Writers and Readers discussion

Please welcome Jack Remick to our Q and A discussions. Jack is a poet, short story writer, and novelist. Jack’s stories and poems have appeared in national magazines such as Carolina Quarterly, Portland Review, Big Hammer, Café Noir Review, and Northwind. In 2012 Coffeetown Press published the first two volumes of Jack’s California Quartet series, The Deification and Valley Boy. The final two volumes will be released in 2013: The Book of Changes and Trio of Lost Souls. Blood, A Novel was published by Camel Press, an imprint of Coffeetown Press, in 2011. He also co-wrote The Weekend Novelist Writes A Mystery, with Robert J. Ray; The WNWM is a how-to/write-along for beginning and achieved mystery writers.
Jack has lived and worked extensively in Latin America and has Fiction and Memoir in Certificate programs at the University of Washington Extension and Distance Learning.

Jack's Goodreads Profile: Jack Remick

Hi Jack, I am wondering how you decide on which direction to write and when. Is poetry in your soul one day, then novel writing another, or do you write what ever the moods takes you. It is interesting that you do both and I am curious as to how you drive the eclectric train. :)

Hello L. A.: I'll break it down into sessions--I write two days a week with a group at Louisa's Bakery Cafe in Seattle. We use startlines, following Natalie Goldberg's timed writing technique. I write longhand. If I'm beginning a novel, I'll begin the session with a line, such as the one from last Tuesday: "Today I'm writing about that moment in time, that unique never again to be moment in time between automatic and choice...." This is for a novel, probably called The Niche, not sure about that yet. In the beginning, I'm never sure about a lot of things.
If I get to the session and I'm not already into a piece, I take what comes. For example, I look at my August 24th writing. I came to the table with an empty head, but knowing I was ready to start something: "Today I'm writing about starting a new novel. I have two ideas: One is a story about a tuna fish who becomes president of the United States. The second story is about a transgendered man who gets fired from his job and becomes a domestic terrorist..." That second idea probably won't go much further, but it's an idea.
If I'm writing poetry, again I take what comes, but always begin with the startline--today I'm writing about. Sometimes the session gets to poetry, sometimes to short story, sometimes to novel. We can go over this some more as the days go on but that's a direction I always take.

I just came across a file of some poetry. This one started after I got a note from a friend in Eastern Washington. She told me she heard coyotes one night. Her line: I hear coyotes talk up on the ridge...gave me a blast so I ran with it:
Coyote
They've kicked out my teeth
I don't sleep anymore
weather rams
a storm down over the mountains
driven by wind into rain
thunder, the grindstone of earth,
peels the edges off the sky...

As always, it's the writing that gets more writing...that's one of Natalie Goldbergs famous zen sayings. The other, that I like a lot is: when you walk in the mist, you get wet...

Good morning Jack,
I want to ask about process. I understand your process for writing your first drafts: pen to paper against a clock. But then what? When and what to you call your first draft? How do you add your subplots? How do you layer the story? And then how do you know when the manuscript is finished? Is it finished even if it's not published?
Arleen

Not a question, but agreement about writing discipline. I learned about prompts in the workshops I took from you and now in the weekly workshop I'm doing with a novel, we start each session in the group with a choice of prompts. Very liberating. And I writer every day.

Maybe a question. What kind of research do you do for background in a new novel?

Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to get the story. I like to think of fiction as "the artful infusion of the past into the narrative present." That means writing backstory on every character who pops up. Ellen Gilchrist wrote, somewhere, don't know just where, maybe in the intro to I Cannot Get You Close Enough to you want to create every character strong enough to be the protagonist of your next novel or story. That's very wise because it tells you to go full out when you bring a character on. When Bob and I wrote The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery, we had the idea to create the Killer first. So we came up with some startlines: My name is X. I'm the killer. I was born in a town called. My first kill came when I was six...
So Backstory backstory backstory. Backstory leads to your question about subplots and layering. If your create every character that strong, each one will ride on a subplot. Subplots give you texture. Layering, if you will. Texture in a scene can be "measured" by the number of subplots running in it. Subplots can run on a character, an object, a symbol, a continuing action. In my world, a novel needs about three subplots. If you work them from different Points of View, the texturing comes clear and layering works. But the process we use depends on serial rewrites.
In this method, I like to link the "fiction is..." idea to this: The art is in the rewrite. Rewriting implies, to me, structure, which is the second beat:
Story.
Structure.
This leads to your third question about finishing.
How do you know it's finished. You work the story, beginning, middle, end; long continuous narration with no action; beefed up action, no subtlety=genre, action, mystery, so on; once you get the story, you figure out how it fits together--POV sequences, plot tracks, which comes first, how do you lay it out, what does the reader see first? Last? so on. That's structure. Once you have Story and Structure, then you work on Style. Third beat:
Story
Structure
Style.
Style works on action and image. Image and action work off Strong Verbs and Concrete Nouns. Style works off of Generic vs Style verbs. Style verbs give birth to images. An example from a conference mini-lecture: He ran to first base. (generic ran) He trotted to first base (style verb indexing the action of hitting a home run). He sprinted to first base (style verb indexing a dying quail dropped into short center field). Once you get story, structure and style working, you rewrite fifteen or twenty times. Anyone who tells you they don't rewrite is pulling a Mitt on you and probably won't release the tax returns either. Now you've rewritten a bunch of times, and you turn the mss over to your readers (which you've probably been doing all along). At some point, you and your readers go over the pages and your pens stop moving. You've said it all: You've infused the past into the narrtive present; the characters are rich and powerful; the story runs clean from beginning to end; the pieces fit together with no clunking; the style is smooth (style has to be limpid or transparent--unless you're deep into literary fiction, then style looms way up there--in order to let the reader in.
This leads to your last question: "even if it's not published?" I have to answer this with an anecdote about Albert Ryder, the American painter. Ryder had this nasty habit of going into museums where his work was on display, sitting down on a stool, and touching up the work on the wall. So, is it ever finished? I don't think there's ever a line that can't be retouched, recast, reframed. Sometimes we settle, but that's only because our technique hasn't caught up with our minds. I hope this is some kind of answer. Thanks for asking. J

JL: background research...hmmm.Okay. The story I'm starting right now, The Niche (tentative title): I'm very interested in honor killings in other cultures and how in American culture women live in a unique time. A friend, Mary Ann Bruni filmed a documentary called "Quest for Honor." I watched her film many times, then started in on the rest of the world. As I dug into it, I learned that in India 50 million girls have been killed in X number of years. Murdered, starved to death, left to die, aborted, honor killed. Now this is a startling number and it gives me a feel for the unique moment Americans live in--and that's the research that triggers the story. The rest of it is outlined in the above writing to Arleen's question. I'm working on the characters now and so far I have just one. I don't know what's driving her, but I do know she has visions of dead and stoned women who died because they showed their ankles in the wrong place at the wrong time. As I research for the Tuna Who Becomes President of the USA, I go in a different direction...

Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to get the stor..."

hi jack
i am impressed with your memory
that Ryder quote was cool
i was just wondering:
where do you get your ideas?
i get mine at the gym
on the treadmill
all best,
bob

Robert: I buy my ideas. It costs money to be a writer (artist of any kind) in America. You have to spend and spend. I've discovered an outfit called "Mine the Miners". They sell ideas and paraphernalia to writers. They're canned, often in the form of writing courses. The screenwriting world is especially egregious in this matter. Does that help? I.E.: How much do you pay in gym fees to get your ideas on the treadmill? See?

Jack,

Who are some of your favorite (Contemporary) authors and why? ( besides that Robert Ray guy :)

Tony

Do you still believe, as you stated in 1967, that reading your work (that was just written) aloud at a writing practice session is tantamount to publishing and thus, actually publishing the previously read work is like seeking "sloppy seconds?"

