Naked truth

1 February 2008 | 1 Comment

Question for you.

Do you have secrets? I ask that because as a writer, I imagine many of your personal theories and philosophies and fantasies and the like get written down on the page, in one way or another, disguised or not. You’ve also down your share of interviews (although I’ve only read two) where you answer personal questions. And you’re very candid, very refreshing.

I guess I wonder if you have boundaries that you don’t cross in interviews, or even on the page. Things that you keep close and keep closed, if you would.

Writers always say that if you can’t tell the truth about yourself then you can’t tell the truth about others, and that in order to write — really write — you have to be willing to be excruciatingly honest with yourself, no holding back. You write and by doing so you look at yourself in the mirror (so to speak) and write from what you find. When that happens, when you write a novel, when you do an interview, do you feel hollowed out afterwards? Are there things you hide from the general public (which I realize would include me)?

I truly apologize if these questions are intrusive. I am just curious, but sometimes my curiosity can get the best of me. I’m just very intrigued.

Luey

Hi, Luey.

I think healthy people have boundaries, and I certainly have them.

I have secrets, too. But “secret” is one of those words that means enormously different things to different people. And it’s meant different things to me at different points in my life. I’ve kept secrets at times in my life because I thought I would break if anyone knew them, that my life would be over…. I don’t have those kind of secrets now. They are not worth it.

But I am in many ways a private person, interview candor notwithstanding. I think it’s possible to be both candid and private, it’s just a question of where those boundaries are. I can tell the truth about myself: I just don’t always choose to. Not that I lie about myself routinely, that would be exhausting, but just that my personal boundaries are more rigorous in interviews, in conversation, in the world of human interaction. There are things that I don’t share because they will hurt other people too much. There are things I don’t share because they will hurt me too much. That’s life.

But the boundaries between me and my work are much more permeable. I use myself in my work all the time, all of me, even the parts that would hurt me or someone else in the real world. Some of those things are obvious to people who know me. Some of them, no one but me will ever recognize. Sometimes I don’t even know until they are on the page — but at some point I always do know. That is what comes from expertise — knowing when a piece of writing is true, and knowing (often only later) what it is true of.

I had an extended conversation with Robin on Virtual Pint (the “let’s sit down and talk” area of my old website before I discovered the Beauty That Is WordPress) about this notion of when/how the writer finds herself on the page. The VP archives are a total mess right now, but I plan to move them all over here at some point, so I’ve decided to start with that conversation. Here it is, in chronological order:

Meaning and vulnerability (April 2006)
Naked (July 2006)
More naked (November 2006)

As you’ll see, I’ve been through some changes on this. And that’s the thing about being honest, you know? We can only be honest (or not) about what we know… but I don’t know all there is to me yet. When I was younger, I thought that I was supposed to know all about myself, that self-awareness was a zero-sum game. And that if I didn’t have it, I wasn’t a real adult, I was only pretending — or worse, trying my ass off and failing, failing, and that any second now the real grownups around me would realize it.

I don’t think that anymore. Now I see it as a process, a becoming… much the same way I currently see writing. The more I see it this way, the more closely bound my self and my writing become for me.

But I don’t look in a metaphorical mirror when I write — I look at the characters. I don’t write “about myself.” I don’t use consciously use fiction to explore my own issues or my own psyche, although every story has some of me in it. Characters turn up with hopes or fears or dreams or joys or grief that feel just like mine…. and when those moments are real on the page, that’s when a story starts being true.

Interviews do not hollow me out. They are work, sometimes enjoyable, sometimes a chore. Writing fiction and screenplay makes me temporarily insane in ways that I very much enjoy, but I suspect are sometimes a trial to the people around me. If you want to know more about that, you can find it in a story called “Dangerous Space” — the relationship Duncan Black has with music is a very extreme version of my relationship with writing. And the way Mars feels about music is exactly how I feel about it.

Was that conscious? No. I wasn’t planning to write about my stuff. But it was right for those characters, for that story, so I used it without hesitation. I will put myself on the page anytime I need to if it’s in service of the characters, of the story, of making it true. If it’s just to roll around in my own stuff, well, I hope I am enough of a real writer to know that wouldn’t be real writing.

And no apology necessary. The nice thing about being a grownup is I don’t have to answer people’s questions if I find them intrusive (grin).

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, talk to me, writing

Short stories

19 January 2008 | 9 Comments

Kelley:

Recently I have been reading a short story book by Jeffrey Deaver called “Twisted Stories.” Reading the book, and comparing it to similar books I have read by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, leads me to one question I have about short stories.

I like to think I am good at reading character, in people in general. So my question is can a good writer, reverse that type of process, and give a reader a good solid character in a short story?

It’s especially obvious in Deaver’s book that characters take a back seat to get a good shock by the ending. Surely you can manage a short story while still giving your character some depth if movies can do it, it’s a very similar format in pacing and length. Thoughts?

I absolutely believe that three-dimensional, emotionally true characters are possible in short fiction. I would have to put a fork through my forehead if I didn’t (grin), since those are the kinds of stories I try to write.

I agree with you about Deaver and many, many other writers of short fiction, particularly in crime/thriller genres. I’ve read very few short stories in those genres that paid much attention to character. In those stories, the point is the twist at the end, the shock (the big reveal, they call it in screenwriting). Some science fiction is like that too, although much more SF these days tries to focus the “cool idea” through the lens of character. Some people are more successful than others.

