Spark It Up!

You’ve just read Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,”  and you’re getting ready to clean up your writing space/office. What things “spark joy” and what would you get rid of? Do you keep old drafts of stories/novels, e-versions, paper? Copies of your books, others’ books? Knickknacks? Etc.

From Frank

Spark It Up!  That's actually the name of the Co-Ed softball team I played on this summer. I think there may been a double or triple entendre intended there, to be honest. It was a great group of people, many of whom I didn't know before the season started. We lost every game until July, when we went on a little bit of a winning streak. People had fun, they were kind to each other, and you know what?

It sparked joy in me.

But the question at hand is about where we work at our craft. Where the magic happens. What sparks joy? What goes to Goodwill?

Looking around my workspace, I can tell you right now -- for the next year or so, nothing goes. It all brings me joy, even if there is sometimes a tinge of bittersweet.

So what fills my workspace?

First off, it's a little messy, I'll admit. I'm not an Oscar, but I probably lean slightly closer to him than to Felix. [If you don't get that reference, Google The Odd Couple and you'll be up to speed]. My work area has the things I  need and want, and they are accessible, but Writer's Desk Illustrated isn't going to feature my desktop on its cover anytime soon.

I've got the tools of my trade:  computer screens, speakers, microphone, headphones, game controller, connection wires, earbuds, an arm strap phone holder for workouts, a posture-correcting strap contraption that I'm not sold is working, a Bluetooth speaker, in-basket for those few bills that still come on paper, a box with writer cards/bookmarks (contacts from LCC that I still need to reach out to...), and a half dozen guitar picks.

Does any of that bring me joy?

Not all of it. I need most of it for one thing or another to do the work of being a writer. But the game controller is for fun, and so are the guitar picks. The guitar itself is within arms reach, and it definitely brings me joy, regardless of how good at playing it I am not. My bio doesn't say I'm a tortured guitarist for nothing...

But I do have some other things in the workplace and on my desk itself that are purely for the purpose of joy.  Some are what you'd expect, and things you probably have an equivalent of.  There are photos of all three of my kids, and one of almost all my siblings together in one shot. Some figurines on top of a bookshelf that is mostly reserved only for Frank Zafiro titles (two shelves so far!). And of course, there is the latest "school picture" of my wife, who is a teacher, so she still has picture day every year. She's my #1 reader and biggest fan, so her photo is correspondingly the largest on the desk. 

I'm officially a grandfather now, so a picture of me and the two little guys taken on Father's Day is my desktop background these days...

With Malcolm (right)  and Linus (left)

Yeah, that's a very particular kind of joy, isn't it?

There are three other items of note.  Next to one computer screen is a circular silver case containing a rosary. I'm not Catholic, but my Nana was a devoted adherent. I bought the rosary for her at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice in 2013, and she loved it. After she passed away, my Dad suggested that I might like to have it as a keepsake. I'm glad he did. I don't need a piece of religious jewelry to remember Nana, but having the case in my sight line every day is comforting. She was a wonderful woman.

A second piece is my retired police badge. It's in the bottom left drawer, in the same lockbox as my passport, so it's out of sight. But I know it is there. It represents twenty years of my life. Twenty years of service on my part, and I won't be modest here:  I gave a lot. But I got back even more. Being a cop may have brought with it some ugly scars, but it also gave me pride at making a difference. The police department gave me a good living with good benefits for my family. And it gave me a second family. The men and women I served with were, almost without exception, honorable, dedicated, good people that I am proud to have stood next to. Those very few who didn't meet that standard are unfortunate, but they only stand out like they do because of how exemplary the rest are.

On the rare occasion I pull out that badge and take a look at it, I feel mostly pride and satisfaction, and a little sadness. But wrap those all together, and it still comes up joy.

Captain Frank Scalise
SPD 1993-2013

The final piece of joy sits on top of my computer. It's a stuffed plush toy replica of a black lab named Merlot. Merlot has a vest on that says PADS. PADS is a police community outreach program of the Regina Police Service in Regina, Saskatchewan. Now, why would I have a stuffed toy from Canada? Well, after I retired from active police service in 2013, I spent about four years teaching a leadership program to police agencies across the US and Canada. One of the places I spent multiple sessions was Regina, and I had a special connection to those officers in the province of Saskatchewan. Teaching in the aftermath of my retirement (my police career got a little ugly near the end) really helped heal up some emotional wounds, and coupled with how earnest, kind, and dedicated the men and women were everywhere I taught -- but especially in Saskatchewan -- I was able to finally close out my law enforcement career on a completely positive note rather than the mixed feelings I left my old department with.

