skipping meals due to poverty – but there have been plenty of times I didn’t have enough cash in the bank to get a twenty from the ATM, with payday a week away. My ex was disabled and if you want to witness some dehumanizing bullshit, hang out with someone who is both poor and chronically ill when they visit their doctor or a social worker. And as a gay guy who came of age in the middle of the AIDS crisis, I’m happy to have made it to a better time.

I’ll meet Kristen halfway on her thesis: Most of us don’t – and will never – know what it’s like to live in a literal war zone. The lives of people in Afghanistan, Kiev, or even pre-peace Belfast are far removed from our own. We don’t live under the daily threat of cartel violence. And despite fears (of some) that a military dictatorship or mass roundups are just around the corner, we aren’t there yet. Our fear is driven, in part, by the fact we haven’t lived this way. It’s the terror of the unknown.

But on the other hand, we’re only 2 generations removed from the Jim Crow south. Come to my Baltimore hometown and you’ll find clear evidence of crumbling infrastructure, generational poverty, and gun violence. While driving through western Maryland a few years ago, a friend gestured up a mountain road to show me where the homes had no indoor plumbing. We were no more than a 2-3 miles from the biggest local city. Ask any survivor of a mass shooting or ongoing domestic violence, or anyone who’s served in the military in the past 25 years, if they feel like they can’t understand someone else’s trauma. We’re lucky to live in America, but not all Americans are lucky.

Very few of us have lives so insulated we don’t bump up against poverty, serious illness, and loss. Even if you haven’t felt the rough end of the stick, chances are you know someone who has. In my experience, humans have all the suffering they can handle. Our task as writers is to remember it, draw on it, and turn it into art.

2. What is ‘suffering’?

Physical and financial comfort are no protection against suffering of other kinds. No one is immune from loss or illness. Maybe you’ve never met the Joads, but you might know someone suffering from poor health, mental illness, loneliness, rejection, or crushed dreams, like Holden Caulfield, Willy Loman, Blanche DuBois, Evan Hansen, Mildred Pierce, or Ove. You might know a closeted widower (A Single Man), an abused child (Bastard Out of Carolina), someone with a terminal illness (The Fault in Our Stars), or a family affected by 9/11 (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) or suicide (Ordinary People).

It’s very possible you’ve experienced one of those events yourself, or something similar. You may have physical comfort and food on the table and still be in pain. And loathe though I be to say something generous about the über wealthy, even they have their heartache.

We are lucky to not live in a war zone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we are soft or pampered. Grief hurts. Mental illness hurts. Going hungry hurts. Let’s not make the mistake of viewing suffering as a competition.

3. What is ‘great’?

Our foundational and safety needs – food, water, shelter, warmth – make for compelling fiction. Audiences love Man v. Nature stories like 127 Hours or Into the Wild, in which a protagonist of comfortable means must struggle for basic necessities. Even in The Martian, Mark Watney’s foundational challenge is not finding a way off Mars, but getting to shelter. Then he has to stitch a puncture wound in his side and figure out how to grow food. Getting back to Earth is literally the last item on his list of worries.

But food and shelter aren’t our only needs. As I wrote above, humans also suffer when we lack love, whether familial, intimate, platonic, or communal. If we are lucky enough to have these things, we grieve when we lose them, which can feel worse than never having them at all. Our need for companionship is secondary to basic survival, but equally important.

And, when we are fortunate enough to have our primary and secondary needs met, we are free to focus on our psychological health and balance and our desire for fulfillment and meaning.

The theme of a ‘great’ novel doesn’t have to arise from the red zone or a war zone. We can cast our gaze upward at intangible, existential needs. We can long for something more than base survival. Great novels can encompass the search for enlightenment (Siddhartha), identity (The Awakening), life’s meaning (On the Road), or redemption (Atonement).

And when do we have the luxury of pondering the abstract? When we are physically comfortable.

4. Who cares?

And there’s the rub.

Anytime I talk about writing, I come back to this foundational question: Do you want to?

It doesn’t matter where you sit on Maslow’s Pyramid. You have the choice of what to write. Do you want to write about a topic you care about passionately? Do you want to write about characters facing physical trials or seeking safety or mourning lost love or building community or chasing fame or craving purpose in life?

Do you want to write a ‘great’ novel? Yes or no.

Can you write a great novel? That’s a question for another day.

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Have you ever experienced a strong burst of creativity, like a long stretch of productive daily writing, and then felt a crash when the wave crested? You’re not alone, and apparently, we can blame our brains.

These findings aren’t new, but they’re new to me, thanks to a recent post by Anne Allen on her blog. Not long ago (relatively speaking), scientists identified an anatomical link between the creative part of the brain and the part in charge of depression. Specifically, the part of the brain that activates depressive episodes is also the part we use for complex thoughts (i.e.: creativity).