And some writers just don’t do short stories very well.

And some writers believe short stories are not to be taken as seriously as longer ones, which makes me exceedingly grumpy. There’s a school of thought that says novels are “better” than short stories because they are longer, more complex, require more carefully blended layers. Et cetera. I think it is certainly true that novels are more work than short stories; they take longer to conceive and longer to write. What pisses me off is the assumption that doing more work automatically makes a work more worthy, and therefore short fiction is automatically lightweight not just in word count, but in intrinsic value. Stories certainly can be lightweight, sure — you’re reading some right now. But they can also be luscious and dense and have as much layering, pound for pound, as a novel; and to create compelling character in 5,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 words is neither an easy nor a less worthy thing to do.

Not sure I agree with you about Stephen King. I think he’s a master of character. There’s no one who does a particular American voice and manner like he does, and with such obvious love for his characters, even the real shitheels. I love his work. If you’re not finding enough character in the shorter stories to interest you, then I highly recommend any of his novella collections (writing as either Stephen King or Richard Bachman): Different Seasons (amazing stuff, including Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body), Four Past Midnight, and The Bachman Books, which are actually short novels but rip along so fast they feel like novellas.

I’d love to hear anyone’s recommendations for short fiction with great characters. Let’s talk.

—–

And if anyone wants to start a different conversation, just use this link (or the Talk to me here link on the sidebar). It may take me a little time, but I will respond — I love these conversations.

—–

Edited to add: Jocelyn just turned me on to the short review “where short story collections step into the spotlight.” A brief wander through the site already tells me that there are plenty of collections out there dealing with character-based fiction…. so let’s all go find something good to read.

Also check out their blog.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, reading, talk to me, writing

More hope

14 August 2007 | 1 Comment

Hi Kelley –

Found my way into some of the comments in your Virtual Pint and felt inclined to comment. First that article on Joshua Bell’s experience was fascinating. I was thinking that if they had tried it at the end of the day instead of at the beginning when people had more time — it would be different, but then there were the people standing in line for the lottery tickets with time to spare. What that says about our society is kind of frightening really. On the flip side, I found the lack of the public’s appreciation for him mitigated by the $40/hr he took in. Not so bad really. I wonder what percentage of the number of people who passed through appreciated him vs the percentage of the number of people in our general population who would appreciate him if placed in context for them. That is to ask is that percentage any different than how many people in our culture appreciate classical music? than how many people can see through their own crap and appreciate beauty for beauty’s sake? Reading that article did not make me feel hopeful.

Then one post led me to another and I read the discussions on hope, that lead me here and here. My first reaction when reading about the Goss book you mentioned was to vehemently disagree, but on reflection, I’ve about decided that I’m going to order a copy. (I already checked and my local library doesn’t have it) I really think the reason I (we) continue on is because of hope. Otherwise, at some point or another it just wouldn’t be worth it anymore.

While I do agree with what she says about acceptance and about life not turning out the way it ‘should’, I think that’s more a matter of accepting that life is not ‘fair,’ and not a matter of giving up our hopes, dreams, plans, and/or goals. The idea being acceptance rather than resistance; resistance gives a thing more power and takes the energy away from the solution. Maybe my issue is just that I would probably define hope differently than she does.

As for the question of what is hope? I think it what helps us conquer fear. I don’t believe we can expel fear from our lives. I think it will always be there, but what I can do is continue on despite the fear. Hope helps me to do that. I wouldn’t call it the opposite of fear, but I would say it’s the conqueror of fear (along with action). One could say that actions conquer fear, but how can one act without hope? Call it hope or faith (in myself, my loved ones, the universe), belief, vision, or even goals. It is what keeps the human race going isn’t it? I understand the argument that accepting failure would negate the fear of it, but I’m not buying it. Where does the motivation come from? It sounds like she’s saying that failure is a foregone conclusion. Well, ok, I accept that there will be (have to be) failures along the way, but not that the ultimate outcome will be failure. Maybe we have to change our concept of what that ultimate goal is because of the things we learn from our failures, but if the path has heart, so will the end and so will we. Maybe hope is part of having heart.

That doesn’t mean that I believe in false hope. I think I understand what you mean about not hoping for a cure for MS. I have faced the loss of hope of a cure for ovarian cancer a loved one facing a recurrence of that. There is a difference between facts and possibilities. It’s a hard line to draw. Doctors these days are reluctant to give out statistics and predictions for terminally ill patients. The reason for that is they have seen what the results of doing that are; patients who are told they have 2 months to live are more likely to die in two months than those who aren’t told that. I have seen this happen for myself. Holding out hope (hoping against hope) for a miracle could prevent one from making the most of what is in this moment. I’ve faced that choice and had to let my lover know that I faced it with her. Maybe if I’d faced it sooner, I could’ve supported her better. Or… maybe when she saw that I had given up hope, she deteriorated more rapidly than necessary. It’s something I still wonder about these 9 years later. I watched another close relative experience a very similar path with the same disease with a different attitude; one of denial. She was much older, yet lived longer. Who can say why, but it makes me wonder.

Belief/attitude/hope is a powerful force.

Can’t say I have any answers. This is something that’s definitely been weighing on my mind lately. Forced into thinking about it as I try to decide if I need to re-work my Plan B or come up with a Plan C…..

I realize this discussion is several months old now; I’d be interested to hear if you’re still in the same place with it.