As a follow up, do you still hold that parenthetical sentences are a cheap ploy to reveal what the writer is thinking (as if you could read my mind) instead of the narrative being played out in action?

Hello Jerry: Recursion is a fundamental process that evolves out of the time machine built into our brains. We can project the future, recall the past, nail down the present because (as you can see from this recursive trip) language is flexible. As for publishing work at the table...it's important for writers to break out of the shell of isolation in order to hear their words spoken in the presence of others. Writing practice is a good practice for getting control of the Inner Editor. Reading hot, fresh work aloud lets you dissolve the barrier between what you think your wrote (said) and actually wrote (said). Stories are told with action and image.

Tony wrote: "Jack,

Who are some of your favorite (Contemporary) authors and why? ( besides that Robert Ray guy :)

Tony"
Tony--right now I'm reading Don DeLillo and Matt Briggs. DeLillo because that Ray guy has found some interesting sentence control that merits study, while Briggs has captured the Northwest in a way that both intrigues and captivates. I try to read most of the work coming out of the Coffeetown/Camel Press consortium, and have found a wonderful novelist named Mark Everett Stone. His "Judas Line" which I reviewed on Goodreads, is a masterpiece both of style and substance. I also read Don McQuinn's Light the Hidden Things, and Janet Oakley's "Tree Soldier." Jodi Lea Stewart is writing some great stuff about the Southwest in her "Silki" series, while Maria Romero Cash's "Shadows Among the Ruins" is a fine contemporary detective story with a strong woman at the core.

As a published writer who works close to the bone in both creativity and causation, what do you see as the next big fad in writing?

Jerry: I can't predict anything about writing. One thing I do see, however, is that women are writing erotica with a vengeance. That is going to change everything. Sarah Martinez (who wrote Sex and Death in the American Novel) talks about her "mommy group"--women with kids who get together to write and talk about sex and sex writing. Somethin's coming down the pike and it's really steaming. So, maybe the anguished days of middle class angst are over and women are nailing down the future.

Dear Jack,
Why do you think we humans write? Why? What would it have been like with no writing?
Priscilla

If you weren't writing would you be a professional musician? What book have you reread most often? What attributes might make you abandon reading a book?

Priscilla wrote: "Dear Jack,
Why do you think we humans write? Why? What would it have been like with no writing?
Priscilla"

I've been thinking about this for a while--writing. Here are some ideas that came out of the thinking. I'd like to reply on the fly, but this question isn't simple. Do you mean why do we write fiction? Or why do we write in the Barthesean sense of "ecrivain" "ecrivant?" So, here's an answer: Before we wrote, we gnawed on bones and fought with sticks.
Writing is what we do that no other species can do--
We record our history, record our dreams.
In writing we become god-like, controlling time past, time future.
In writing we build worlds and people those worlds and set the characters in motion.
This is the god of the deists, the clockmaker who builds the clock, winds it up, abandons it.
Before we wrote, we were burrow makers, cave dwellers, tree dwellers, but when we write, we become more than any other animal. In writing, we imagine worlds that are not and cannot be.
Only a few times have we written.
Chinese scratched characters on oracle bones.
Mesopotamians scratched cuneiform code in mud.
Egyptians chiseled glyphs in sandstone.
Maya carved pictures in rock and plaster.
We write now on paper, in a thousand tongues.
We are writers. It is in the writing that we exist.
In the writing, we are limited only by what we can dream.
That's the best I can do at this time.

Pamela wrote: "If you weren't writing would you be a professional musician? What book have you reread most often? What attributes might make you abandon reading a book?"