Researchers have even suggested that humans developed depression – along with over-thinking and disinterest in daily living – as a way to boost our problem-solving skills. In other words, fat, happy, well-fed people do not invent better mousetraps. Other researchers believe that mild depression correlates to stronger writing, because we overthink and are more critical of our work. In other words, the fat happy writer is satisfied with their first draft.

Now the question – does this circuit flow both ways? If mild depression is conducive to creative thinking, can spending too much time in a creative flow state trigger a depressive episode?

It’s possible? Allen believes this can be the case, but I’m not convinced. I suspect the post-creativity crash – to the extent you have one – results more from physical and mental fatigue than actual depression. It may also be a result of exiting a fictional world where you enjoy the powers of creation and control and having to return to {gestures broadly at everything} this place.

Also, the other articles I’ve read haven’t differentiated between mild and severe depression. As someone who has dealt with depression for most of my life, I can confirm there is a big difference between feeling mildly disinterested in your hobbies and having to make a concerted physical effort to get out of bed or take a shower. The former might engage some creative problem-solving, but the latter makes simple activities feel impossible.

That said, the list of creative geniuses who battle depression is deep and encompasses every discipline. But I suspect the depression came first, and the creativity – art, writing, comedy, dance, acting, better mousetraps – is one way the depressed mind works out its own solution. I’ve often found that engaging in creative work is much better than meds for a mild dose of the crap.

Your mileage may vary, but I found this interesting and plan to read up on it more. Here are a few books that came up as I wrote this post. Caveat – I haven’t read any of them, so I can’t recommend or un-recommend them. They merely caught my eye:

• The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty. Flaherty uses her experience with both hypergraphia (compulsive writing) and depression to explore the neurological and psychological mechanisms behind creativity and mental illness.
• Creativity and Madness: New Findings and Old Stereotypes edited by Barry Panter. This collection of essays examine the link between mental illness and creative expression, drawing from psychology and psychiatry.
• Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric G. Wilson. Wilson argues against the modern obsession with “being happy”, saying that sadness and melancholy are vital to creativity and deep thinking.
• Creativity and Mental Illness by James C. Kaufman. Kaufman analyzes research on the correlation between creativity and various mental illnesses, including depression.
• Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind by Scott Barry Kaufman & Carolyn Gregoire. Kaufman and Gregoire use research in psychology and neuroscience to examine how positive personality traits like openness, sensitivity, and emotional intensity are key to creativity, while also being linked to depression.

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Today’s topic may not appeal to you, and that’s ok. Many amazing writers strive to entertain, not convince. They want to help readers escape reality, not rub their noses in it. Not that you need it, but I approve.

This applies to me too, because frankly, while I love a story that stirs the pot or predicts the future, I don’t have it in me to write one. It requires a specific kind of insight, as well as an ability to balance passion and dispassion, plus a lot of emotional energy. If I get worked up about something to the point it threatens to come out in my fiction, I can’t be even-handed, and that makes for terrible stories. I admire this skill in others, though.

On the other hand, sometimes you can’t help it. Being authentic sometimes means you wear your heart on your sleeve. Writers observe the world and are passionate in our beliefs. We know what we know and feel what we feel, fully and deeply. With that in mind, it’s natural that we will identify social problems and want to write about them.

But what problems? That’s up to you. The environment, pornography, reproductive rights, the right to life, the breakdown of civility, the loss of traditional values, equal justice under the law, patriotism, privacy, foreign entanglements, economic disparity, racism, sexism, antisemitism, men’s rights, women’s rights, school choice, the Second Amendment, the First Amendment.

Even if you don’t expressly set out to write a political novel, your beliefs will find their way into your writing. If you have a strong preference between the traditional family and chosen family, we’ll see it. If you’re passionate about free speech, we’ll hear it. No matter what I write, the story question will never center on the benefits of conforming to group-think, or how the world would be better if we allowed a small group of elites to make all our personal decisions.

Consider Stephen King. He isn’t a political writer, but can you think of a novel where the government was the good guy? King hasn’t written a horror story called “I’m From the Government and I’m Here to Help” – hat tip to Ronald Reagan – but he might as well have. Based on his public comments, I don’t think he hates the government, but deep down, he’d have to admit he doesn’t really trust it, either.

And what does King think of manhood and family? I can easily recall many side villains in his novels who were bullies, drunks, or wifebeaters, and the characters who came from broken, abusive, or dysfunctional homes, and how that early life trauma pulled them under or forced them to overcome. You would never argue that King writes family dramas, but his opinions about what makes a good man or a good family are right there on the page. You might not consider that a political opinion, but the personal is political. Our values form our view of the world and politics is one way we put those values into action.

