Q: What inspires you in your day-to-day life, something that influences your writing?
A: Inspiration comes in so many forms. Reading great writers inspires me to write. Some times. Other times it can bring on crippling self doubt. Before I had completed a novel, I read James Lee Burke’s Neon Rain, it was terrifyingly good. Two more of his Dave Robicheaux books convinced me to give up attempting to write. Then I decided to read everything Burke had written in order. His early books were good, but not frighteningly so. He got better with every word he wrote. He continues to get better and better. This gave me hope. I’m no James Lee Burke, but seven published books into this game I’m a much better writer than I started out to be. And before I type my last word I plan to get even better.
Wordless art forms — paintings, sculptures, instrumental music — open the part of my mind that is not fouled by my personal logic police. Studying Henry Moore’s abstract sculpture Knife Edge helps me to view a story problem differently, or maybe it allows me to not focus on the problem, so the solution bubbles up freely. The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena has a wonderful Impressionist collection. I would do flyby viewings. Twenty minutes studying one painting to clear my brain before getting back to work.
PRO TIP: Free museum days and yearly memberships make it economical to have many short trips without thinking it costs a lot so I should stay all day.
I am inspired by watching people. Want to study a tyrant, an open hearted hero, or a benevolent ruler? Volunteer in a preschool. Those kids haven’t yet learned to hide themselves and blend in. High-school is similar but teenagers speak a foreign language that shifts every few years so it’s harder to understand and communicate with them.
It took me several books to get that my personal family history informs everything I write, a great source for plot and character ideas. A family is a microcosm of the human condition.
My grandmother was six or seven years old during the flu pandemic of 1918. She was one of lucky ones who was immune. The local doctor conscripted her to help carry out the bodies of the dead. She never saw her early hardships as hardships. That may be why instead of breaking her they made her stronger. How a person/character frames their history informs who they become.
In 1962 my father and two other Quaker activists sailed the Everyman out of the SF bay headed for the Christmas Islands to protest nuclear testing. They were boarded and arrested just outside the three mile limit. In court he said he had been referred to as Captain Stallings, “and up came the image of the self-sufficient seafarer striding the deck, facing the storm. It did not even hint at the cowering, afraid, sea-sick guy unable to even think for his own fear.” He rose above that fear to draw attention to what the USA was doing with an ever expanding nuclear program. I was three at the time, my only memories were created by photos and family lore. I have uncovered a documentary, newspaper articles and transcripts from the trial to fill in the gaps.
At sentencing my father made the following statement:
“I yearn sometimes for a world where I can feel truly confident that my three-year-old who tells me in wonder and expectation that he wants to be a “builder” and build a home for his mother and me has a real chance to grow to be that builder; that at the very least I have done everything I can to protect that future.
I yearn not to remember when I put my kids to bed that there is a mother in Hiroshima putting her children to bed—their father dead—killed by radiation—killed in my and my children's “defense.””
Five years later my parents divorced and my father would drift in and out of our lives. The irony of using his real love for all children to justify his political actions, and his abdicating his fatherly duties, is not lost on me.
My parents were anti war and civil rights activists fighting for a better world, while sometimes forgetting to parent their wild children. They were complicated people. If I find a character is two dimensional, I complicate them. Add a few dichotomies and they spring to life.
No one is just one thing. As a writer and a human I continually need to relearn that none of us is defined by our worst or best moments.
My first three books were an exploration into my rage, depression, drug and alcohol addictions, my mother’s faith vs my non faith. It took me years to see these themes. But they are there. My sixth book TRICKY is inspired by my older son. He was born with intellectual disabilities, and is one of the best men I know. I wanted to capture all that is him, and share it with the world. I wanted to prove stereotypes about people with intellectual disabilities wrong.
The following two paragraphs are a rant, and hasn’t much to do with writing. Feel free to skim down.
I was in a meeting last week when neurotypical cool dude referred to himself as a “wild New York retard.” My blood boiled. It took every ounce of my deep-breathing-micro-meditating-peace-seek ability to keep me from leaping over the desk and going full blood eagle on him. Why was my reaction so extreme? In some edgy trendy corners of the culture the R-word has come to mean: ugly as in, “That jacket is R-word.” Or broken as in, “Your ride is totally R-word.” Or unintelligent, “You got a C in trig, what a fucking R-word.”
My son is none of the above. If you choose the word that used to be clinically and socially acceptable to describe him and members of his community to indicate something ugly, broken or unintelligent, YOU ARE by association saying those adjectives also apply to him. I’m not saying you can’t use the R-word in conversation or your written works. I’m just saying, if you do, vest the fuck up because a parent or sibling or friend of someone in the intellectual disability community might be sitting next to you, and they may not have my deep well of serenity.
Back to writing advice.
I have heard writers justify using ugly slurs for people who are intellectually disabled, racially different than the writer, having a different sexual-identity from the writer or a different affectional orientation than the writer, by saying, “it’s dialogue from the character's perspective not mine. Me I respect everyone.”
The fuck you do. Oops I’ll just cut this rant off at the pass and move on.
I finished Tana French’s brilliant The Hunter last night, and among other things I noticed were the wide creative array of insults from her characters. As a bonus none of them were body, mind, or affectional choice shaming. Here are some of my favorites: Captain Chucklefuck, little shitweasel, little shitbird, shitheel, weak as water, shitemonger, wee shite-talker, wee shitehawk.
Fellow writers, ya wee shite hawks, let’s make a pledge to up our insult game. Our craft is called, “creative writing” so let’s be creative.
Leave me your favorite creative insults in the comments below.
*********
What I’m reading this week: The Story Teller by Mario Vargas Llosa