My musical life started early. I played the violin at 5, piano at 6. I went to a conservatory of music where I studied composition with Claudio Aisaga. I played piano with Gene Wahlstrom in high school and from him learned that music and writing are the same thing done with different tools. So, in a sense, I am a professional musician when I write. Rhythm, beat, cadence, melody, style. The bigger problem is the semantic one. Writing has to mean from the context and concatenation of words whereas music is raw, pure, simple emotion. If I could write without meaning, I would be happier.
Books: I read, often, the work of Jung, Peirce, Levi-Strauss, Jakobsen, deSaussure. These are foundation thinkers whose minds I have to come back to as I learn more. Only by revisiting these ideas can I uncover the path.
Abandon a book: I never do. It might take years to finish, but I finish, because as a writer, I believe I have to finish what I start. I owe that to the writers who precede me and who accompany me on this journey to better understanding of the art and craft.

Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to get the stor..."
Not a question but an appreciation. I find more solid wisdom here than a shelf full of Writer's Digest books and half a dozen writing blogs. This message and your reply to Priscilla as to "Why Humans Write," get snapped into my "Things to Remember" binder!

Chuck wrote: "Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to..."
Hello Chuck: Thanks for that. Sometimes we shout into the wind and no one hears us. Sometimes we shout into the wind and someone catches it and we know we are not alone. I often think about radio talk hosts, late at night, putting it out there wondering if anyone is listening. As a writer, I experience that all the time. I like to think that I have the same number of readers whether my novels are published or not. That thought keeps me humble, and it keeps me writing. L'enfer, c'est les autres...JP Sartre.

Hi Jack, I’m down in Oregon writing at WW– As I rewrite, I’m clear on my inciting incidents, but struggling with plot points. Can you give me a quick reminder of what they are meant to achieve in a story????? Thanks. Looking forward to being back in Seattle next week. Mindy

Jack wrote: "Priscilla wrote: "Dear Jack,
Why do you think we humans write? Why? What would it have been like with no writing?
Priscilla"

I've been thinking about this for a while--writing. Here are some idea..."

You just wrote the equivalent of the entire works of William Shakespeare in a few sentences about writing. I think that should be sufficient for now...!

Mindy wrote: "Hi Jack, I’m down in Oregon writing at WW– As I rewrite, I’m clear on my inciting incidents, but struggling with plot points. Can you give me a quick reminder of what they are meant to achieve in a..."

Hello Mindy. I'm glad your comment came through. Plot Points. Well, as you know that whole thing comes from Aristotle through Syd Field. The Triadics of writing: beginning, middle, end. Act 1, 2, 3. Field saw, in reading screenplays, that something happened at certain page counts along the way: p 30, page 60, so on. He called those things that happened there: Plot Points. The Three Act structure is a modern synthesis of the Classical Five Act play. What's curious about all of that is that in the classical model you know everything by act 2.5, or, in the Three Act model: MidPoint. Wow. So Field just rediscovered what Racine, Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Corneille had developed into an art form. In fiction, we look at three acts and want things to happen along the way: Plot Point 1, close to end of Act 1 you want twist. Mid Point. Plot Point 2, close to end of Act 2, another twist. Climax, Resolution (Aristotle catharsis). Look at it another way: if you're on page 150 of a 300 page novel and your protagonist is still thinking about whether to murder her husband or not, you need a plot point--midpoint she at last unsheathes the knife...So plot points are a modern technique to keep you from writing flat. Stories are told with action and image. Our brains have been rewired by a hundred years of movies. Sure you can write a continuous narrative, interior all the way with no action, but you won't get much traction from your readers who expect this: Open with Action; develop character through dialogue, build the story on turning points, and bring it all to a whiz-bang ending that leaves you breathless, satisfied, yet hungry for more. Oh No! Aristotle, again? More on this question if you don't find what you want here.

Jack, thanks for the mention. When you wrote about character charts earlier, I was reminded that when I took your workshop, I realized that my character didn't have an object associated with it. I immediately knew it was a CCC honor award, which the character felt he didn't deserve.

On reading out loud, very important. You catch all sorts of problems in the flow of the words, paragraph sense. That is why I read every month at open mike at Village Books. Also am reading my work aloud at the workshop.