And maybe that’s a better way to frame this realm of authenticity.

Politics have a bad reputation. We generally attach a negative connotation – lying, grifting, fecklessness, divisiveness, rage baiting, fearmongering – and we may hesitate to soil our creative work with it. Fortunately, the word values still calls us to our higher selves (at least for now).

Patriotism

Family

Courage

Justice

Charity

Freedom

Faith

Community

Law

Order

Sacrifice

Individuality

Equality

Responsibility

Honesty

Peace

Some of those may resonate more strongly inside you, others may feel more vague. Values are individual. Even when we use the same word to describe a core principle, its meaning will differ from person to person. My concept of freedom and yours are not the same.

You don’t have to write a political novel – I doubt I ever will – but do look for your values on the page. What’s important to you? What do those words mean? What’s at stake if that value falters? What happens when you act against your values or don’t defend them? What action would you take and what would you sacrifice in honor of them?

Tell us about it.

Do I need to share a list of political novels? It feels strange not to, but also superfluous. You can guess what I’m going to write here: 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Les Misérables, The Jungle, The Grapes of Wrath, The Crucible, To Kill a Mockingbird, Alas, Babylon.

But also: Woman on the Edge of Time, Never Let Me Go, A Clockwork Orange, The Trial, Things Fall Apart, The Parable of the Sower, Slaughterhouse 5, Elmer Gantry, On the Beach

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I could have titled this segment “Be a Geek” but I don’t want to give non-geeks the wrong idea.

But also, you’re a geek. Maybe you aren’t a traditional geek, immodestly obsessed with science fiction and fantasy books, films, and other paraphernalia, but you go hard for your hobbies, interests, and likes. You might be a sports or political geek, or a music or film geek. You might be a foodie or love gardening. If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re pursuing some creative geekery.

Put simply, a geek is someone who loves what they love, passionately and unapologetically.

Some of my favorite books are those in which the writers put it all on the page, not only their passions or deep background knowledge, but all the fringe elements and garnishes that make the work uniquely theirs. The kind of inside knowledge that you can’t get from research; you have to live with it. The kind of book that could not have been written by anyone but that single author.

Today’s examples come from the world of comics, where, by definition, writers have to be comfortable indulging their interests. It’s easier now that superhero film franchises make multi-millions at the box office, but still – the people who write and draw comics aren’t doing it for the money or prestige. No one is writing about superheroes with a Pulitzer in mind.

Because I’m a Gen X writer, both of these examples also come from the 80s. I could have found more modern examples, but the surge of high-quality, independent comics publishers from the mid-80s – much of it self-published – is one of my geekdoms.

With Aztec Ace, writer Doug Moench created a comic that combined a vast range of interests: time travel, the Aztecs (naturally), Depression-era America, Sigmund Freud, comic books and pulp magazines, and philosophical paradoxes. The result is a compelling, intelligent, and yet action-packed science fiction/mystery adventure comic. It’s Dr. Who for conspiracy theorists, with gams and boobs.

The title ran for 15 issues in the 1980s, at the time a solid number for an offbeat non-superhero comic published by a small independent company. It ended rather abruptly, but 35 years later, it has been collected in a gorgeous hardbound edition, with a new story.

In Time², writer/artist Howard Chaykin explores an other-world where time is experienced at a different level, and where demons, advanced robotics, and zombies co-exist. Film noir mobsters, city politics, urban renewal, Jazz-era New York, and sex collide in Chaykin’s most personal work. Chaykin has said he did not expect Time² to find a large audience, either at the time of its creation or more recently, when the first two graphic novels were collected in hardcover, along with a new full-length story. He proudly affirms that – damn the torpedoes – these stories were for him.

In addition to zombie jazz musicians (above), the comic featured haunted horny police cars…

Sex robot serial killers…

…and legally binding wills that required a black widow murderer to cohabitate with her undead husband for five years before she could inherit his estate.

When he launched the series, Chaykin was coming off his very popular American Flagg! series, which itself was an amalgam of Chaykin’s interests in speculative fiction, late stage capitalism, pop culture, sex kinks, and soft-core porn, which formed the foundation for a series of stories that were part science fiction and part political thriller, with frequent interludes for quickie encounters between the protagonist and various side characters, and sometimes side characters with each other. Only Raul the talking cat missed out.

The 80s were a grand time for comic artists with vision, who were unafraid to indulge their interests and passions in their work. Aztec Ace and Time² are both well-remembered, but I wouldn’t consider either very well known. I’d love for them to find a wider audience, by whatever means.