I too loved that quote you had from M L King.

Then this quote from you is why I’ll read/watch anything you ever write:

“I don’t just want to show you things: I want to put them so far inside you that you have to dig them out with a spoon.”

Blah, blah, blah. Way too much out of me. Feel free to edit this if you put it up.

Best –
Jennifer

No editing necessary. I don’t think I can respond to every point right now, because there are baked potatoes in the oven and a beer in the fridge with my name on it (and I don’t mean that to be flip, just that I’ve been thinking about your comments a long time and could think about them longer, but then you would never have a response). I appreciate the conversation and that you’re willing to take so much time to continue it.

It’s been a wee while since you sent me this (my bad, very sorry) so I’m curious — did you get the Goss book? As much as I’ve talked about it here in the virtual pub, I’m pretty sure I haven’t yet found the right way to encapsulate her point (oh ho, maybe that’s why she wrote a whole book about it, laughing now). Or perhaps it’s that I find my understanding of “hope” is changing as I try to integrate her perspective into my view of things.

Am I in the same place with this? Hmm. Yes and no. I don’t feel hopeless, but I no longer rely so much on hope. I think that what you said above — Holding out hope (hoping against hope) for a miracle could prevent one from making the most of what is in this moment — is perhaps a good parsing of her point. If we rely on magical thinking, if we decide okay, I will get this thing or person or result I want if I don’t step on a crack, or if I don’t call her first, or if I pray hard enough, then maybe we miss the opportunity to just give a rebel yell and do the thing to the fullest in the moment when it needs to be done. And if we do the thing, and it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean we did it wrong. It doesn’t mean we were wrong to reach for it, to throw ourselves out there (to, as they say, dance like no one’s watching). It just means that it didn’t work out. And that’s how it goes sometimes. Right now, I think that’s what she means, and right now I can mostly be okay with that. Would I be okay if it were the death of a lover I was talking about, if it were Nicola’s death? Probably fucking not. So I’m not sure where I am.

Except that I know I’m in a doing place, a place of action without as much expectation as before. I do think that it’s possible to act without hope, by which perhaps I mean this expectation that things will work out the way I want them to. I still want them to work out, on some level I still hope they will — I just don’t necessarily pin my self-esteem or lifetime happiness or sense of worth on it the way I used to. And in some weird way this has freed me to, among other things, be braver about what I write and love my writing more. Why? I don’t know, it’s a mystery.

And since I’m in quote mode at the moment, here are a couple more:

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. — Anais Nin

We are not what we know, but what we are willing to learn.
— Mary Catherine Bateson

I know this is in no way a complete answer to your very thoughtful comments. Thank you for them. And thank you also for your kind words about digging and spoons. It’s true, that’s what I want in almost every respect right now. Life’s short. Let’s just reach right in.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, talk to me, virtual pint archives

Art and commerce

14 April 2007 | Leave a Comment

For your Strad.

Sarah

Thanks very much for sending this. I don’t know whether to laugh or pound my head against the wall: it’s the perfect demonstration of how hard it can be to make people hear (literally, metaphorically…). Of course I hope I’d be one of the people who stopped, but maybe not — it’s so easy to hurry by beauty and skill when it’s offered in passing, when it’s not ritualized by setting. When art is offered out of context, it makes a lot of people nervous and grumpy. It’s weird that our culture is so monetized that we regard freely-offered public performance with suspicion: after all, no one’s making anyone listen, and no one’s making anyone pay.

I wish the economics of art were different, both for artist and audience. And I think those economics are changing. Anyone keeping up with the music industry (a giant rollercoaster ride these days) knows that MySpace and P2P and recent developments about payola and royalty payments are changing the ways that people make a living with music (artists, distributors, broadcasters, promoters, labels… everyone’s world is different today). In February 2009, there will be no more analog television. Nineteen screenwriters are changing how writers play in the Hollywood sandbox. And what will happen in publishing? I don’t know, it’s a mystery, but I’m confident it won’t be business as usual.

As long as we don’t all end up like Strad… for those of you not familiar with my short fiction, she is the protagonist of Strings (read more about the story here). Strings is the lead story in Dangerous Space.

I hope people will enjoy the collection, and that some of you will want to talk about it over a virtual pint. There’s always room at the table.

Cheers.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, talk to me, virtual pint archives

Hope and happiness

18 December 2006 | Leave a Comment

I had been vacillating on whether to come on board and say hey ever since before last week’s Election Night. Reading this decided me.

Your more than gracious response to my own rant after the 2004 election came back to me unexpectedly in the days running up to this year’s election. I found a printout I had made of my rant and your response while cleaning the house and carried it with me as a talisman against the crippling fear of a repeat disappointment. I was terrified before the election, but only vaguely cognizant of what exactly I was afraid. Corruption, stolen elections, a continuation of the triumph of the politics of fear and hatred and lies. What you wrote about hope had to serve as a placeholder for my foundering hope for a few days until the election, which turned out much better than I had been hoping. So thank you again!

