I carry one notebook with me at a time. I use this notebook for most everything. Work, class, writing whatever comes to mind, phone numbers, random doodling, you name it, it goes into the notebook. I’ve been taking classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis for about ten months now. I’m in the midst of my third class; I’ve got about six weeks left. I’m a little sad that I’m going to have to start a new notebook mid-class. Somehow that just seems so wrong. So in honor of the new notebook, I’m going to share with you scenes from my current notebook (a spiffy little J. Otto Mr. Lunch highly professional journal). Here are my notes, now you can learn through me. Just think, I’m saving you some $600 in writing classes.
18Sep03 Class @ the loft
Bring story week of Oct 2nd.
If your characters aren’t affected by the story, why is it being told?
25Sep03 Class @ the loft
‘We are our desires,’ Aristotle.
Character has to want something’conflicting wants
**A Rose for Emily, Faulkner
Sometimes POV Changes, Things They Carried ‘ Tim O’Brien
Find your character, find that voice.
9
12
14
17
16 (the number of times Robert said ‘um’).
Jesus’ Son
Cannot believe I’m in a fucking writing class and I’m not free to say certain words. Isn’t that what this is all about? Writing? Freedom? The love of the power of words? Are you fucking kidding me?
Hint of bad vibes going on
All you need are three details to make something real.
Jump in after the beginning, right after the scene begins’the middle of things, feel like you’re dropping them in.
Stories aren’t written, they are rewritten.
Just get through the damn thing.
Change the # of syllables
Think of 5 normal
4 energetic
6 godly.
Control when they breathe, give them a piece of paper and you can do that.
English teachers like to turn writing into a word problem ‘ symbolism – eyeglasses ‘ Gatsby.
02Oct03
Don’t have your character randomly kill a puppy, work it into the story.
Best dialog ‘ when it’s not quite syncing up, it’s gotta be a little clunky. Attribution only when you have to. Write dialog out quickly and freehand.
You got to get into that mucky muck of people.
Pigeon Feathers ‘ John Updike
First line should raise questions, compel us to ask why, who.
09Oct03
You’re not smarter than your characters.
The setting should come from your characters, not trapped in a metaphor.
Symbolism should rise out of the story.
October 16thish, 2003
That’s the thing, the holy crap moment.
You hit and that’s it, you’re just left there hanging in space a little bit.
It’s not literary, it’s not poetic, it’s how life feels
Jeff -> What does your character want? What do these boys want?
Her nipples were still hard, even after a year. They had to be prosthetics. I should ask her. I have nothing to lose. She hasn’t noticed me yet.
Undated
Population 486
The Weakerthans
He asked obscure questions not even God could answer
12Feb04
‘Skating through the surface of his life.’
Fiction is built on tension ‘ if there’s no tension, you cannot sustain your reader.
Escalate and/or complicate the tension on every page
The best characters harbor contradictions
19Feb04
Kissing in Manhattan
Three or four realized characters is really ambitious.
You don’t need to resolve, tie up loose ends, just land the plane safely.
John Updike ‘ Death of Distant Friends ‘ Find this.
26Feb04
Who should be telling the story?
Why now?
What’s at stake?
What does your character want?
What is your character afraid of?
What are the consequences of these scenes or actions?
11Mar04
Blonde=human
Blond= someone’s hair
18Mar04
‘the revelation of the whatness of a thing,’ James Joyce.
25Mar04
‘In great fiction, we are moved by what happens, not by the whimpering or bawling of the writer’s presentation of what happens,’ John Gardner.
4000 words, Minnesota Monthly, May 28th
Richard Yates, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
Avoid suddenly, it’s more sudden to just say it.