Others I could have mentioned: Cerebus (sword and sorcery, religion, political satire, gender politics); Zot! (super-heroes, science fiction, art deco); Love & Rockets (science fiction, punk music, magic realism, South American politics, Archie comics). Yes, those are all from the 80s, too. With the exception of Zot!, they all wore their sexual proclivities on their sleeves. That probably says something about me, too.

What kind of novel or story would combine my multiple interests? If I were writing the most indulgent work imaginable, it would likely feature some combination of tough women and mean gays, exclusive clubs, kid gangs and chosen families, political intrigue, family dynasties, comic books, early 20th century European literature, ghosts, Nazis, writers and artists, time travel, talking apex predators, secret societies, conspiracy theories, Celtic mythology, alternate worlds, and doppelgangers.

It would explore themes of identity, purpose, individuality and authenticity, spirituality, alienation, belonging, and sacrifice, wrapped up with more questions than answers. There’d be awkward sex, casual violence, vengeance, loss, family secrets, love’s cruelty, passion for creation, and resistance and dignity in the face of life’s absurdity.

It would definitely mash up genres (SF, fantasy, horror, true crime, murder mystery, superhero, alternative history) and if I could work in an Excel spreadsheet, ice cream, and a dinosaur, I’d be in Heaven.

What about you? If you gave yourself, permission, what’s the most balls to the wall indulgent story you could concoct?

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Writers may find it difficult to bring attention to their work. Thanks to the internet, there are so many more people writing and places to publish and books available for free that it takes a lot of money, luck, or both to rise above the din.

Authenticity can help. In addition to being good for your soul, authenticity makes you more relatable and more memorable. Pursuing your passions – rather than chasing the market – can help you attract like-minded people, the very people who are most likely to enjoy, follow, and share your writing.

So be different. Take risks. Write what no one else is writing. If you follow as many blogs as I do, you’ve probably seen tips like “write a great premise!” and “create interesting characters!”, without any practical advice to back them up. Even when a blogger goes a bit deeper, their recommendations tend to come from the shallow end of what they personally find interesting and likely to sell well, rather than what’s truly unique.

Unlike this week’s look at being honest on the page, you can probably think of many examples of novels with attention-grabbing premises: A mystery told from the POV of an autistic boy (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time); a boy goes on a quest to solve a puzzle left behind by his father, who died on 9/11 (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close); a group of residents in a retirement community solve cold case murders (The Thursday Murder Club); etc., etc.

But even the most interesting genre novels – and I love them – are written in a fairly straightforward manner. Characters are introduced, the action rises and falls, the hero falters but probably wins the day, even if the win is not complete or what he expected. The drapery is unique but the scaffolding is familiar. Rarer, though, are those books that play with structure or language.

China Miéville’s The City and the City plays with storytelling and reader experience in an interesting way. In the book, considered part of the New Weird genre, two Eastern-European city-states simultaneously occupy the same physical space. Citizens of each city can see and interact with their counterparts in the other, but are forbidden by law from doing so. From childhood, they are trained to “unsee” the residents and buildings in their sister city, on penalty of being disappeared by a secretive organization known as the Breach. Miéville recreates the eeriness of his setting, describing what his narrator sees and shouldn’t see and unsees, before he introduces the concept of the blended cities. Thus the reader is left to figure out what’s happening. It’s incredibly disorienting and takes time to get accustomed to. In effect, by dropping the reader into the story world without explaining how it functions, Miéville trains the reader to see the world in the same way its citizens are trained to see only their part of it.

Miéville also uses description in an interesting way in The Last Days of New Paris, an alt-history novel in which Paris is still occupied by the Nazis in 1950. Along with guns and hand grenades, weapons of war include living Exquisite Corpses, real-world manifestations of surrealist art. Exquisite Corpse was a parlor game in which images were created by multiple players – usually artists, because of course – each contributing an element in sequence, based on agreed-upon rules. Here’s a classic example.

Want to experience creative brain-freeze? Imagine coming into a novel cold and reading a detailed description of the above and trying to imagine it as a living creature attacking a band of French resistance fighters. The description makes no sense, even upon multiple readings. You might wonder if your copy of the novel is missing some words or if perhaps you’ve had a mild stroke.

When I say that most writing advice isn’t structured to encourage risk-taking and authenticity, this is the kind of work I have in mind. Presented with The City and the City and The Last Days of New Paris in draft, the average writing guru would have argued for more context clues or backstory in the early scenes. While Don’t Confuse the Reader is great advice for novices, when that rule is set in stone, we risk losing our ability to surprise, challenge, and delight the reader as well.