But this post has given me more food for words, as follows:

— First, I haven’t read Tracy Goss’ book, but based on your description, I think I’ve had a similar first reaction to yours. It just doesn’t read for me. If I’m following you, Goss’ point is that acceptance of hopelessness leads to freedom from fear and, as you quoted “…the opportunity, instead of giving up, to play with full engagement…” But without hope, what motivation does one have to show up in the first place? Why be fully engaged with no hope? In other words, if one does not have a ‘hope’ for a certain outcome in a given endeavor, why bother engaging in the endeavor at all? What is hope if not inherent motivation, a reason to go on? Maybe I’m splitting semantic hairs here, but acceptance of life as it is does not require for me letting go of hope. To let go of hope is, in a strong sense, letting go of life itself.

— Second, but relatedly, you ask “are hope and fear two sides of the same coin?” The metaphor implies that they are opposites, but I don’t think that’s true — I don’t feel that fear is the opposite or absence of hope, or vice versa. They co-exist, in some cases very closely, but I don’t see it as a 1-1 correlation. While they are sometimes connected, I don’t feel that the amount of hope one has directly determines the amount of fear one has (as if one could quantify emotion!) And I certainly don’t believe one must lose hope to conquer fear. I’ve seen too many folks conquer fear as a direct result of having hope to believe that.

— Finally, you ended with a wonderful Castaneda quote, which reminded me that I often use quotes as a source of solace, or joy, or hope. And one of the more hopeful new quotes I’ve encountered in the past year, one, in fact, I’ve often repeated to friends, family, co-workers, goes like this:

“I still believe in plans, but more and more, I think it’s a Plan B world.”
— Kelley Eskridge

Keep passing the open windows (—John Irving)

Adam D.

Hey Adam,

Lovely to hear from you. I was thinking about you at the elections, as a matter of fact. There was a certain amount of anxiety in our house too…. and at the same time, I believed it would turn out the way it did. Very gratifying, and in some sense so predictable. The wheel turns.

I can recommend the Goss book, if your definition of “recommend” includes wanting to throw a book at the wall but then being compelled to read it again just because…. And I don’t think I’ve represented it accurately (maybe not even coherently). But there is something about it that speaks to me lately.

I don’t think it’s so much that she is asking people to not bring hope to the party. Or maybe she is asking that — and maybe the real issue is what does each of us mean by hope, anyway? I think she’s saying that many people having a notion of hope as a kind of crutch, almost as a blueprint for “here’s how my life should be, and I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue or until my life turns out this way.” I think what she’s trying to say is that kind of hope can hold us back, because instead of desire without expectation, we tie ourselves to a particular vision of how things should be, and then regard any variance from that as “failure.” And then our hope is “lost.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about expectations lately. It’s been said that all anger is the result of failed expectations. I know that most personal conflict I’ve experienced comes down to disappointed expectations — I “expect” that strangers will honor the social compact and not cut me off on the highway, or be rude to me at Starbucks. I expect that my closest people will always be wise, kind, and respectful of my little personal quirks (along with being able to read my mind). Et cetera. I know that my greatest mistakes with other people happen when I write scripts in my head for how things should go in any particular interaction — and then discover, much to my surprise, that everyone else has failed to learn their lines, and in fact aren’t acting in my little play at all.

I have not let go of hope — in a big way, I’m all about hope and always will be. But I’ve been astonished by some of the things I’ve been able to do in the last year by releasing hope and instead just doing the thing I yearn to do, or the thing that needs to be done (which are sometimes the same and sometimes not). I don’t hope for the thing to work out in any particular way. I just do it and see what happens. I don’t assume that it’s “good” only if it works out the way I want it to. I don’t know how to explain it better right now, but it sure is making me think (grin).

I agree that hope and fear are not opposites. And I don’t think hope is in any way a bad thing. But I believe that hope gives fear a doorway into our lives. We fear the loss of what we hope for. Is it better sometimes to live without hope? Is it possible to live without hope and at the same time to not be “hopeless”? I dunno (scratches head).

Although, actually, that’s not true. I do know, in some ways. I no longer hope for a cure for MS, for example. I look at Nicola and give great thanks for my life with her. I don’t look at Nicola and think that if we only do the right thing, make the right choices, if only we are good, that she’ll be without MS someday. I no longer regard MS as something that might go away. It never will. Is that hopeless? Or is that simply moving hope out of the way so we can get on with our lives?

This doesn’t mean I never hope. I just don’t want hope for a particular thing to define my happiness.

I think I’m starting to climb down my own navel here. Apologies. And these are real questions, not rhetorical ones. Comments welcome.

I’m glad you like the Plan B quote. I still stand by it (grin). Here’s another one I like:

— Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
— How?
— I don’t know. It’s a mystery.
Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, Shakespeare in Love

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, talk to me, virtual pint archives

More naked

14 November 2006 | Leave a Comment

Kelley,

First off — glad to hear you and Nicola are staying together!! I was sure worried about that. (Rolling eyes way into the back of my head.)

Thanks for taking the time to give me a thought filled answer here and here.

Your answer helped to clarify my “question”. (I put that in quotes because now I see it’s always been more of a felt observation rather than question.)

The issue has been one of you (as writer) being there naked on the page and what that experience is like for you. If I understand your answer you’re saying that when the writing comes out of you (the physical entity that you are) it is not you the personality of Kelley. Rather the writing is art, creativity, something other. You’ve cleared Kelley out of the way for whoever the fictional characters are. So, not only are the characters not you but in order for them to be real in their own way you Kelley, must absolutely NOT be present.

Seems clear enough. I get that. Then I must ask this one final question on the issue.

