Best or Worst? YOU decide

I miss New York. So every day, when I have my coffee, I read the "rags." The New York Daily News and the Post. They aren't great papers. They aren't great journalism. They're call the rags for a reason. Their columnists are "real" New York. When I read them online, I swear I can smell the pretzels and souvlaki and gyros for sale on the street corner. So it was two days ago, I saw this:

NICHOLAS Sparks - who has 100 million copies of his books in print, including "Message in a Bottle," "Nights in Rodanthe" and his latest, "The Lucky One" - told Marymount College writing program director Lewis Frumkes he can't stand so-called literary writers whose prose seems to scream out, "Look how brilliant I am," instead of just telling a good story. "In my opinion," said Sparks, "Stephen King is without question our greatest writer. No one tells a better story than Stephen." He describes his own books as modern Greek tragedies that put readers through the range of human emotions. "I set out to write a good story with 'The Notebook,' one that would sell 10 million copies and make me rich . . . and I did." He also told Lewis that Disney has already bought his next book to make into a movie. Asked what its title was, Sparks said, "I don't have a title. I haven't even begun to write the book."

Now, what he says . . . I can go with. I agree it should be about story. I guess what strikes me as . . . I don't know . . . negative, is setting out with the goal to "get rich." Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to make 10 million dollars. I have the "dream," if you will, that maybe a book will just really, really take off. (I also know sustaining the take-off is beyond difficult.) But I suppose I think of story, of readers, of my characters and their lives. When I am writing, I have never sat down--not once--and thought, "Let me come up with the moneymaker." I have MET writers who do that. I have met them so often, it's the ol' "If I had dollar for every time . . . ." And with one exception, none of them ever got published. Why? Because it became TOTALLY about "Listen to this hook--I know the reading public will love this"--and it was never about sustaining the book beyond the hook. It strikes me as utter condesencion. That somehow people don't DESERVE a good book all the way through. Because they won't recognize it. That learning craft is immaterial. Because no one will notice if I come up with this 10-million-dollar idea. I had one guy I worked with who NEVER (and I mean never) could get a book past page 100, because his hooks ran out of gas. And he wondered if he could just sell on proposal and have his editor help him with plot.

Um. No.

I also worked with a writer anxious to break into chick lit who threw in every (and I mean every) chick lit device known to man. "Let me toss in a gay guy! Let me add a wedding!" with the idea that somehow this combination was what made the best-seller--not the story.

So is Sparks refreshingly honest? Is he any good in your opinion? (I have never read him . . . if you like him and he's an awesome storyteller, let us know, for real). Is this idea offensive? Does it represent the best of ideals or the worst?

Weigh in.

Happy Friday! And hey . . . I'm heading to Manhattan this weekend. I'm eating souvlaki. Just kidding. I actually hate the stuff. But I will be walking for miles while clutching my Starbucks and holding hands with my OLDEST DAUGHTER. (Yeah, we're really dorky like that--we still hold hands.) I will post pictures. I can't wait to hug her!! I even loaded David Sedaris for us to listen to on my iPod. AND--bonus--get to see my best friend from high school and stay at her place.

Digging Deep

I will never forget the first time I read a "meh." It had never occurred to me that writers would see what editors are buying and then go and write a book based on that. I always assumed it was the other way around. Writers wrote what was meaningful to them, and if that occurred at a good intersection of timing, luck, talent, and market conditions, a sale was made.

But the more writers I met, the more I realized that some would see a trend a chase it. And there was no passion for the story. Just . . . "I think this will sell." So it was that I read a manuscript. On the face of it, it had a decent chick lit premise. There weren't any typos. You know you are in trouble if the best thing someone can say is your manuscript is typo-free. I read a few chapters . . . and it dawned on me that when you stripped away the trendy setting and the designer clothes and the cocktails, that you didn't care about the characters at all. They read, to me, like a laundry list of traits--much of them external. When I questioned the writer, she was all about "I know this is what they're buying in NY." And no, she didn't get a sale. I actually, because one editor she tried was one of my own, was privy to the editor's feedback, who offhandedly said, "She can't write." But it wasn't that. She couldn't write with heart.

