The Case for Literary Writing

The young writer or the very new writer most often begins with a story or a poem in mind. The subject calls to them, pesters them, until one day they say, “Enough already! I’ll write it down!” After that first adventure, they may start thinking about publishing what they’ve written. They buy some books on craft and some books on formatting and then maybe Writer’s Market or Best in Print. Maybe they join an online critique group.

They sit down to write their cover letter or their query letter and suddenly, they realize that they have to categorize what they’ve written. Is it science fiction? Neo-existentialist? Postmodern? Mainstream? Literary? Wait..what the hell is “literary” anyway? And somewhere along the line, someone tells them that if they want to make money, they have to write genre fiction, but if they want their writing to last, they have to write literary.

Bullshit on both counts.

NaNoWriMo #10-12: Lord of the Rings & Disillusionment

Yes, I am a geek. I am proud to be a geek. I’m really okay with being a fantasy geek. I’ve almost convinced myself that it isn’t the best genre for me to write, but for reading, there are few genres that I enjoy as much. The Lord of the Rings trilogy wasn’t my first foray into fantasy (that honor belongs to the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony, which, in retrospect, is just plain awful), but it was the first trilogy that I remember taking my breath away.

NaNoWriMo #6 and 7: Two Books I Read as a Child

The first full length novel I remember reading was Watership Down. I was in the third grade and my father bought it for me. The weekend after I’d finished it, we drove out to Elbe to a little greasy spoon restaurant (my dad’s favorite kind) and talked about the book over a french dip sandwich. It was my first experience with a grown-up literary conversation and it went something like this:

Dad: Did you like the book?

Me: The rabbit book?

Dad: Are you sure it was about rabbits?

Me: It said it was about rabbits.

NaNoWriMo #4: On Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

While I started the month honoring contemporary novelists – and fully intended to continue doing so throughout the month – I find that I cannot separate the novel from its history. Similarly, I cannot honor contemporary novelists and the impact their words have had on me without acknowledging the tremendous impact that historical fictions have also had. So I come to one of my favorite novelists and one of my favorite novels, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. To say this novel profoundly impacted my perspective on life would be a drastic understatement.

On the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice

The theme of anti-heroes in literature always brings me back to the first anti-hero novel I read: The Vampire Lestat. Instead of talking about that particular book, though, I come to another, lesser known Anne Rice series: The Mayfair Witches. I do this in part because someone invariably compare the Vampire Chronicles to Twilight et. al. and piss me off and in part because the Mayfair Witches played a more dramatic role in my development as a writer (while the Vampire Chronicles played a bigger role in my development as a person).

On Lord Foul’s Bane

Next to my wonderful son, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are the only good thing my ex-husband ever did for me. I was 18 before I read a fantasy novel (with the exception of Watership Down and The Hobbit, both given me by my dad) and within two pages of Lord Foul’s Bane, I was entranced. By chapter 2, I hated the hero. By the middle of the book, I couldn’t stop rooting for him. By the end, I was glad he won, but wished he’d died in the process. It was one of the most emotionally challenging novels I had ever read – and was the first book that I ever read more than once.

 

The beauty of Lord Foul’s Bane rests in the utter humanity of it. Thomas Covenant is not a particularly likable hero, quite the opposite in fact, but he is a believable hero precisely because of that. The reader may not like him, but somehow has to empathize with him. The reader’s prejudices are challenged and no one but Lord Foul himself is completely evil or completely good. This is Donaldson’s strength as a writer. He presents humanity not as it should be, but as it is, and in so doing, we become a little more human ourselves.

On “A Prayer for Owen Meany”

I don’t have time to participate this year, but in honor of National Novel Writing Month, I’m going to post a brief note each day on a novel that had a significant impact on my life in one way or another. I start with John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany because it had such a profound impact at so many levels of my life.

 

After dropping out of high school two months before graduation, I returned to finish my last two credits at an alternative high school and earn my diploma. Students in my English class were learning basic grammar, reading comprehension, and vocabulary. After about two weeks in the class, the teacher took me aside and handed me a copy of A Prayer for Owen Meany. My assignment, she told me, was to read this novel and write a critical essay on some aspect of Irving’s message and the literary devices used to portray that message.

