Consider This: Moments in My Writing Life After Which Everything Was Different

Getting inside a character might seem like a vacation from being you . But face it , you’re never not you . No matter what world you create you’re always dealing with your own shit . Same shit , different mask . You’ve chosen to explore a certain character because something about it resonates with you . Don’t pretend for a moment that writing as a different person is evading reality . If anything it allows you a greater freedom to explore parts of yourself you wouldn’t dare consciously examine .

You have to talk, otherwise your head turns into a cemetery.

What if all of our anger and fear is unwarranted? What if world events are unfolding in perfect order to deliver us to a distant joy we can't conceive of at this time?

do not write to be liked. Write to be remembered.

Ideally, you should be combining gesture, action, and expression with your dialogue.

Little voice gives us the facts. Big voice gives us the meaning—or at least a character’s subjective interpretation of the events.

If you were my student, I’d tell you to shift as needed between the three POVs. Not constantly, but as appropriate to control authority, intimacy, and pace.

This book is, in a way, a scrapbook of my writing life. From shopping the cathedral flea market in Barcelona with David Sedaris to having drinks at Cognac with Nora Ephron just months before she died. To the years of sporadic correspondence I had with Thom Jones and Ira Levin. I’ve stalked my share of mentors, asking for advice. Therefore, if you came back another day and asked me to teach you, I’d tell you that becoming an author involves more than talent and skill. I’ve known fantastic writers who never finished a project. And writers who launched incredible ideas, then never fully executed them. And I’ve seen writers who sold a single book and became so disillusioned by the process that they never wrote another. I’d paraphrase the writer Joy Williams, who says that writers must be smart enough to hatch a brilliant idea—but dull enough to research it, keyboard it, edit and re-edit it, market the manuscript, revise it, revise it, re-revise it, review the copy edit, proofread the typeset galleys, slog through the interviews and write the essays to promote it, and finally to show up in a dozen cities and autograph copies for thousands or tens of thousands of people… And then I’d tell you, “Now get off my porch.” But if you came back to me a third time, I’d say, “Kid…” I’d say, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Take full advantage of the complete freedom books provide. To not take advantage of that freedom is to waste the one chief strength of the medium.

Think of a good joke. “Yesterday I walked into a bar. You know how it goes. You walk into a bar, and you expect a bartender, maybe some video poker. A man needs his distractions. No guy wants to get off work and go into some bar and see a penguin mixing drinks…” In conversation we switch between first-, second-, and third-person points of view. The constant shift controls the intimacy and authority of our story; for instance, “I walked” has the authority of first person. Second person addresses the listeners and enlists them: “You walk.” And the shift to third person controls the pace, “No guy wants,” by moving from the specific “I” to the general “guy.

So never dictate meaning to your reader. If need be, misdirect him. But always allow him to realize the truth before you state it outright. Trust your readers’ intelligence and intuition, and they will return the favor.

No matter what world you create you’re always dealing with your own shit. Same shit, different mask.

The problem with loving so many people is that you lose so many.

Use attribution to control the delivery of dialogue, creating the sort of dramatic pause an actor would insert. Otherwise, the reader will race through a line without realizing how it ought to be weighted.

To shut yourself off from these stories is to accept the banal version of reality that’s always used to frame advertisements for miracle wrinkle creams and miracle diet pills . It’s as if we’ve denied the real magic of life so that we can sell each other the sham magic of consumer products . Another example of the shop replacing the church .

My guess is that people haven’t a clue how to get along . They need a structure , rules , and roles to play .

Three parts description . Two parts instruction . One part onomatopoeia . Mix to taste .

In our world of fake news…this world in which the internet has eroded the credibility of all information…people want to know the context of a story just as much as they want to hear the story itself. Context and source are more important now than they’ve ever been.

What if all our anger and fear is unwarranted? What if world events are unfolding in perfect order to deliver us to a distant joy we can't conceive of at this time? Please consider that the next ending will be the happy one.

Establish your authority,” Tom Spanbauer used to tell us, “and you can do anything.

Don’t shy away from inventing rituals in your story. Invent rules and prayers. Give people roles to play and lines to recite. Include some form of communion and confession, a way for people to tell their stories and find connection with others.

Writers write because they weren’t invited to a party.

Everyone should use three types of communication. Three parts description. Two parts instruction. One part onomatopoeia. Mix to taste.

Using all three forms of communication creates a natural, conversational style. Description combined with occasional instruction, and punctuated with sound effects or exclamations: It’s how people talk.

Think of a story as a stream of information. At best it’s an ever-changing series of rhythms. Now think of yourself, the writer, as a DJ mixing tracks.

And another thing,” he cautioned me, “don’t use a lot of commas. People hate sentences with lots of commas. Keep your sentences short. Readers like short sentences.

If you’re dedicated to becoming an author, nothing I can say here will stop you. But if you’re not, nothing I can say will make you one.

I love knowing a lot of people, but the downside is that means going to a lot of funerals.

So long as my checks cleared, I’d no interest in figuring down to the penny how poor I always was. For the same reason, I’ve put off writing a book on writing. I didn’t want to be faced with how little I could offer on the subject. How stupid I remained after all this time and practice.