To: Ray and Remick
From: Ray Wheeler
re: proposed rededication of American literature

I missed an invitation from Remick writing partner Bob Ray until after the show was over but followed the link to the transcript and scanned through it.

In short, writing of the type that apparently the two of you are expert in--e.g., writing on schedule to the clock--is purest anathema to me; is the exact thing that my own writing is calculated to be both a challenge and anecdote to.

You would say: this explains your track record for publishing and your career as a pencil-pushing bureaucrat.

You would be right.

People who can and will write on schedule and to the clock are in that sense without a doubt better writers than I am. Equally without a doubt I would be a more successful writer--e.g., a financially "sustainable" one, perhaps even one with some modest status or reputation--if I could or would write to schedule and the clock.

There is great value in being able to write that way. Any writer can benefit hugely from learning the skill. I have to believe that there is now on the web a tremendous sucking sound in the employment category of those who can write to the format, to the business plan, to the market and to the clock.

With all of that acknowledged however, it remains the case that what works best for me in terms of results I can live with, is just the opposite of what you get when you write to the clock.

I would think, from what I've read, that Faulkner of all people was forced in some sense to write to the clock during his time in Hollywood. There is anecdotal evidence that Faulkner was good, maybe even very good, at writing to the clock in his work on movie scripts.

Why then did he not elect to write in that particular way when he went back home to write fiction? And why did he drink so heavily and why was he apparently so morose, while in Hollywood writing to the clock, if this activity was fulfilling to him?

I am a disciple of Faulkner, not strictly as to style, but more as to aspiration. This is a radical question, but if one did not aspire to popularity, status or financial success, what, if anything, would be left to aspire to?

Here is how I would describe the radically different aspirations that I have:
I work fairly hard at making my writing understandable but then again, when it becomes too overworked in that direction it becomes less interesting to me.

One of the core values and quests of my writing is to design linguistic objects so complex and intricate that a reader would have to come back to them again and again to get the full effect and could always find more embedded content and meaning--objects so intrinsically biodiverse, so animate in this way that they can deliver new results with each new reading.

I use the following metaphor to describe the intended effect. It is taken from an experience I had on the Jordan River near my house. Imagine a kayaker drifting downstream after taking a big sweep stroke that causes the kayak to spin continuously like an object revolving in outer space, and then (the kayaker) leaning back on the rear deck to look straight upward as he passes under a railroad bridge across which thunder two trains moving in opposite directions, and above them, a circling flock of cliff swallows, and above them migrating geese, and above them low clouds moving swiftly and above them jet contrails moving sideways on the wind, and higher levels of clouds moving in different directions at different speeds at several levels--and all of this simultaneous motion described in writing in such a way as to combine and integrate all of the planes and layers and angles of motion and momentum so that they are realized both separately and together.

John Steinbeck in the introduction to East of Eden describes that book as a box into which he has put everything that he has as a writer and thinker. I am doing the same thing at the scale of paragraph and sentence. Another pertinent metaphor is fractal geometry in which no matter how much you zoom in you see more and still more detail and different fantastically complex new patterns at each and every "level of abstraction", as my father used to say. I am very interested--as he so presciently was--in the potential for such design goals to be realized to an unprecedented degree through the use of web design to embed hyperlinks to and from text, photos, graphics, audio and video files, such that a reader can at his or her own volition move on multiple dimensions in all directions through "the material"--fiction and/or journalism of a completely new kind.
Irving Stone in his biography of Jack London, Sailor on Horseback, shows that it was not so long after London crowed in his letters that he had finally perfected a formula for the successful action adventure short story, and not so long after London reached the pinnacle of his genre in terms of recognition, status and income, that he succeeded in saturating his own market and went directly off the up elevator, across the lobby and onto the down elevator. As a publisher explained to him to justify the steep decline in story payment rate, the market for that particular formula had simply been exhausted--by Jack London himself. Hmmm. So much for formula fiction. Without sufficient money coming in to sustain his high flying lifestyle, London became despondent. He had gambled everything, including his 2 daughters, on the redemption power of status and income. Then arsonists burned down his trophy home. At age of 40 he was finished. He had taken an overdose of morphine, supposedly for pain from kidney stones--surely not a suicide attempt, his biographers insist. But then again there was the alcoholism that was without any question suicide on the installment plan.