Merlot, watching over me

Jumping forward four years later to my final session teaching leadership in Regina, Merlot's officer handler presented me with the plush toy. They'd been a limited run, made for kids, and they were down to only a few left. But she appreciated the course and my role in bringing it to them, and so gave me this gift. Over the four year stint, I received a number of tokens like this -- shirts, hoodies, cups, challenge coins, and like -- and I treasured each of them for the sentiment behind them. Merlot gets to be the symbol for all of those gifts, perched atop my computer, still being a service dog even as a stuffed toy.

If I am being honest, I didn't start writing full time -- truly full time -- until I hung up my powerpoint slides at the end of 2017. And I don't think I'd be banging away at it now with the same kind of vigor and full heart if it weren't for a few things. Family support for one, particularly my wife and best friend, Kristi. My career in law enforcement for two. And that last stint of teaching in law enforcement, for three.

There's a symbol of each of those things on (or in) my desk, serving as daily reminders, and bringing me joy.

They're not going anywhere.

             ___________________________________________________________________

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Life Changing Magic (Not)

Q: You’ve just read Marie Kondo’s book “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing,”  and you’re getting ready to clean up your writing space/office. What things “spark joy” and what would you get rid of? Do you keep old drafts of stories/novels, e-versions, paper? Copies of your books, others’ books? Knickknacks? Etc.

-from Susan

You’re kidding, right? 

I don’t keep all paper drafts but I keep the last one I have just as proof of authorship. I do cull some crime fiction books by giving them away because, see above. I would never throw a book in the trash unless my cat had vomited on it.

My exception, and I do need a decluttering angel for it, is the kind of paper that sneaks in through the mail or in the Sunday NYT. I don’t even let catalogs, coupon envelopes, or fundraising appeals darken the door, but crime fiction magazines, the ACLU and SPLC magazines, and the Times Magazine with the cool beehive puzzle stay too long. 

The museum magazines and the occasional Cote Sud or Cote Paris pile up downstairs (because see above) until one day every four or five months when I am my own avenging angel and clear everything out, trying not to think too much about what I’m doing. Most of my house qualifies as mid century modern so there’s not quite so much stuff there. But if something does land, it takes on extra gravity and almost never gets moved. 

Upstairs in my office, the problem is only partly too much, it’s also that my alphabetizing system is screwed up now and I can’t always find the book I am looking for. Some are too tall for the shelf they belong in. Some are autographed by friends and I try – try – to keep them together. Then there are the To Be Read books, a shocking number of them, and I can’t integrate them or I’ll forget I haven’t read them.  Just thinking about this makes me tired and in need of chocolate, which I do not keep in my office.

Teach Me Tonight

Were you formally trained as a writer? e.g., an MFA or college curriculum? Can you teach writing? Does it matter if you went to school for it?

The last “writing” course I took was in grade school, and that was penmanship. So, no, I have not had “formal” training as a writer. That’s not to say I feel formal training doesn’t matter. I don’t know what’s involved in a writing program, but I know many wonderful writers who have MFAs, so there is surely tremendous value to be found in a structured curriculum.

That said, writing isn’t like, say, medicine or jet engine maintenance. A misspelled word in a manuscript is a fail, but not in the same way a misdiagnosis of heartburn for an actual heart attack would be. Or a plane crash. I insist that my doctor have a degree and proper training because health and life are in play. There’s no excuse for flying by the seat of your pants in healthcare or aviation—at least not anymore—but writers can certainly experiment and learn from their mistakes without killing anyone. In fact, I would go so far as to say that such a heuristic approach to writing is desirable. Creative pursuits are not programmable or predictable. If they were, we writers and painters and musicians would all be out of jobs, replaced by algorithms and robots and apps.

But back to the question of the week. While I’ve never studied writing per se, I believe all study, formal or Informal, is beneficial to the writer. In school, college, and graduate school, I studied literature, grammar, spelling, and foreign languages. All of these proved useful in developing the creative and structural elements of writing. The toolbox. But you could hand me the latest and greatest golfing equipment and that wouldn’t make me a great golfer. Or even an adequate one. 