Are you Kelley ever surprised by what comes out when you open that door? When you Kelley go back to see what you Kelley-as-writer has written, are you ever surprised? (This is where Robin the psychologist, is hovering in anticipation.) Despite the rhetoric you use, the words and the characters are still coming out of you the physical entity. Your mind has “created” them. All along this is what I’ve meant by “seeing yourself naked on the page”. In this sense my use of ‘yourself’ is simply another word for the capability of your own mind.

This conversation has been helpful in ways you Kelley (grin) cannot imagine.

Hoping you and Nicola live forever!!

Robin

Thanks, I hope so too (big grin). And I hope you still mean it after you read this (another grin), because I’m about to do a 180 on you in some ways. Try not to throw anything….

This is an interesting conversation, and the timing is a bit spooky, since in the last months (even since July, when we last talked about this), how I think about writing has changed — maybe partly because of this conversation, who knows? So first, let me clarify a little more what I meant, if I can, and then talk about what’s new.

In all the times I have written novels and short stories, I’ve been present, but almost (in the best writing) as if standing to one side. Or maybe it’s more like trying to stand very, very still while a river runs out of me, the rush of story that can be so easily derailed if I’m not both relaxed and utterly focused. Like aikido, if you’ve ever practiced that art.

When I talk about getting out of my own way, it’s not that my personality disappears and some other writing force takes over. It is, in fact, all me. Perhaps “personality” is the wrong word. Perhaps what I mean is that those parts of me that are culturally constructed (or culturally constrained) need to be put away as much as possible.

I can’t write beyond my own limitations (as a writer and a person) unless I find a way to put those limitations off in the corner, preferably with a muzzle. If the characters in a story do or say things that I wouldn’t, feel things that I don’t (or, more to the point, things that I do feel but don’t want people to know about), I have to go there anyway, as honestly and completely as I can. I have to understand and embrace those things, make them imaginatively possible for me so I can make them accessible to the reader. No matter how unsettling it is for me.

I trained as an actor, and for a while I thought that’s what I’d do with my life. For me, writing is very much like acting. And so it occurs to me that my last answer to you wasn’t complete and wasn’t honest. Because it is all me there on the page, in some way that is not “Kelley Eskridge is Jackal Segura,” but rather “When you put these particular elements — situation, background, feelings, relationships, fears, hopes, et cetera — into the mind and soul and deep dark places of Kelley Eskridge, Jackal is the character that comes out.”

And that process makes those “fictional” experiences psychologically and emotionally real for me in ways that do reveal me, or change me, as a person and a writer. They do.

But that’s not the point of writing, and it can’t be the goal. If that process becomes too conscious, then result is self-indulgent and boring. So part of getting out of my own way is just letting the process happen without getting too bound up in it at the time, without stopping to think about what I’m exploring or revealing or changing. I may on some level choose to write a particular story so that I can have particular fictional experiences, but I’d better not know too much about that while I’m doing it — or it becomes all about me and the story suffers.

And to answer your question — Am I ever surprised by what I’ve written? — sometimes, yes, I really am. And sometimes I’m not surprised by what I’ve written, just surprised that I actually wrote it. That I actually went there. It’s not that my work is so brave in an absolute sense, but in fact I have explored things in fiction that I would never easily talk about in a group of strangers. And most of those things will never be noticed, because they aren’t outrageous enough to stick out as “yikes, look at that!”. They won’t attract anyone’s attention. They’re only outrageous, dangerous, naked if you’re me.

So, why the different answer now? Well, I’ve recently finished my first screenplay (“finish” is a relative term in that things can be rewritten pretty much until they’re on the screen…). It’s so far been a fascinating, intense experience, an E-ticket (for those of you who remember the old Disney theme park system of admission). It has, in fact, been like putting writing and acting and the solitary creative fall-down-the-hole process and all my collaborative skills into a blender. I am so happy.

And it has so far been a thousand times more fun than writing novels. Because it’s a screenplay — human behavior directly expressed through dialogue and action, without the veil of prose styling and metaphor and authorial musing — the fictional experiences have been equally direct. And it turns out I love that a lot. It’s exhilarating.

I’ve learned a ton, and have much more to learn. I have the great fortune to work with an executive producer who is smart, communicates well, and is in love with story. I have more joy from the work, and am more productive, than at any other time in my writing life. And I see myself naked on the page and in the process in ways that I’ve never imagined.

So there you go. Either I’ve really answered your question this time, or you’re ready to pour your beer over my head (laughing). Let me know which.

Cheers.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, talk to me, virtual pint archives, writing

Are you on crack?

1 November 2006 | Leave a Comment

Are you and Nicola separating?

Anonymous

What the fuck? (And Nicola says, Huh?)

I am gobsmacked that anyone could read even a sliver of either Virtual Pint or Ask Nicola and come up with this. Are you just trying to wind me up?

But — on the remote chance that this is a serious question, here you go. Nicola and I will never separate. We will be together until one of us is dead.

What are they putting in the water these days? (shakes head)

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, talk to me, virtual pint archives

Hope and hopelessness

16 October 2006 | Leave a Comment

I just read the question about the election and hope. Wow. That is about the best thing I have read in a long time. I wish I’d had those words these long years of exile from my country (I’m an American living abroad because my partner is British, not because of Bush). Thanks for such inspiring words.

J.E. Knowles

And thank you right back, because I read the post again in order to talk to you now, and it turns out that I need to be reminded right now about hope. Not so much in terms of the government — I’m afraid that I have, at least for now, lost my energy to engage with the soul-numbing horror and stupidity that churns out of the Bush administration on a daily basis — but on a more personal level.

