 On
a much sadder note, Jean-Daniel sends us his letter from France
this month with the news of the death of Monique Lebailly,
a lady who translated several of my books and who was admired
by everyone who knew her. I was pleased to have had the opportunity
to meet Monique and spend some time with her – not something
that novelists get to do with many or most of their translators
around the world – and Jean-Daniel mentions in his column
the wonderful time I had in 1996 with Monique and Jean-Daniel
as we explored the Catacombs under Paris. The sight of six
millions sets of human bones stacked mile upon mile affected
me enough that I included the experience in THE RISE OF ENDYMION
which – as Jean-Daniel points out – Monique then
translated for the French edition. Neither writers nor translators
are exempt from the tides of such ironies.
Monique Lebailly’s passing is a sad day for all of
us who knew the lady and who admired her work. I thank Jean-Daniel
for telling us more about her and about why she will be missed.
As for the rest of my July message here, I thought I’d
write a few words about writing.
I can’t speak for other writers, but summer is always
a productive writing time for me. (It has
to be productive since I have several hundred more pages to
write before my September 1 deadline for OLYMPOS.) Perhaps
part of that productivity for me comes from the summers when
I was still a full-time teacher but also writing novels for
publication – the bulk of the books had to be written
in the three months of summer.
I love the rhythm of writing in the summer. Again, all writers
have different methods and schedules, so I’ll just speak
for myself. Many writers love rising very early, but I find
it one of the great perks of being a writer that I don’t
have to rise early. If I’m still drinking coffee and
reading newspapers at 9 a.m., I feel no guilt at all. The
days have their own literary circadian rhythms. Then, of course,
I have to commute to work – but since my office is less
than a hundred feet down a path behind my home, I’m
rarely stuck in traffic.
Most days, of any season, I spend much of the morning on
the business side of being a professional
writer. Most beginning or wannabe writers never or at least
rarely consider this aspect of the job – writing is
that romantic, creative thing one does in one’s ivory
tower – but as a full-time novelist and sometimes screenwriter,
business takes up several hours of almost every day of my
life. Even with three wonderful agents – Richard Curtis
my literary agent in New York, Danny Baror taking care of
foreign sales, and Michael Prevett handling film, TV, and
electronic gaming deals in Los Angeles – I still find
myself returning phonecalls, analyzing contracts, deciding
on deals, discussing projects, and conferring with agents,
editors, film producers and others each day. I like to get
this work out of the way by late morning. I also print out
the previous day’s pages most mornings and revise them
by hand on hardcopy, then go back to the computer and put
these revisions in along with other improvements. Again, every
novelist has his or her way of getting back into the novel
before writing again – rather like FAA controllers I’ve
known who show up at their jobs half an hour or more before
they go on duty just to watch the controller on duty and “get
in the zone” for when he or she is ready to take over
the radar screen. Most of us novelists re-read the previous
day’s work, some like me rework it and just keep going
into new territory, and others have their own special and
secret tricks. Whatever keeps you writing and in touch with
the muse.
A few years ago I was interviewed by a local reporter who
had a dual reputation for wanting to be a novelist and for
arrogance. His first question to me was – “So
how many pages do you write each day?” I was modest
and took my minimum number – “Five pages makes
me happy,” I said. The reporter smirked and said, “That
few? Wow. Well, I guess I can write so many more when I write
fiction because I’m trained as a journalist.”
Yeah, I wanted to say, and because you produce the literary
equivalent of guano when you sit down to write.
What the prolific young reporter hadn’t considered
was that five pages of fiction each day is quite an accomplishment
– that’s five pages to final draft.
Or damned close to it. And perhaps he didn’t know that
as with many professional novelists, I write every day. Five
pages to final draft every day is thirty-five pages a week
or a complete novel in ten weeks.
