Spend Some Time In the Presence of a Great Mind

When Lorrie Moore came to Denver, she did an activity with the audience. She said one of the biggest problems she sees in writers is that we often are not writing about the right things. In order to help identify what we should write about, she made us write down answers to some key questions, and then she collected them. She read some aloud and commented on whether or not each person was on the right track and what he or she should explore instead.

Her comments were based on the following information (which Lara Wells‘ blog helped me remember).

First Moore asked us to describe the last piece of fiction we wrote.
On the other side of our pieces of paper, she told us to answer these questions:
1. What do the people in your life (your mom, best friend, children) say you should write about?
2. What is the worst thing that could happen to you?
3. What is the best thing that could happen to you?
4. What is the closest relationship in your life?
5. What do you think is the biggest issue facing the world today?

Moore looked at peoples’ answers, which clearly aimed to get at issues and topics of great importance, and compared them to the description of what the writer had actually written about most recently.

You may see some problems with this exercise—for instance, people always tell you to write about your travels. But writing about one’s travels often offers a superficial understanding of the “exotic.” And in terms of the worst thing that could happen to you, many people mentioned a child, parent, or significant other dying (often in a car accident or of cancer). Do you think we need more stories about these things? Surely not as many as hold this as a terror.

But the idea of writing towards one’s worst fears is an interesting one and one that many, in addition to Lorrie Moore, will advise. Have you, for instance, ever thought about how awful it would be to have your child molested? It’s difficult to think of much worse. Or getting caught up in a crime that wreaks havoc in others’ lives and forces you to change your identity?

These are some things Sam Ligon takes on in his novel Safe in Heaven Dead. Read more »

I have a knot in my stomach.  I’ve just been to conversationalreading.com, after Googling one of my favorite authors, Lorrie Moore. I read a conversation entitled, “Lorrie Moore’s Sad Decline.”  It might have been months ago that this conversational thread occurred, but it’s new to me, and I have to say, it scares me.  Not that people are critical of Moore’s work.  Not that they are snarky.  Not that they might be right.  What scares me is the possibility–maybe inevitability–of an artist’s decline, and the implication of where decline might start.

You see, the most cutting comment in this conversation (in my opinion) was not really aimed at Moore’s writing, but at her life:

I’ve written elsewhere that the early landing of a tenure-track position at the University of Wisconsin has led to a dearth of experience in a life that was uneventful to begin with.

This implies that to write well, or interestingly, one has to lead an interesting life.  Or at least, it might help.  This more than implies that a professorship cuts off life’s potential.  One might infer that any steady job, any career that interferes with writing time and lacks creative spark might sap away a young writer’s potential. Read more »

Looking for something a little less frilly?

Happy Mother’s Day! If you didn’t know it was Mother’s Day, you can thank me for reminding you later–but first, run out and buy your mother (or your aunt or granny…any woman who had a hand in raising you) a card!

Of course, you might not be psyched about buying a piece of pink paper for four bucks, with Hallmark’s version of poetry inside and cartoon flowers on the front. You might want something with more meat to it. How about a little fiction?

In honor of Mother’s Day, I dug through my bookshelves for short stories about motherhood (because if you sit your mother on your knee and try to read her a whole novel, you’re going to lose the circulation in your legs). It was an interesting search; it seems that motherhood, at least in a pleasant, Mother’s Day type of light, is not the most popular subject. So I abandoned the idea of finding happy, sappy words about moms and decided to focus on spunk. You know, vivacity. Pluck. Maybe even panache. Mother characters worth reading about. Read more »