Hope is a concept that occasionally turns my head inside out. It’s a huge, huge part of who I am. And (or But) sometimes it’s challenged pretty radically. There’s a book I read a while back that I go back to fairly often because it smacks down a lot of my ideas about hope, but (or and) I think it’s at least partly right. It’s called The Last Word On Power, by Tracy Goss, and it’s ostensibly a business book, except that’s not why I keep reading it. What I come back to again and again is that Goss urges the reader

to accept — as if accepting a gift — these statements:

Life does not turn out the way it “should.”
Nor does life turn out the way it “shouldn’t.”
Life turns out the way it does.

When I say “life,” I mean your life: the life of the person reading this book. And by “the way it should,” I mean the way you most deeply hope life will turn out, the way you have always expected it ought to turn out in order to be meaningful.
– from The Last Word on Power by Tracy Goss

And then she goes on to suggest that going through ‘the eye of the needle of hopelessness’ is a necessary step — and that we can meet this hopelessness with acceptance or resignation. And that acceptance leads to the freedom to take any stand, any action, to attempt whatever you think is good and fail spectacularly regardless of the consequences, if that’s what happens. She says, “Acceptance gives you the opportunity, instead of giving up, to play with full engagement, free from the fear about how things will turn out.”

The first time I read this book, this made me so mad that I actually threw the book across the room. But after many re-readings, I understand what she means, and I don’t disagree. I’m just not sure I am brave enough to believe that I can accept ‘hopelessness’ without feeling hopeless. Because feeling hopeless and bitter and twisted (the resignation she talks about) is not the point. The point is to feel free of fear, and to therefore be bold, to take chances, to make outrageous choices, to be as much of oneself as one wishes to be.

In other words, to be what I’ve always hoped I could be. Except without the hope.

This makes my head hurt, and scares the bejesus out of me because I think she might be right, and where does that leave all my hope stuff? And yet, of course, on some level Solitaire is about this journey through the eye of hopelessness, even though I had not read the Goss book before I wrote the novel.

I certainly haven’t been able to let go of either hope or fear in my life. And the question I wrestle with is, are hope and fear two sides of the same coin? Is it necessary to lose hope in order to conquer fear? This one’s more than a pint, it’s a pitcher. I’d be interested to hear what folks have to say.

And finally, I’m not sure how all this is related, but here is a quote I currently love. It’s the epigraph to The Teachings Of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda.

Para mi solo recorrer los caminos que tienen corazon, cualquier camino que tenga corazon. Por ahi yo recorro, y la unica prueba que vale es atravesar todo su largo. Y por ahi yo recorro mirando, mirando, sin aliento.
— from The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda

For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel looking, looking, breathlessly.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, life, talk to me, virtual pint archives

Naked

27 July 2006 | Leave a Comment

Ho Kelley! Have thrown back a few from the stool here and thought I might try to respond. Cheers baby!

I agree with what you said about truthful prose combining physical, emotional/psychological truth. In addition the cultural, national, religious, sexual, (‘ingredients’ ) etc. history of the person must have the appearance of consistency.

My first response (as a reader) is: Many fiction stories I read (even some non-fiction) seem to supply very limited psychological information for the characters/people to be the way they are. And in that sense do not feel “truthful”. This is the case even when most of the other ingredients are accounted for. Of course, I’m a psychologist. So, could there be enough??? The thing I’ve learned in listening to many, many stories from clients over the years — is that despite everything I’ve already heard and know, there was no way to predict how the next person would react to a similar situation. This is what I find so . . . boring . . . about a lot of fiction. There is not enough variation in how characters respond to even the most common situations.

And yes, there often does seem to be a rush to explain complexities of character. So, I don’t want the writer to beat me over the head with it but I also need enough to have a thread to grasp so that I can use my imagination and thoughtfulness to fill in the blanks. So the question for me (as a writer) becomes: how deep do I have to go, what sort of examples from the past or from the character’s thought process, etc., do I have to put out there so the character makes sense, is complex and shows consistency? And, how many characters within the story do I have to do that with? I mean in the example you gave from Solitaire, Mist tells Jackal it’s hard to always have to be nice to her. It’s a great example of characterization for Jackal, but tells us virtually nothing about Mist. I remembered reading that and I know my thought was something like “then don’t be, say what you think” and then wondering why she would say such a thing in the first place. Or another way of asking and again only for illustration — would it have been more helpful to understand the development of the psychology of Jackal’s mother to better understand its impact on Jackal???

. . . . so to get back to my original question . . . to be truthful, in revealing the character in physical, emotional, psychological depth, do you feel revealed? Does it ever feel like taking your clothes off in front of strangers? And, I’m not asking in a real sense, I mean it more like . . . when you’re sitting in front of the story and trying to get out what you mean, what is truthful for the character — in the silence of your own mind, in the privacy of your own home — do you ever feel like that? Like you’ve just peeled off all your clothes and are naked there on the page? The question is not about the truth you reveal about yourself to me as reader, but to yourself ABOUT YOURSELF.

I’ll have to find another way to talk about the rest of the question I’m trying to ask.

Perhaps I’ve fallen off the stool. Let me get another . . .