We look at Hemingway and see exactly the same thing: the most celebrated and surely the best paid writer of his generation, dead of suicide at 61--my age as of August 18 of this year. Then too we can look at so many other of our most commercially successful writers, namely Edgar Allen Poe, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, Jack Kerouac, Sylvia Plath, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, and so many others who committed or attempted or practiced suicide with alcohol or drugs or by more direct means, after stunning success in the commercial market.

This suggests to me that writing to the market and to the clock may not be so rewarding as we have all simply assumed to be the case. But it would not be the first time that we have all raced in the "steeplechase", as Faulkner put it, organized by the "Gentlemen of the Leisure Class", (as Thornstein Veblen put it) for us to run for their profit and amusement. Unfortunately the steeplechase of commercial success is not very rewarding even when you win it. Why would this be? The reason can be found in the writing itself. Because formulaic it is intrinsically unsatisfying to the appetite of the writers themselves, no matter how satisfying it may be to the readers. Instead of learning the timeworn formulas or inventing new ones, would it not be more satisfying to venture beyond formula into that which is intrinsically non-formulaic?

I have the greatest respect and admiration for my mentor and personal hero Dr. Robert Ray and by extension for any partner of his. But I must stand where I belong, with the 99 percent of less-than-world-class-talent-for profitable-conformity-to-the-conventional-wisdom-as-to-what-is-worth-doing-in-literature.

I have posted this manifesto on the Goodreads interview web page and will do so as well on Ray and Jack's writing blog. I trust that it will draw out other weekend warriors like myself, many with opposing views. I welcome the feedback because I would rather have this debate in public than behind closed doors. I am on a crusade to rescue literature for myself alone if not for anyone else. It's time for literature to re-learn what it might be if it were not trying so hard to be successful.

Ray Wheeler
wheeler.ray@gmail.com

I can really identify with what you said--"Abandon a book: I never do. It might take years to finish, but I finish, because as a writer, I believe I have to finish what I start."
Do your characters become old friends, as mine do? And do they run away with the story? Or change or find new ways to complicate their lives?

I used to write by hand and edit by hand, but the typing job became overwhelming as the ms became messier and messier. Still, it is still how I prefer to edit. Do you find that your writing at the keyboard is a little different?

Jack,

one last question. I'm curious of your formal education and how you finally arrived at writerdom. Did you pursue an MFA or something similar ( and additional question is - do you think that's necessary?)

Tony

Ray wrote: "To: Ray and Remick
From: Ray Wheeler
re: proposed rededication of American literature

I missed an invitation from Remick writing partner Bob Ray until after the show was over but f..."
Hello Ray: Your point about different approaches is the point--there is no right way, there is the way I do it, the way Bob Ray does it, the way you do it. I don't ask anyone to do it the way I do. I don't tell people what to write but I do offer suggestions to writers who ask. People get out of it what they want and need.

Tony wrote: "Jack,

one last question. I'm curious of your formal education and how you finally arrived at writerdom. Did you pursue an MFA or something similar ( and additional question is - do you think that..."

Tony: No, no MFA. The debate goes on about that degree. Some people say yea, some say no. I got to the point where I am by reading, studying, writing. Reading new disciplines--biology, neuroscience, anthropology. Studying--the writing of thinkers who try to show us something about the way the mind works. Writing--stories, poems, novels, non-fiction work, essays. That's where I am and how I got here.