 

From the moment Owen Meany was introduced, I was enthralled. Not only did Irving have the most sophisticated writing style that I had ever encountered, but he was a master at symbolism and foreshadowing. The novel made me think about the interaction between religion and faith, a dichotomy that I have spent much of my life thinking about ever since. It made me think about politics and the importance of our personal politics reflecting our personal beliefs. It made me think about levels of morality and the way that relationships change us forever.

 

A few quotes:

 

• “It’s not God who’s fucked up, it’s the screamers that say they believe in Him and claim to pursue their ends in His holy name.”
• “THE ARMY OFFERS THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE – THE SAME CHOICE AS EVERYONE ELSE,” Owen said.
• What do Americans know about morality?  They don’t want their presidents to have penises but they don’t mind if their presidents covertly arrange to support the Nicaraguan rebel forces after Congress has restricted such aid; they don’t want their presidents to deceive their wives but they don’t mind if their presidents deceive Congress—lie to the people and violate the people’s constitution!

Guest Blogger Christine Klocek-Lim: Words on the Edge of a Recycle Bin

For ten years after college I didn’t write much. Or rather, I didn’t write poetry, which for anyone who knows me is a strange thing. I’ve been writing since I was three or five and scribbled ridiculous amounts of tragic/melodramatic verse since the age of eleven, all of which I saved. For a while, though, all I was writing were technical manuals (this made me fall asleep at my desk). After that I was too busy dealing with a serious lack of shut-eye since my kids hated sleep (oh the irony). However, even the most apocalyptic writer’s block eventually fades and by 2007 I’d accumulated hundreds of poems: some good, some bad. Last year, I’d just begun thinking about recycling the copies of bad poems I’d kept (because really, who needs more than one copy of dreck hanging around?) when one of my favorites of the good ones leaped out at me as I was going through the piles: “How to photograph the heart” sounded like the title poem for a collection. I went through the rest of my work, finding a number of poems that encompassed love and relationships. Hmm, I thought as I gathered them up, I should send these to someone. However, before I could even so much as press Compose in my email, I received a request from a good friend who’d been talking about starting a small press. I sent the poems I collected to him pronto and to my very great delight, he loved them. “How to photograph the heart” became the title poem for my first chapbook, published by The Lives You Touch Publications.

Guest KJ Hannah Greenberg-Plodding versus Widget Writing: Electing not to Write in Response to Changes in Publishing

Plodding versus Widget Writing: Electing not to Write in Response to Changes in Publishing
© KJ Hannah Greenberg
drkarenjoy@yahoo.com

Honesty reveals that most writers actually plod along. Whereas articles featuring a vista into an author’s ways and means tend to be glamorous in order to benefit the publications presenting the stories, and whereas tweets tend to generously endorse their subjects, the greater portion of storytellers’ hours, even among the most highly successful writers, necessarily are spent pushing on an electronic or at a traditional implement. It’s small consolation to creative sorts that their work can often be performed in the comfort of fuzzy bunny slippers.

For writers, success can be sudden, sharp, or decidedly elusive. Talent is not always the engine that pulls audience share and timing or even connections frequently amount to naught. Nonetheless, it is also almost always true that writers who are unable to demonstrate followings are writers who are unable to climb professionally.

Accordingly, writers must make efforts with their pens or keyboards, must expect nothing to go according to their plans, and when and if they reach some height of accomplishment, must expect that maintaining their readers’ attention is nearly impossible. For those reasons, most scribblers also work as engineers, busboys, English teachers, cab drivers, financial analysts, couriers, chemists, track couches, or as anything else that provides remuneration. Writing, in the best of times, is a glorified avocation.

There exist exceptions to this norm. For instance, if one is willing to sacrifice aesthetics and become a widget writer, one can anticipate regular pay for produced text.

Why I’ll Watch the Oscars in 2010

I don’t really like Alec Baldwin. But then, I don’t really like the Oscars anymore. 2009 was the first time they were entertaining since Whoopie Goldberg hosted back before fantasy was considered a legitimate film genre (i.e. before movie-goers told Hollywood where to stick their artsy high horse). It’s a rare occasion that a worthy film wins an award. Rarer that a worthy film wins several. Talent often goes unnoticed. Awards are handed out through popularity or politics. Maybe I’m a bit jaded.