Erosion, Accretion & Exclusion
Good day, my dear Desperate Writers,
I’m sending this out on Monday, as by Wednesday I imagine many readers will be somewhat post-U.S. election preoccupied. Today I want to talk about the habits required to write long fiction, and also touch on the sacrifices such work demands. I also profile a book club that you Desperate Memoir Writers can join, if you’d like.
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I've been thinking about time, about the necessity for serious writers to exclude certain things, even things they enjoy, to make time for other things that they may actually enjoy less (because they are hard) but ultimately will value more.
Although I enjoy having a clean, orderly house and dream of a place that is entirely Marie Kondo-d, with everything having a purpose, and no object that doesn't spark joy dwelling under our roof, the truth is that I accept a little bit of clutter and disorder as the price of focusing on writing first.
I have been known to use the erosion method of house cleaning, which has much to recommend it. Basically, instead of scrubbing at cooked-on food, I simply leave a dirty pot or pan in the sink for a day. I rinse dishes over it and wash hands above it until the debris is loose and easy to clean. It means you have to tolerate a dirty pan in the sink, which not everyone can handle. But it also means that by the time you come to clean it, all that held fast to it is easily wiped away.
I feel these days like the erosion method is being applied as a political device--the erosion of democratic norms, the erosion of substantive and healthy but respectful debate, of journalistic standards, of truth, of genuine appreciation for differences of opinion. I am deeply concerned by the erosion of basic human decency, where so many politicians, including politicians in our own city, are attacked. The Mayor of Vancouver was the target of a bomb threat this year, and his house was recently vandalized. More and more often, running for office means exposing yourself and your family to such violence and hate.
We can get back to a better place. We must, if we want decent politicians to run for office. So, to my fellow Americans who are also Desperate Writers, let us go calmly forward through this week's election, knowing that we have more in common than what divides us, seeking as much as we can to build bridges, to connect rather than to destroy, and to insist upon the rule of law and respect for institutions and those who govern us, even if we wish fervently for a different result.
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Even as I champion the efficiency of 'slow cleaning' using the erosion method, let me also praise the accretion method of long fiction writing.
It has often been the case for me, and for other writers I know, that we have half a dozen projects we are working on, and we rotate through them at whim, casting one aside when it becomes too difficult and picking up another one. I used to think this was fine: the goal was to keep writing, to always write. But such methods are problematic for actually finishing long fiction projects. (They will work all right for poetry and short fiction or non-fiction, but I suspect that they are less than ideal in virtually all scenarios.) There comes a time when one needs to commit, to put one project above all others, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.
To put writing first thing in the morning, and to give it the best hours of the day, is a luxury I know many Desperate Writers simply don't have, with full-time day jobs and/or young children or other caregiving duties. For many years, this was true for me as well, and I did what I could to find time. But I was far too reluctant to say no to other projects, people and events in order to put my writing first. I was also reluctant to commit to one project and to see it through to the end, even if the end didn't result in a published book.
It was hard to create the habits most conducive to success, because these habits lack novelty. You do the same thing at the same time every day, six or seven days a week. You say no to those things and people that ask you to sacrifice those morning hours, even when you want to say yes. You have to say no regularly to a number of things so you can say yes to your writing. If you are not excluding things, you are not going to have the space and time you need for writing long fiction.
Instead, I would tell myself that I could write anywhere, any time of day, that I didn't need a schedule, or that I could take a few days off to pursue other work or other writing projects and then get back on track, or that if I missed my word count one day I could make it up by doing double or triple the next. All of those things could sometimes be true, but just as often they would not actually happen. There's simply no replacement for a regular schedule, for those morning hours of writing right after I rise.
Those times when I've done a marathon of writing and managed to crank out several thousand words, I'm too tired and sore, mentally and physically, to write much at all the next day. For such a sedentary practice, writing has a physicality to it that is hard for me to explain--but yes, one can get sore from sitting so still. Walking and moving is easier. It takes effort to sit and think. It takes work to stay on task, and one rises from the desk fatigued from such work.
I've recently read Haruki Murakami's Novelist as a Vocation, a wise and useful book that every Desperate Writer should have on his or her bookshelf. Murakami writes, "Isak Dineson once said, "I write a little every day, without hope and without despair." I write my ten pages the same way. Cool and detached. I wake early each morning, brew a fresh pot of coffee, and work for four or five hours straight." He adds, a few pages later, "What's crucial, in short, is the physical act of rewriting. What carries more weight than anything else is the resolve to sit down at one's desk to improve what one has written...A writer's instinct and intuition derive less from logic and more from the level of determination brought to the task."
Long fiction is made the way a pearl is made by an oyster--in a process of accretion. It can't be rushed. Each day adds a new layer, and each layer is so thin and transparent that it seems not to count at all--but over time a single grain of sand is transformed into something luminous and glowing. Who considers the oyster (except perhaps M.F.K. Fisher) when holding a lustrous pearl in the palm? But the oyster is working to manage an irritant that has entered its world.