Cary wrote: "I can really identify with what you said--"Abandon a book: I never do. It might take years to finish, but I finish, because as a writer, I believe I have to finish what I start."
Do your character..."
Hello Cary: this is an interesting question about characters and old friends. I think you hit it right--get out of the way and let the characters tell the story. In that sense they do both own it and run away with it.
Re: editing, writing by hand: What works for you, is what you do. Go where the heat is. Computers are good for editing, but I don't do well composing there. Screens are deceptive because they look so good, but when you read it, you hear the truth. For me, the feel of pen on paper is irresistible. The distance the machine puts up is a problem.

Okay. It's been a good day here in Goodreads Q and A. I'll check back later,tomorrow and Sunday hoping to keep up the flow, hoping to see what we roust out of the writing universe. Thanks all.

Ray: I just read your email. One thing Bob Ray and I believe in is sharing what we know. That's why the blog is there--it contains what we know and give freely to anyone who wants to take it. Never any judgment, just hints and ideas.

robert wrote: "Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to..."

hi jack
okay
wow
great answer
where do you go to buy these ideas?
the idea store?
the second-hand idea store?
i need the address, man
or the url
is this on your blog?
thanks,
rj ray

Jack,
In your novel 'Blood' you used semen in several different ways. What I found interesting was that two other authors at about the same time were also mentioning the substance in literary fiction. What was the reason you did this and were you worried about offending potential readers?
Sarah

Wow! I just want to say Wow! Not very creative maybe but the first word that comes to mind. I'm really enjoying the posts in this discussion and I'll be checking back later today. Keep it up!

Hello Sarah: Biology. Sex. Semen. Life. Chance. In Blood, semen is an index to chance. Some writers spend a lot of time avoiding the essential. There's nothing more essential than semen. In fact, semen and milk rank right up there as essential human bodily fluids so why not write about them? We all have mothers and as far as I know every one of us came from a gamete. So in Blood I put it right up front--no hiding behind propriety. All through that novel, the notion of chance crops up. Mitch, the protagonist uses the numbers one in a hundred million--one little gamete, one little ovum and you get a human being--as symbols of chance. If you think about it, you're the result of a race among a hundred million sperm. Pretty heavy biology. That's Semen 1A.
Semen 1B is another beast altogether. Semen is an index to the history of writing plot track running through the novel. In scene 6 Mitch sees a shiny coat of semen smeared on the cell wall. Men have jerked off, smeared the semen on the concrete and using the semen as ink then scratched their names in it and drawn little fantasy sex pictures...he calls them the palimpsests. Here the essence of life shows up as cave drawings to remind us that our first art came from stuff smeared on cave walls. We can go into this later if that doesn't give you the answer you were looking for.

Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to get the stor..."

Jack wrote: "Okay. Now the hard core comes on line...Process: I write everything long hand, and I mean that. Bob Ray and I have developed approaches to the novel that we also practice. First, is to get the stor..."

Back on-line 24 hours later... thanks for the detailed response. You made me laugh with the Albert Ryder anecdote. Sounds like my artist husband, but as he says in the voice of a struggling artist: at least he got them on museum walls. Goes back to the question: is it art/is it good enough/is it finished if nobody sees/reads it?

Arleen: Welcome back. "Is it art...if nobody...reads it?" Art history--in some if not all the cathedrals in Europe, there are hidden sculptures few people have ever seen. They are rendered in the exact detail of the ground or portal level work. Hidden art. Now I feel a certain kinship with those sculptors who created those pieces. My own work shares some of that neglect, but, the details are there, the story is there, the writing is there. That's what matters. I quoted Sartre earlier: "l'enfer, c'est les autres." As writers (as humans) our need to be loved is so great it will overcome our common sense and turn us into lapdogs for a few strokes. Do the writing. Share it with friends and colleagues. If you need wholesale cultural approval, think about the hidden sculptures and you'll sleep better at night knowing the art is there. Discipline is your obligation to the gift. The art is in the rewrite.

Jack wrote: "Ray wrote: "To: Ray and Remick
From: Ray Wheeler
re: proposed rededication of American literature

I missed an invitation from Remick writing partner Bob Ray until after the show wa..."