Most of us will not rise to the occasion as well as China Miéville or my next inspiration, Alan Moore, whose personality, talents, intellect, and interests are uniquely suited to creative puzzles and complex plots and themes. However, if we’re going to learn, we might as well look to some of the best.

In his short story collection, Voice of the Fire, Moore creates 12 fantasy stories set in the same geographical location in England over the course of multiple centuries, beginning at the end of the Stone Age and continuing through medieval, Victorian, and modern times. Linked by geography, theme, and imagery, the stories are told through the points of view of various characters, including one that presents quite a challenge for the reader.

In “Hob’s Hog”, set in 4000 BC, the narrator is a stone age halfwit who is chased away by his tribe after the death of the mother who protected him. Whether Hob is developmentally challenged or merely an evolutionary left-behind we can’t know, but his vocabulary is extremely limited by modern times. Moore has said that he restricted himself to using some 1,200-1,400 words for the entire 45 page story, which required some creative combinations and permutations to convey what Hob sees and experiences in a way that a modern reader can grasp. Here’s how the story begins:

“A-hind of hill, ways off to sun-set-down, is sky come like as fire, and walk I up in way of this, all hard of breath, where is grass colding on I’s feet and wetting they.

There is not grass on high of hill. There is but dirt, all in a round, that hill is as like to a no-hair man, he’s head. Stands I, and turn I’s face to wind for sniff, and yet is no sniff come for far ways off. I’s belly hurts, in middle of I. Belly-air come up in mouth, and lick of it is like to lick of no thing. Dry-up blood lump is come black on knee, and is with itch. Scratch I, where is yet more blood come.”

You can see that Hob’s ability to describe himself and his world is constrained. He has no words for behind, atop, smell, stomach, taste, or scab, or even the self-referential me, my, or myself.

Try that on for 45 pages.

It’s not easy to read and there’s certainly no skimming any of its pages, not if you want to follow the whole story. It took me as long to read the first story as it did the remaining twelve. While the story was challenging, the reward was worth it, and I imagine Moore felt the same when he finished writing it.

Few of us will master our craft to the point where we can create a sense of disorientation in our readers or box in their worldview with a limited vocabulary, but we can be bold in our own ways and it never hurts to challenge ourselves. You don’t have to confess a dirty secret to put a lot of yourself on the page.

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For the next few weeks, I’m going to revisit one of my favorite themes and – in my opinion – one of the most important tasks facing any creative writer: Being authentic.

On the plus side, being authentic is as easy as being yourself. There’s only one you and you know that person from the inside out. And if you don’t know yourself, you should. You’re amazing. If you’re not sure where to start, I can recommend some books.

On the down side, writers are inundated by advice that can drain the personality from your work. The market demands such and such. Readers insist on thus and so. If you tried to implement the various have-to’s set forth by the hive mind, your writing might become technically more proficient, but also practically indistinguishable from the manuscript produced by the monkey to your left.

You’ll still find plenty of advice urging you to put yourself into your work – and God bless all of it – but even that guidance is often couched in terms that are intended to render you palatable to the market, whatever that might be this week. You will never read an article in…let’s say Writer’s Digest…urging you to ignore the desires of agents and publishers. No matter how good their advice may be, their articles are intended for writers who want to be steered into the publishing funnel.

I prefer writers who march to their own drum, who write what they want, in the genre and form they want, and who publish in whatever format they want. I would much rather read the interesting but imperfect output of a writer who poured their passion into their work, than a technically well-crafted novel constructed to reach the largest possible audience mass, which could have been written by any anonymous author who mastered the formula. A feature piece in Rolling Stone might be better written, but give me the folded and stapled DIY zine published by a couple of kids who are consumed by love for their favorite local band. One cinematic bomb like Megalopolis is worth 25 by-the-numbers summer blockbusters.

That doesn’t mean we eschew excellence. Excellence and authenticity are not mutually exclusive, but your first responsibility is to yourself. You can become the best possible version of your writing self without one whit of regard for what other people think about your thoughts, passions, dislikes, philosophies, experiences, and observations. In fact, I’d say that’s the latter provides you with the best route for achieving the former.

Of course, being authentic does not mean being half-assed. If you’re going through the bother of writing, you might as well have craft skills. Those skills will help ensure that your authentic self is presented in the best possible way and that your readers pick up what you’re putting down. You may still fail, but do so by ambition, not through laziness.

Let’s call it the Build it and They Will Come School of Writing. Be yourself. Pursue your passions. Avoid the easy answer. Be great. The people who will appreciate you for who you are will find you. They may be outnumbered by the crowd who want the book equivalent of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies, but that smaller group is more valuable than rubies. Those are your people.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to talk about some writers who did it their way, who infused their work with their idiosyncrasies, geek interests, intrusive thoughts, political POVs, and secrets Batman couldn’t beat out of most people. As always, your mileage may vary, but IMO, these are writers who did it dirty and got it right. I guarantee every one of them were told not to do it that way, and every one got blasted by critics for doing it anyway.