The tools of our trade are necessary, but so are experience and familiarity, which come only through toil and repetition and reading. So, while my studies helped me along in my writing career, they’re by no means the sum total of my “writer’s education.” We should all enroll in the schools of life and of hard knocks. I’m a firm believer that writers need life experience before daring to tackle universal themes. The more the better. Without such preparation, the result is—more likely than not—recycled observations, stories, and characters.

So go to law school, medical school, or divinity school to prepare yourself for a career as a writer. Or the police academy, vocational school, beauty school. University or high school. Get a job, slop the pigs, seduce or be seduced. (That’s a good one.)  Have your heart broken, because you’ll need the memory of how you survived that when you become a writer and it happens again. And certainly explore the option of an MFA program. No knowledge, no matter now you acquire it, is wasted on the writer. But when you’re done with all that—rather, as you’re doing all that—write.

Bookish by degree

Were you formally trained as a writer? i.e., an MFA or college curriculum? Can you teach writing? Does it matter if you went to school for it?

by Dietrich

Outside of secondary school, I don’t have any formal training as a writer so I can’t speak about something I haven’t participated in.

Writing’s a creative process, and what works for one, may not work for another. For me, learning to write meant trying different approaches until I found what worked best. At the beginning I knew I wanted to tell a story, and from there I had to develop the tools to be able to do it well enough. Aside from brushing up on grammar skills, I played around with genres and styles.

It’s interesting to look at the paths of some famous authors. Kurt Vonnegut majored in chemistry and engineering. Michael Crichton studied medicine and anthropology. JK Rowlings studied French, Norman Mailer majored in aeronautical engineering, John Grisham majored in accounting, and Zane Grey studied dentistry. Jack Kerouac made it to Columbia University on an athletic scholarship. Truman Capote went to military school, and Mark Twain, Jack London and William Faulkner dropped out of school, while Ray Bradbury barely finished it. H.G. Wells had no formal education at all, nor did Charles Dickens.

“Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”  — Oscar Wilde

“You must never let schooling interfere with education.”  — Mark Twain 

I’ve had a love for books since I was a kid. I always have a book or two on the go, with several more waiting in a stack. Not just crime fiction and thrillers, I read biographies, humor, westerns, fantasy, science fiction. There’s nothing more inspiring than reading a good one. 

“Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. — Ray Bradbury

There are a couple of books on the subject that I found helpful. One was Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, and the other was Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. I mean if you’re going to get some advise, why not go straight to the top.

Maybe the best advise is not to give any. Can you teach it? Well, when I’m asked for advise, I usually preface the answer by saying, “Here’s what works for me …”

It’s nice to think that it’s more about talent than something that’s been taught, yet there are aspects that can be learned, things that are considered rules, principles and techniques. Of course, these can, and probably should be bent, broken and adapted.

Learning and Teaching that Elusive Core

Terry here. This week we are talking about whether getting formal training as a writer is useful, and whether we can teach writing.

I got my master’s degree in English with Creative Writing focus at San Francisco State University. I loved every minute of the program. When I was an undergraduate, on the advice of one of my professors, I veered off from majoring in English, and I majored in political science. He said he thought if I wanted to be a writer, I ought to broaden my knowledge of the world.  I liked my political science education and it left me with a strong background in government and politics which as continued to interest me.

At some point  I felt like my writing education had been stunted. There were books I hadn’t studied, courses I hadn’t taken,  so I went back to school. The curriculum It mostly consisted of literature courses that I had missed.

The classes on writing I hardly remember at all. I recently ran across stories that I wrote for the classes and found that I had made As in all of them. My take on that was, “So what?” I learned as much from just writing and participating in critique groups.

That doesn’t mean I don’t think it was valuable, I just don’t remember the fine points. I have no idea whether I would be the same writer today if I hadn’t taken the classes—or if I would have been a better writer, or a worse writer. No matter how many classes I took, I still struggle with the basics that every writer struggles with: voice, plot, description, dialogue, and character development.