Robin

Hi Robin,

You’ve been very patient, thanks. I’ve been eyebrows-deep in a project for the last six weeks or so, but have been circling back to your question and chewing on it during that time. I think I understand it better, but I’m not sure that I can answer in a way that’s any more satisfying for you (grin). Let’s see how this one goes.

You’ve asked a writing question (how deep to go and what to show) and a writer question (what do I reveal to myself about myself), so…. writing first. It’s hard to talk about this, because so much of it is instinct (by which I really mean, practice and expertise so deeply integrated at this point that I no longer know how to talk about it as decision-making process). But I’ll take a whack at it.

It occurs to me that it’s in large part a function of the challenges of writing from a single, deep point of view. Solitaire is Jackal’s story, so as a writer I’ve tried to go deep with her, and then show in other characters whatever she needs to see in order to interact with them. In that example with Mist: we’ve already had a previous interaction (brandy and orange juice is disgusting), and we’ve been privy to some of Jackal’s opinions of Mist — she’s a fashionista, someone Jackal feels unconsciously superior to, someone she regards as fundamentally shallow, etc. And so in the interchange, Jackal is surprised by not only what Mist says, but how deeply she seems to feel about it. And since it’s Jackal’s story, we only get to know or see what Jackal wants (or is forced to) know or see. Jackal isn’t focused, in that moment, in wondering why Mist is who she is: she’s focused on herself, her own insecurity and embarrassment.

Would it help to understand Donatella’s psychological history to better understand its impact on Jackal? I guess my response is, helpful for whom? (That’s a real question, not me being snarky). In that moment, Jackal doesn’t need it — again, she’s focused on herself, trying to cope with the experience. Later, the reader gets the information that Donatella’s always been competitive in this way, and also the memory of the rescue on the cliffs. But Jackal doesn’t spend a lot of time dissecting her mother’s psychology. Jackal’s an impatient soul, more into doing than reflecting, which is how she gets herself into trouble sometimes.

I think that writing in this way (from a single, deep point of view) is a lot like the physical transmission of television: all the black on a TV image is not black pixels being beamed to my TV set, it’s the absence of any data at all that my brain interprets as black. If I’m doing my job as a writer, the reader will fill in the blank spots for herself because that’s what Jackal is doing.

Other points of view are more flexible. One of the things I love about Stephen King’s work is his facility in wandering in and out of everyone’s heads, primary and secondary characters, and combining their real-time thoughts with memory, behavior, observation and feeling to paint a complex picture in a few simple strokes. He’s fantastic at creating character.

As for the writer question, well…. No. I don’t feel naked on the page with myself. And I’m guessing this is not the answer you expect (I won’t presume to guess what answer you want), because it’s pretty much a cultural given that writers do expose themselves in their work, so it makes sense that it would start “at home,” so to speak.

But no, that’s not how I feel. When I write, it’s not about me, and I mean that in lots of ways. I do not write “about Kelley” in fiction — that’s what the virtual pub is for. I learn a lot more about my own psychology and process in the act of writing these pints than I do in the act of writing fiction. Fiction is not self-analysis. It’s story. It’s the joy of walking through the door in my head and finding myself in another place with people that I grow to understand and to love. And I am both there and not there during that experience — I’m there, in the story, sometimes in their heads and sometimes as an observer, but it doesn’t matter that I’m Kelley Eskridge, it doesn’t matter who I am in the daily waking world or why I behave the way I do. I’m not there to reveal myself to me or anyone else, and if I do experience a self-revelation, it will damn sure derail the writing. All that matters is that the writer is there with space in her heart and mind and soul for all manner of human behavior and feeling and action and relationship. The writer is the doorway. The writer is the physical transmission process for this TV of the mind. And Kelley had better get out of the writer’s way if anything true is to be written. Because it’s not my truth but the truth of the story that is important. Something doesn’t have to be true for Kelley in order for it to be true for the character — the writer’s job is to make space for everyone.

This probably sounds like I think that “I” am not “the writer,” but that’s not what I mean. The relationship between art and craft and artist is pretty complex. Craft is learned behavior that has to become instinctive, integrated, in order for the art to emerge and the artist to function. The writer has to both know, and not know, what she is doing in the moment of creation — be both hyperaware and deliberately not looking. The writer must control and surrender, simultaneously. It’s like riding a bicycle with no hands, something I enjoyed immensely as a child, which is surprising considering that I was in almost every other way physically risk-aversive. Writing, like those bicycle moments, is a rush that only happens (in my experience) after a lot of bloody hard work and a fair amount of falling on one’s ass. It cannot be done if the writer is busy looking at whether or not she herself is on the page in any way. If I am looking for the truth of myself in the work, I am missing the point. It’s not about me. The writer doesn’t give a shit about me — whether I’m tired or grumpy or wrestling with Big Identity Issues. The writer want to write. I’m finally learning that I am happiest when I get out of my own damn way and thereby help the writer, the opener of deep doorways, do our work.

And that’s the best that I know how to describe it right now. It seems like a clumsy description, and maybe it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the most naked I can get about it.

Let me know what you think.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, talk to me, virtual pint archives, writing

Meaning and vulnerability

29 April 2006 | Leave a Comment

I’ve just read “And Salome Danced“. Beautifully written story and I thank you for that.

So my question isn’t about the story as much as it is about your process. I write a bit (more all the time) and often find it difficult to translate my thought-feeling into accurate written language. The effort to convey what I mean (as I think, feel, smell, and imagine it) is an ultimate challenge.