I have a half dozen or so books to discuss over the next few weeks. Today, I’m resharing a post from last year, about a writer who wasn’t afraid to be ugly.

Writers are told to write truthfully and to be authentic. Be brave. Don’t hold back. Put yourself on the page. I’ve given that same advice here on the blog a few times.

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott says that if people wanted you to write nicely about them, they should have behaved better. Notwithstanding issues of libel, your experiences, your emotions, your pain, and your successes belong to you. You can and should write about them, even if the particulars are disguised as fiction.

For all that advice, I don’t see too many people sharing examples of what it means to be raw and truthful on the page. Who’s done it successfully? How did they do it? What worked? Someone may throw out a villainous protagonist, like Tom Ripley in The Talented Mr. Ripley or Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, or the unreliable narrator in Fight Club. But they’re not exactly what I’m looking for in this context. At heart, most of us can’t relate to such characters. I have no doubt that Patricia Highsmith lived vicariously through Tom Ripley, using his victims as stand-ins for people she would have liked to club in real life, but catharsis isn’t necessarily the same as emotional truth.

Catcher in the Rye’s Holden Caulfield may be a good example. J.D. Salinger portrays Holden’s crisis of faith in heartbreaking detail, showing how grief can render us irrational and unlikeable. That’s probably something Salinger experienced himself. Most people wouldn’t enjoy spending an evening around such an obnoxious boy, but by the end of his story, we understand the source of his anger. While he annoys many readers, the chip on his shoulder is shrouded in black crepe, ultimately rendering him sympathetic.

But what about truths that aren’t disguised as fiction? Could I find an example of a writer who didn’t distance themselves from their worst aspects via a fictional character? As I brainstormed this topic for the blog, this memoir leapt to mind, a book by someone bold enough to put her ugliest self on the page.

Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession by Julie Powell

In Cleaving, Julie Powell – most famous for her first memoir, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen – in part shares her obsession with learning to render butchered animals. After a few false starts, she lands an apprenticeship with Fleischer’s, a family-owned butcher shop in upstate New York. Powell’s experience at Fleischer’s takes up a good half of the book, and she doesn’t hold back on the details. A reader may be either fascinated or repulsed by her descriptions of the butchered and skinned animals, how they are rendered, and what’s left when the process is done, but the writing is sensual and compelling.

However, the story of Powell’s apprenticeship is merely the brown paper wrapped around the real meat of the memoir, the emotional butchery done to Powell’s husband, Eric, via Julie’s ongoing affair with a former lover.

Again, Powell doesn’t hold back. She does herself no favors in her writing. She gives no reason for the affair, other than physical obsession. She doesn’t pretend that it’s love. Her husband is aware of the affair throughout, yet doesn’t seek a divorce. Sadly – selfishly, cruelly – neither does Julie. Instead, she desires both the comfort of her marriage and the physical thrill of her affair, regardless of the emotional turmoil her husband suffers. Even when the affair ends, Powell waits for messages from her former lover, like a junkie craving a hit. When she’s gone from home too long, her husband suspects they are together, the trust in the marriage broken.

Throughout the memoir, I waited for a reversal – a reason for the affair, a realization on Powell’s part, or a change in her outlook that would lead her either to end or fix her marriage – but Powell doesn’t give herself that out. She remains unfathomably selfish and fails to identify what she’s missing or what she seeks.

And yet, I still rooted for her to figure it out. Even through the final pages of the memoir, I wanted Powell to share what she learned, what insight she gleaned from this years-long trainwreck she created from her marriage, but she withheld this from the reader. It would have been easy to craft a pat ending or convince the reader that she’d learned her lesson, but the final tone is a messy one, as life often is. She declines to rescue her reputation, which is brave AF.

Strangely, had this been fiction rather than a memoir, I’m sure I would have hated the book. Somehow, diving into the mind of a messy human is a much easier ask than following a selfish fictional narrator. In fiction, we crave resolution, catharsis, some lesson learned, or an emotional change. In this case, we might want a punishment.  We’d root for Eric to find the resolution Julie denies him. Powell doesn’t give the reader any of that, which is very true to life. We behave in ways we can’t predict, that contradict our morals and beliefs. We hurt people we love. We don’t learn lessons. We don’t find our motivation. We simply are, and sometimes that’s not attractive.