Jack,
I'd like to add something here, if you don't mind. I think Ray is perhaps misunderstanding the timed-writing practice as I know it, as it is practiced at Louisa's Cafe and other venues in the Seattle area and around the country.
Ray - we are not "writing against the clock" as the expression is normally used to indicate a deadline of some sort. There is no deadline, no greedy grasp for commercial success, although publication is desired by many. Instead, the use of a timer is a tool that helps some of us turn off the internal editor and hammer out an admittedly rough draft of a single scene in a 30 or 45 minute block of time. It's a way to find the story without being blocked by the desire for beauty and perfection. That's it. Nothing more.
Arleen

Jack wrote: "Arleen: Welcome back. "Is it art...if nobody...reads it?" Art history--in some if not all the cathedrals in Europe, there are hidden sculptures few people have ever seen. They are rendered in the e..."

Thanks, Jack. If a tree falls in the forest... I'll keep those hidden sculptures in mind.

Yes. This is the kind of back and forth we need as writers.

Jack,
You mentioned something about each character being/having a triad. Could you explain that here?
Arleen

I wrote about this in a review of "Sex and Death in the American Novel". The idea is that the Triad (not the love triangle--too simple, too cute) is the fundamental theorem of fiction. The writer has to solve the Triad in order to find the cathartic resolution. If you want to read that developed, here's the link to to the amazon review. It's titled Safe Writing/Safe Reading. You can find a second writing about the Triad in my review of Sarah's novel here on good reads as well. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15...
http://www.amazon.com/Death-American-...
There's also a structural review of Don McQuinn's "Light the Hidden Things" based on Triadics.

Jack wrote: "Arleen: Welcome back. "Is it art...if nobody...reads it?" Art history--in some if not all the cathedrals in Europe, there are hidden sculptures few people have ever seen. They are rendered in the e..."

Some people are just ahead of their time. Think of the poems of Emily Dickenson, the symphonies of Mahler, gosh there are so many different examples from so many art forms - the paintings of Van Gough, etc. A lot of people who hang here are lowly genre cats like myself. I hadn't heard of you before - even though I lived in the Pacific Northwest for more than 25 years, but now that I'm acquainted with the quality and depth of your postings, I am absolutely adding your books to my "must read" list." So, you know, maybe you're raising the literary standards a little, one hack at a time.

Welcome back, Chuck. You'll have to come down to Louisa's Bakery Cafe on Eastlake in Seattle for a timed writing session with Arleen and the crew. We meet on Tuesday and Friday at 2:00 for an hour of writing and reading. Between four and eighteen writers show up for the sessions. No critique, no analysis--write for 45 minutes, read in groups of four. It takes about 8 minutes to read a 45 minute write aloud. Give it shot. It will be good to see you there. J

Arleen's words--"It's a way to find the story without being blocked by the desire for beauty and perfection." --sum up timed writing/writing practice for me. Yeah. That's right. What a great way to say it.

Jack wrote: "I wrote about this in a review of "Sex and Death in the American Novel". The idea is that the Triad (not the love triangle--too simple, too cute) is the fundamental theorem of fiction. The writer h..."

I've read both reviews. Triad = three characters locked in a struggle for dominance, love and meaning. So if I'm understanding this, each major player (protagonists and antagonists)are locked into multiple triads each based on their relationships with each other as well as on the wants and desires of all three characters in each triad. So recognizing and understanding the triads in our work, can help us explore the conflicts and desires of our characters as they interact with each other. And in doing so we develop our subplots. Close?

BTW... I particularly liked your reference to "the restricted and constipated world of 'niceness'."

I was also struck by your statement that the "21st century American writing is about the formation of family." I realize now how important that was as the underlying force, or subtext, in The Thirty-Ninth Victim (I needed family. Maureen needed family. We both sought it in different ways with differing results). It's also the force behind both of the novels I'm currently working on. It hit me when I read your words. Thank you for the ah-ha moment.