I imagine you struggle with this as well? Has it taken some self-discovery, self-examination and maybe an equal amount of willingness to let others know that you think (etc) that way in order to write it down? Are you vulnerable when you write “accurately”?

I think of this because Jo/e Sand seems to say exactly what Mars feels, desires, and experiences in the secret depth of her life. You were able to make it happen.

My experience of reading the story, of feeling Salome be inside Mars was exhilarating — I had to remind myself to breathe when it ended. If I could ever write one sentence that made another feel that way I would be successful.

I am grateful for any insight and willingness you may have to discuss this.

Robin

Hi, Robin. I’m glad you enjoyed the story.

Conveying the particular moment is half the essence of good fiction, in my opinion. So if you’re finding it a challenge, well, join the club (grin). The other half is knowing what moments to convey: in other words, what sequence of moments will best tell the story. But that’s a different discussion: you’ve asked about the process of making the moments truthful, which is a large enough question to be going on with.

Truthful prose, to me, combines physical and emotional/psychological truth. Our culture, our background and our experience affects what we believe about the world, and influences what we notice as we move through our everyday lives. Here’s an example of this that interests me. Another example is that people from groups that experience cultural discrimination or oppression will notice different things about an event or an interaction than mainstream folks.

And what we notice about a situation affects how we respond to it. In fiction it’s important to make these correlations visible to the reader, because that’s how we learn about the characters. For example, it makes no sense to a reader if Billy Joe says, “I like your shirt” to Bobby Sue, and Bobby Sue hits Billy Joe with a baseball bat — unless we already know something about their relationship, or Bobby Sue’s anguished past, or we see Bobby Sue noticing that Billy Joe has a knife behind his back. Whatever. The important thing is that the particular moments — the sensory details, the internal dialogue, the rhythms of speech or movement — somehow support our understanding of the character and her actions.

One small example of this from Solitaire is in the first section of the book, when Jackal and Mist and Turtle are standing in line at the omniport and Mist tells Jackal that it’s hard to always have to be nice to her, to always have to support her. It’s significant, to me, that Jackal has to have this pointed out to her, and also significant that she is embarrassed by it. Without “explaining” the character to the reader, I’m (hopefully) giving you access into a corner of the psychology of the assumption of privilege, and the test of character that occurs when it is pointed out that we enjoy privilege at the expense of people we care about.

I think that good fiction is an accretion of small moments like this. I think one mistake that writers make is to rush these things, or to assume that it’s enough to “explain” a character’s actions at the time they are happening. But it’s not enough.

I think there are two kinds of these moments: things the characters notice, and things the writer wants the reader to notice. Sometimes they combine, sometimes they don’t.

I do think it takes awareness to write these moments, but not just self-awareness. I think it takes awareness of others, the commonalities and the differences between us.

In most cultures, and in most of our hearts, we use difference to separate ourselves from others. But I think that for writers, difference needs to become a path to connection. I will step into a core of strangeness in a character that in ‘real’ life would send me off the bus at the next stop, you know? And in order to do that, I have to imagine, and then I have to experience the world in another skin.

To write a sentence that makes someone forget to breathe because they have just seen some aspect of their secret self in my words, I have to spend a lot of my time figuring out why I behave the way I do, and then I have to figure out why others behave the way they do. And the trap here (that writers, including me, fall into all the time), is assuming that I am somehow the reference point against which behavior ought to be measured — that people who don’t behave like me should be expressed as deviating from the norm. This leads to preachy writing and cardboard characters, people who would only “be normal” (i.e. “like me”) if they were smarter or kinder or whatever. (I’ve talked about this in context of white writers describing the skin color of non-white characters.) This passes for character development in a lot of writing, but I don’t think this is enough either.

When I was studying American Sign Language and Deaf culture, I learned a concept of “Deaf center,” which means that if I really want to understand the language I have to understand where it comes from: I have to do my best to understand Deaf experience not in terms of my hearing background, but in its own terms. I have to take myself out of the center of the universe, and become a witness of the experience that is happening to other people at the center of their universe.

One thing that really helped me with this was a lesson I learned from my mom when I was very young, and my parents were active in the civil rights movement in Florida. She told me that when African-American people described their experience, I should always start by assuming their experience was true for them. It took me until adulthood to understand that what she was saying was not “everyone tells the truth.” What she was saying is that everyone tells their truth, and it might not be mine. I remember being at prep school and telling upper class white students that our phones had routinely been tapped when I was growing up, and they didn’t believe me, because it had never happened to them or anyone they knew. And rather than admit the world was different for me than it was for them, they asserted that I had a “wrong” perception of the world.

This makes for frustrating experience, but potentially interesting writing. When characters conflict, worlds are colliding.

I do think that fiction can reveal much about the writer, including some things that might make the writer feel vulnerable or exposed. The thing is, most readers never know what those things are. Many of the moments or perceptions or behaviors or attitudes that characters express in my stories are not mine at all, or at least not as written. No one but me (and often Nicola) knows at what moments in my fiction I am deliberately showing my self, opening my world to the view of the reader. That’s fine with me. Fiction isn’t memoir, even when it’s true.

I’d be interested to know what you and others here in the virtual pub think about all this (from a writing or reading perspective). And if I haven’t answered your question, please let me know.

Posted by Kelley | Filed Under blog, talk to me, virtual pint archives, writing