Of course, it doesn’t work that way. I usually write
more than five pages per day – ten is closer to my average
– but many of those are revised down or hammered out
of existence or later cut. A few of those pages are simply
taking the wrong trail and I have to backtrack, but just as
I hate doing that when hiking in the mountains – I hate
going uphill when I don’t have to – so I’ve
learned not to take too many wrong turns in my writing. (My
area of expertise when I was an elementary teacher was in
gifted/talented education, and I still try to keep up with
research on human intelligence. Some years ago, when IBM was
analyzing its “Big Blue” chess program, the engineers
and programmers were trying to understand why a human chess
master could beat a program that could – quite literally
– analyze more than a million potential moves and their
consequences in under a second. The answer, of course, was
simple. A human chess master doesn’t see a million possible
moves – or a hundred – or even a dozen. The chess
master, through that amazing combination of talent and experience,
sees only the best four or five moves,
and chooses from them. So, I think, it is for novelists. Out
of a seemingly infinite set of storylines, dialogue swatches,
and other choices, only the few best should appear to the
seasoned writer. Of course, choosing among even those few
can be a tricky business, especially when going down the wrong
path for even a few pages can cause a cascade of other wrong
choices.)
Some days the press of business and the unrelenting demands
of human life – say celebrating someone’s birthday
or going to see the new Spider-Man movie – leave you
with no pages to final draft that day. Other days you complete
twenty or twenty-five pages. (All novels are marathons, not
wind sprints, and all pro writers learn to pace themselves,
but toward the end of a long project, say that last month
of work, we can be like plodding trail horses breaking into
a gallop at the sight of the barn. I’ve been known to
complete 50 pages or more in the last 48 or 72 straight hours
before a novel is finished.)
But in the meantime, the rhythm of writing in the summer
is a pleasure. Business and calls and faxes and e-mails –
there is always fan mail to respond to, however quickly –
in the morning, then perhaps a slow lunch with family in the
shade on the back patio, then more hot hours writing until
it’s time to get depressed in front of the 5:30 broadcast
national news on TV. (Out here in Colorado they run the news
early, knowing that we’re all farmers and like to get
to bed early.) Then dinner and perhaps even a movie on DVD
(shown on our high-definition plasma screen that one of my
novels bought us – the almost perfect movie machine
when paired with a great surround sound system.) Then back
to work.
My writing office is hot in the day, taking up as it does
what was once a hayloft over the garage of our 1906 home.
The downstairs “business office” we built some
years ago is cooler, but I can’t write down there. Too
orderly there. Too efficient. So even with the windows open
to the screen upstairs and the overhead fan on high, by 5:30
p.m. on an average Colorado summer day, I’m worn out,
soaked with sweat, and feeling every page I wrote as if it
was a high ridge climbed. I could afford air conditioning,
but I like this aspect of summer writing – all the footpounds
of energy expended remind me that this is not an artsy-fartsy
artiste thing, but essentially a blue-collar craft of quality
story telling, closer to bricklaying than to building fairy
castles out of air, something that requires energy and sweat
and a shower at the end of a long shift.
But in the evening, sometime before nine p.m., I clock back
on the job for the next round of writing, and with the neighborhood
growing quiet, with New York and Los Angeles finally ceasing
their calls and e-mails, the best writing and rewriting of
the day begins. Sometimes, with luck, I can call it a night
around midnight. Other nights run much later, with only our
Welsh Corgi, Fergie, waiting up for me out on the back step
in the dark. (She thinks she’ll get a dog treat if she
waits until I come in to go to bed – and she’s
right.)
Thus OLYMPOS has been opening and revealing itself to me
in the hot days and long, cooler Colorado summer nights. I
just hope that it finishes revealing itself to me by its deadline
date of September 1.
Most of you know the following poem by Wallace Stevens. But
substitute the word “writer” for “reader”
and the poem remains equally true, equally evocative, even
while giving an insight into the pleasures of summer writing.
THE HOUSE WAS QUIET AND THE WORLD WAS CALM
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Sincerely,
^top | more
News> |