What I don’t struggle with is how to write a sentence and a paragraph, how to state a theme, develop it, and end strong. You may not think that matters in fiction, but it does. In the opening of the book or short story you have to give the reader a sense of what she should expect: the theme. You use your sentences and paragraphs to build your story line, to populate it with characters, and to set scenes. Sentences work for paragraphs, paragraphs work for scenes, scenes work for chapters. And if you build the story properly, eventually you come upon the ending that satisfies the theme. Easy no?

Not exactly. As always, the devil is in the details. And that’s where writing workshops and  courses come in. Some writers who are not only natural storytellers, but know how to build a book properly as well, without formal help, without critique groups, without beta readers. But I think those are rare. Most writers—both fledgling and fully-formed—benefit from classes, whether they are attending or teaching. Preparing to teach a writing class can be just as valuable as being a student in one.

I never get tired of attending workshops, classes, panels at conferences, and critique groups. I don’t always hear new ideas, but I often hear old ideas presented in ways that I really “get” for the first time. That happened several years ago with a weekend workshop I attended. One of the instructors told us that to write a good book we had to reach deep inside and find the books that only we could write. Old advice, yes. But somehow the way she presented it made me hear it in a different way. I understood suddenly that this was not just the admonition to “write what you know.” It meant something deeper. It meant to dig for something you cherished, something you knew on a visceral level. Shortly afterwards, I started writing my Samuel Craddock series. I had written several books before that, but with that series I finally found my passion, my voice, my setting, and my characters.

I’ve never taught writing in school, but I have taught in workshops. I like to teach aspects of writing. I love to see the look on a student’s face when something clicks.

But I also like the preparation. Every time I put together a class, I dredge up important things that I may have forgotten. Sometimes I even think of something new--not a new concept, but a new way of looking at it that I hope will be useful for my students. I don’t think it’s necessary to have formal training, but taking classes may smooth the way for grasping that elusive core of writing that we all strive for.

Terry Shames
A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary
www.Terryshames.com

Being Schooled in Writing

Question: Were you formally trained as a writer? i.e., an MFA or college curriculum? Can you teach writing? Does it matter if you went to school for it?

Brenda Chapman here.

Like many writers, I've made a career of reading from a very young age. The reason I open with this is because I believe that reading widely is an education that every author can access, no matter income or formal schooling.

When it came time for me to go to university, I chose a field that seemed to be the only things I was really proficient at - reading and writing - and so entered the English literature program at Lakehead University. While I took courses in Renaissance drama, American literature and the like, my interest in poetry rose to the surface. I studied British and Canadian poetry mainly, and particularly enjoyed the earlier Canadian poets and T.S. Eliot. In third year, I took a creative writing course, taught by an American poet. The course lasted the entire year and focused on poetry and short story writing. I loved every minute of it. In fact, I loved that course more than any of the other literature courses, which probably was a sign of where my true interests lay.

After getting my B.A., I still didn't know what career I should choose, or even what was available for someone with a B.A. in English lit. I'd worked a lot with kids in summer camps and teachers' college seemed like a logical next step, so off I went to Queen's faculty of education in Kingston, Ontario. This led to my work at an alternative school in Ottawa with the focus on special education, a field I worked in for almost fifteen years. During this time, I took courses toward my Honours English degree, ending up one credit short, only because I began working full-time in the government and started writing books. I keep meaning to get back for that one credit, but haven't gotten around to checking out what I need to enroll.

During my teaching years, I tutored some high school students in grammar and so I had to relearn a lot of the concepts from my school years. I spent a lot of time pouring over grammar books and figuring out how to teach the lessons. This came in useful in my government writing and editing jobs, where I continued to expand my knowledge. A solid grounding in grammar is key to good writing, and I'd advise all beginning writers to crack open the grammar books.

My one regret is that way back when I was in high school and looking at options for university, I was not aware of the creative writing degree. In hindsight, this would have been my first choice. 

I've taught writing workshops, mainly to children, and I'll be teaching a workshop for new adult writers on point of view in August. The teaching degree combined with my years in education give me some degree of comfort in tackling these assignments. This said, I'm not interested in teaching at a college or university, either part- or full-time. The odd workshop suits me fine.

Looking back, my writing education is a mix of formal schooling and learning by doing and reading. However, no matter what challenge I've taken on, I've never strayed far from that first passion for the written word!