Long fiction often feels like that: an irritant that has entered my world, an idea that makes me uncomfortable, characters who keep me up at night being inappropriate, doing things they hadn't oughta, like in that old Glen Miller song, Yes, My Darling Daughter. (My Grandma used to sing me that song when I was small, poolside in Miami, or in her spotless condo. And let me say for the record, Grandma would have been horrified by erosion methods of cleaning.)
But long fiction is also a refuge and a comfort, a world to which I can escape, and can tinker with endlessly to get it just right. In these turbulent times, when we must navigate conspiracy theories, election nonsense, and media bias, it is a considerable relief to have work that one can return to day after day, for the long haul.
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Speaking of conspiracies, there is one that is so nefarious and inexplicable I can only believe that end times are nigh. I speak of the plot to rid all France of men in swim trunks, and to replace them with men in tiny tight speedos that show le package, le saucisson, the whole schlemiel. I have seen this with my own eyes: swimming in a public pool in Paris or Toulouse, I have seen men, innocent ordinary men, come into the pool--sometimes with their children--and be ordered OUT of the water immediately, because they weren't wearing tight little bathing suits. Boys are not exempt. They once ejected my six-year old son from a pool in Normandy. Reader, he was only a child! For reasons the government has chosen not to reveal to ordinary citizens, shorts are not acceptable in French pools. Why? Nobody knows, and if they do, they're not telling. I have tried to find out. Is it hygiene? Fashion? They pretend not to know the reason. It's just "comme ça."
I know there's more to it than that.I have inquired to the highest levels I know about the Packagegate scandal, but have received no answer, just a gallic shrug and a mysterious smile.
In the meantime, Art Auntie is not, no she is not, dwelling on the upcoming US election. Okay, maybe she is just a little bit. But Art Auntie's an optimist. America has proven remarkably resilient so far, full of feisty, brilliant people who, yes, can be a little unhinged, a little trigger-happy, but still creative, innovative and generous, still and always an inspiration to the rest of the world. Life will go on, and what an interesting life it is proving to be. And silver lining, my Desperados: some of the best literature in the world is written under less than favorable governments. Life will go on: messy, bewildering, astonishing life. And we get to take it all in and turn that those irritating invasive substances into pearls. They may be lumpy pearls, but they will be the best pearls we are capable of making. I take comfort in this. And in the fact that no matter who is elected this week, American boys and men can swim in whatever kind of bathing suits they want.
Another song Grandma Gladys loved to sing was Keep Your Sunny Side Up, originally written by Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders in 1929 but sung here by Judy Garland (start at 2:57)
I can think of many less useful life philosophies than the cheerful lyrics to this song, which I’ll sign off with, dear creative ones (but do read the Memoir Book Club Interview with Angus MacCaull and The Creative Non-Fiction Collective, below!)
Keep Your Sunny Side Up
There's one thing to think of when you're blue,
There are others around much worse off than you!
If a load of troubles should arrive,
Laugh and say, "It's great to be alive!"
And keep your sunny side up, up,
Hide the side that gets blue.
If you have nine sons in a row,
Baseball teams make money, you know!
Keep your funny side up, up,
Let your laughter come through, do!
Stand up on your legs,
Be like two fried eggs,
Keep your sunny side up!
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Here’s a book club that you Desperate Memoir Writers can join, if you’d like! Thanks to Angus MacCaull for making it happen, and for this interview.
Name of book club: CNFC Memoir Book Club
How and when did your book club get started? After I graduated with an MFA in creative nonfiction from University of King's College in 2023, I wanted to continue to gather with other readers of memoir. I looked into different options for hosting a memoir-themed book club, and realized that Creative Nonfiction Collective (CNFC) would be a great fit. We started meeting monthly in February, 2024.
How does your club work? Do you have a leader? A theme? People show up to a virtual meeting with memoirs they've recently read or are thinking about. I facilitate discussion along with CNFC's Executive Director Heidi Klaassen. We do timed writing on craft elements in those memoirs. For example, how is the dialog working? Or how has the writer constructed their persona's relationship to truth. Then we discuss our reflections in small breakout groups. There's there's no theme other than to take a craft-based approach to reading memoir.
What makes your book club unique? Each session is a drop in and you don't have to do any assigned reading in advance. It's a club for students of the genre who are reading it, who love it, and who are writing it. One other way in which our club is different is that it takes place once a month during the workday, instead of during an evening or on the weekend. This is because reading is part of working writers' lives. It's also to ensure that people in different time zones across the country can attend.
How do writers in your book club connect what they are reading with what they are writing? Through our focus on craft. Writers identify how something is working in what they've recently read. Whether or not they like it, they can see how to achieve or avoid similar effects in their own projects.
Is your book club open to new readers/writers? The book club is open to new readers and writers from around the world, as long as they are members of the CNFC. I encourage people interested to join the CNFC, which also has other programming that benefits writers in Canada. Here’s the link for new CNFC members to join: https://creativenonfictioncollective.ca/join-the-cnfc/
CNFC Memoir Book Club!