This wasn’t an easy read, especially as the version of Julie Powell in my head is the cute Amy Adams movie version. I was left with admiration for Powell as a writer, while disliking her immensely as a person. You don’t have to reveal yourself as fully as Powell does in Cleaving, but if you want a good example of a writer allowing herself to be raw and truthful on the page, you can start with this memoir, whose writer wasn’t afraid to be ugly with a capital Ugh.

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Even if you don’t write science fiction, the Science Fiction Writers Association blog is worth an occasional glance. The association advocates for SF and its writers, shares industry news, and presents the Nebula Awards, if those things are of interest.

On its blog, in between obituaries, market reports, and writer-beware posts, SFWA sometimes publishes articles about writing craft. I find them hit or miss, honestly, but there are enough strong posts that it’s worthwhile for me to check in once in a while.

Recently I was rewarded with this post by Albert Zhang, who examines science fiction worldbuilding through economics. Rather than merely considering the what and why of your story world’s economic history, Zhang suggests asking the following questions:

• What is the payoff?
• What is the cost, and who is paying it?
• What are the main externalities?

Using the fictional example of the discovery of an asteroid containing $100 quintillion in gold, Zhang first examines the payoff. With that much available gold, demand would likely plummet, meaning mining companies would rush to get there first, while demand lasts. In contrast, what if the availability of that much inexpensive gold changes Earth culture? Perhaps mining or transporting is more difficult than expected or maybe demand shifts to different materials that weren’t considered valuable in the short term. Any of these scenarios could create additional layers of worldbuilding behind your main story.

Next, Zhang examines costs. Who is investing in asteroid mining and why? What is the payoff for people who take mining jobs? Are governments in charge or corporations? How do these dynamics intertwine or shift over time? What happens when the cost is too high?

Finally, Zhang examines externalities. “Externalities are the tangled patterns of cause and effect that spring from singular events, and they can be arbitrarily complex,” he explains. For example, who benefits from asteroid mining besides the investors and workers? What side businesses or economic cultures arise around this industry? Does the availability of this gold affect the cost and value of other goods? Who is losing out? Is the local area affected by the strip mining of asteroids or pollution? Does travel become more dangerous? Are residents displaced? What happens to the gold mines of Earth, which are now less attractive investments?

I don’t write much science fiction, and what I do write leans towards space opera, rather than hard SF. My worldbuilding tends to be wiggly. However, Zhang’s advice can apply to any genre of writing. Many fantasy novels rely on economic worldbuilding, and many a mystery hinges on who stands to gain from a financial matter.

In my backburnered novel-in-progress, the characters’ social status and the economic development of their community – and the structural changes that might result – serve as a backdrop to the plot and conflict. I found myself asking who is doing what and why, and who will benefit from the development, and how that can help me arrange my characters on the story board. Who is winning and losing and how do they feel about that? To what lengths will someone go to thwart a competitor, preserve the status quo, or ensure that their side of an argument comes out on top?

While I don’t need to imagine the economic ramifications of an asteroid belt containing trillions of dollars’ worth of minerals – old Earth newspapers suffice for my purposes –these questions are pointing me to what matters to my cast and how they feel about it and what they’ll do to preserve their way of life.

Are you a consistent writer? How do you define consistency?

You’ll hear a lot of advice on writing habits, often enunciated as things you “must” do. You must write every day. You must have a schedule. I don’t find that very helpful, and in fact, those kinds of dictates can be discouraging for anyone who enjoys writing but hasn’t the time.

Habits are helpful. Our brains respond to routine, and can be trained to respond to external signals – time of day, a specific chair. Some writers say that aroma – incense or tea, for example – triggers their creative shift.

But sometimes writers use habits less as a tool and more like a bludgeon. They become so committed to the habit, that they lose sight of other necessities. They become rigid, sometimes a little angry looking. Worse, missing a writing session or failing to hit a project goal can completely derail a creative person, and rather than jumping back into our habit the next day, we beat ourselves up for breaking it. For me, this defeats the purpose of embracing your creativity. If it ain’t fun, why are you doing it?

I consider myself a regular writer. My goal is to write 500 words every day, including weekends. At the beginning of the week, I aim for that 3,500-word weekly goal, and if I reach it early, I can take my foot off the gas.

However, reality doesn’t always line up to plan. Sometimes, I will write for 45 – 50 days in a row, and well exceed my 500-word goal. Some weeks I struggle to have even two writing sessions and barely squeak out a few hundred words. And sometimes, there are zeroes across the board. It happens.

But it doesn’t phase me. I view the good weeks as a word bank, and even when I need to skip a few days or even a few weeks, I can stay in line with my annual word count and project goals. If I fall a little bit behind, one or two good weeks is usually enough to get me back on track. And if I totally tank, I start a new spreadsheet and pretend the old one doesn’t exist. A fresh slate is a thing of beauty.