Website: www.brendachapman.ca

Twitter: brendaAchapman

Facebook: BrendaChapmanAuthor

More Books in Heaven and Earth

Do you read the kind of books that you write or do you tend to read books that are the opposite or different – and why?

by Paul D. Marks

These days I’m lucky to find the time to read anything. I don’t know where the time goes, but it goes. A lot of it is spent on writing and related tasks. Writing is a major time suck, but a good one. I also get asked to read a lot of books to blurb or for similar reasons, so that limits the amount of totally discretionary reading I have time for, though I’m trying to take a break from that so I have more time for pleasure reading, not that some of those books aren’t pleasurable. Plus, writing short stories I try to read as many of them as possible, too.

As to what I read, I read everything, though not as much of anything as I used to. Leisure time seems at a premium.

First, since the question asks in part “Do you read the kind of books that you write?” let’s start with what I write. I write various kinds of (mostly) crime fiction, from noir to traditional-hardboiled and even satire, with a crime-y bent. Nothing like having an audience laugh hard and hearty when you’re reading a story that you hope and pray is funny and find out others think it is, too. One of my best memories of this was reading a section of my story Continental Tilt to an audience and having them laugh uproariously. That was a good feeling.

I even write a series, the Ghosts of Bunker Hill stories, that has a paranormal element to it. So I’m all over the place. I’ve also written some mainstream, dare I say literary fiction, such as my story Terminal Island, published in Weber: The Contemporary West, and Endless Vacation, which garnered honorable mentions at both Glimmer Train and the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition.

Before I get to directly responding to the question, let me turn it around and say that I write books and stories that I like and that I would want to read. So now that I’ve talked about what I write, let me talk about what I read.

I do read mostly in my genre these days, though not necessarily only the types of books that I write. But I like to read outside the genre too. I like to read mainstream fiction and non-fiction. I don’t like to mention names of people I know because inevitably someone is left out and feelings get hurt so let me mention some well-known faves in the genre: Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Michael Connelly, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, Carol O’Connell, Harlan Coben, Robert Crais, David Goodis and others.

On the other hand, I also read out of the genre. And, as I’ve also mentioned before my favorite book is far from a mystery-thriller type of book. It’s The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham, for a lot of reasons I won’t go into here. Other faves outside the genre include The Tartar Steppe (Dino Buzzati), Monte Walsh (Jack Schaefer), Journey to the End of the Night (Louis-Ferdinand Celine), The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Milan Kundera), World’s Fair (E.L. Doctorow), Paint it Black (Janet Fitch), Bright Lights, Big City (Jay McInerney) and so many others, like Jonathan Franzen, Anne Tyler and John Irving.

I also like to read non-fiction. I recently read High Noon: The Hollywood Blacklist and the Making of an American Classic by Glenn Frankel. I’m fascinated by the blacklist, red scare and that whole era and this book hit that nail square on. I go through phases where I’ll read a lot about one particular subject. For example, a long time ago I read several books on the French and Russian revolutions and the Spanish Civil War. I’ve always loved history. My tastes run the gamut from reading about Los Angeles history and historical landmarks to Coney Island on the “other” coast. And I love reading rock history, especially the Beatles. Sometimes I’ll read about the history of the movie business—hell, I even made it into a book about the biz: MGM: Hollywood’s Greatest Backlot.

One of my current interests is in World War I, not so much the war itself but the aftermath and lasting effects and cultural changes that sprang from it.

And I would like to give John D. Macdonald a try again. I’ve read a couple of his books a long time ago and I’m afraid to say I wasn’t enthralled. But I’m up for another go.

So I read a wide variety of things. And even if I read a lot of different things from what I write, I think it influences my writing. My characters don't live in a one dimensional world of murder and crime, so I don't want to either. Like Shakespeare said there are more things in heaven and Earth.... Like pizza.

So, what about you—do you read the kind of books that you write or something else?

~.~.~

And now for the usual BSP:

My story Past is Prologue is out in the new July/August issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Available now at bookstores and newstands as well as online at: https://www.alfredhitchcockmysterymagazine.com/. Hope you'll check it out.

Also, check out Broken Windows, the sequel to my Shamus Award-winning novel, White Heat.

Please join me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paul.d.marks and check out my website  www.PaulDMarks.com

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