In one of his recent email newsletters, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, offered another angle on consistency, which I like enough to share.

Want to be more consistent in your habits? Stop focusing on being disciplined and unwavering, and instead focus on being adaptable.

“Don’t have much time? Scale it down. Don’t have much energy? Do the easy version. Find different ways to show up depending on the circumstances. Let your habits change shape to meet the demands of the day.”

In other words, be the water, not the rock.

In writing, we talk about putting our characters’ through the wringer. We build them up only to tear them down. We give them gifts and rip them away.

But deciding what to give and what to take away can be difficult. Our protagonist’s surroundings and possessions should have a personal, emotional meaning attached to them. They should also reflect the theme, help create the story world, and further the plot. How can you pick the right details that will help you add layers of symbolism to your story?

In a post on Writer Unboxed (one of my regular go-to sites for writing advice), Therese Walsh suggests an interesting path into your characters’ psyches:

What would they save in a fire?

“Moments of crisis can become a powerful lens that reveals character in a way few other situations can,” she says. “That’s because the pressure to choose has a way of calling everyone’s bluff—revealing core values and hidden attachments beyond the easier-to-explore surface of character. It calls the author’s bluff too, as pushing a character into the fire can illuminate for you what’s important to them.”

Imagine your hero is faced with a literal fire and has only minutes to choose what – if anything – to save. Ask:

• What’s the most revealing item your protagonist could choose to save? How does this represent their values?
• Is there an object that contributes to their sense of self? Rather than something of monetary value, consider what would be sentimentally or emotionally valuable. What is the one object that represents your character as a person?
• Can a character’s attachment to certain items become a subtle way to hint at deeper, hidden layers of their story?
• What do they leave behind? This can be as revealing as what they save. This might be something they forgot about, something they didn’t have time to choose, or something they left behind intentionally.
• Does the object represent unresolved conflict, either with someone else or internally?
• How might your character’s choices in a crisis highlight their arc over the course of your novel? Do they save an object they later realize they don’t need or abandon something they later wished they’d saved?
• What happens if they lose the item they save? Sometimes, what a character would save is exactly what the story needs to strip from them. How do they react to this second-layer loss?
• Does the loss create ripples or lead to another loss? Does the loss upset them emotionally and distract them? How does the character function without this symbol?

What would I save?

• Me, of course. My dog when I still had her.
• My car keys, wallet, and phone (mobility, financial sustenance, communication).
• My laptop, which has the rest of my life and all my writing on it.

Can I make two trips?

• The box with the deed to my house and my financial documents.

Do I have time to pack the car? In the case of the California wildfires, some people had a bit of warning and time to evacuate. But now, my choices get dicey. Do I pack up:

• A few irreplaceable keepsakes and mementos?
• Photo albums?
• My journals and notebooks?
• My favorite pieces of art?
• Some expensive comics I couldn’t afford to replace?

Only the first short list is non-negotiable. If my dog couldn’t go, I wouldn’t leave. My keys, wallet, phone, and laptop usually sit in the same spot, so it would take no more than a few seconds to sweep them up. Even without the car, I could easily carry all of that in a backpack.

I could leave everything else without a second thought, and moan about it later. In fact, having time to pack up a car would probably be more stressful for me than being forced to run at a moment’s notice. My fight or flight instinct is way keener than my executive decision making skills.

What does that say about me?

I prize living beings over objects, and would rather die than sacrifice someone I love. I have financial stability and people I can call for help. My writing is my heart, my voice, and my life.

I am resilient. I know I can start over with nothing because I’ve done it. I know I can survive a loss because I’ve had to let things go. I wouldn’t like to lose everything I own in a fire, but I’m confident in my ability to bounce back. Whatever I lose, I’ll get back, inch by inch if I have to.

At heart, I am tragically unsentimental. While that statement would seem comical to anyone who could see the amount of crap I hoard, stuff is just stuff. The question of throwing away something that reminds me of an old friend is very different from the question of what I need to survive.

And the answer to the latter is my writing, some cash, and someone to love.

Of course, your interpretation of my character may vary. And that’s ok, because it’s your story.

Honestly, I’d make a terrible protagonist. My hero’s journey ends with the Refusal of the Call. I have naps to take. However, your hero is likely a bit more dynamic. Does your hero save their father’s sword, the family Bible or recipe book, a deceased spouse’s photo or wedding ring, a trophy that symbolizes their one victory in life, an article of clothing intended for a special occasion, a piece of art they created, a plan for their dream business, incriminating photos they’ve been using to blackmail someone, the car they’ve been restoring? What is so important to the core of their being that they’d risk their life for it?