I'm often asked if I have advice for aspiring writers. I don't. What the hell do I know? I have my journey . . . all the writers out there have theirs. But I suppose I ascribe to one thing . . . not write what you know. No, I don't really believe that one. Write what you feel. But someone else said that far better.

Put your ear down next to your soul and listen hard.

~Anne Sexton

Thoughts?

Tell Me Everything

One my desk sits a picture of my Grandma Irene in a Mets T-shirt. She's a frail-looking 80ish, give or take, and her Mets--HER Mets--were her life. Keith Hernandez was her personal dreamboat.

I was at Game 7 when the Mets won the World Series. I took the train out to Shea, and rode the train afterwards. Rather than get off at my stop, I ended up getting out in Times Square. If I recall correctly, I think I danced in the street with a cabbie from Turkey. New York City was delirious with joy.

The next day, I went to visit my grandmother. She opened the door to her apartment, dragged me by the hand, sat me down at her kitchen table and said, "TELL ME EVERYTHING."

To be sure, she watched the game. Just as she faithfully watched every game on TV. But she was looking for something MORE. So I started with how I got the tickets (an unusual story that I will spare you all the details, involving scalped tickets, a pair of illegally bought sneakers, and other assorted insanity). Next there was the fact that I spent my LAST DIME on the tickets and was literally, in my pathetic little apartment at the time, scraping together quarters for train fare. I moved along to the train ride (drunken Mets fans). Banging on the train walls and doors . . . the noise, the anticipation. The sheer tremor that ran through the fans.

Next, arriving at Shea. The weather. The seats. The BOSTON fans (boo, hiss) who sat next to me and taunted me the whole time. The fights in the stands. The smell of pretzels and beer. All of it. BEING there when they won. The pile-up on the field (THE JOY!). The train ride home. Kissing total strangers. Dancing in Time Square. Everything.

She wasn't in a rush. In detail, the story from beginning to end takes a solid two hours. Minimum. One baseball fan to the other.

I remember that when I write. Because I think, if you do it well, when you tell your story, your reader should live vicariously through the characters. By the time I went to Game 7 of the Series, there was no way my grandma could have gone. She was too frail (open heart surgery), too fragile. Too old. In her heart, she had all the enthusiam. She loved Keith Hernandez like a high school girl with a crush. But she couldn't have been there. So she got to go through me.

THAT'S what writing a story is like.

Tell me everything.

Thoughts?

The Blanket of Story

First . . . don't forget to drop by Magical Musings, where I am guest blogging. Second, let's talk about Blankleys.

I have four kids . . . and three of the four went through babyhood without any particular attachments to stuffed animals, dolls, etc. Oldest had a doll named Harriet she was fond of, but it wasn't like she couldn't sleep without her. But Demon Baby loves "Blankleys." Not any one in particular, just ALL Blankleys.

Well, my week went from bad to worse. Baby Daughter (actually 9), who was so sick, contracted rheumatic fever, entailing the hospital, and now a pediatric cardiologist. So to say I am stressed . . . understatement. Distraught . . . that, too. And so this a.m., Demon Baby came up to me as I was sitting on the couch at 6:00 a.m. (when Demon Baby arises) and brought me a "Blankley" . . . "to make you feel better, Mommy." Moments like that make him seem slightly (just ever so slightly) less possessed.



Which brings me to story. You see, this week, I got my contracts for my new trilogy (swear the announcement is coming soon) in the mail. In fact, they came Friday, but I was at the hospital, so I finally opened them today. (And for those of you dreaming of lucrative retirements once you sell a few books . . . if you read this blog regularly, then you will know it's been AGES that this contract has been going back and forth being drawn up.) Anyway, I was sitting here feeling weary beyond belief, when I looked at them . . . and smiled. And no, not because it's a contract, but because I realize I will soon have my adult version of a Blankley. I will be deep into a story I love, pulling it around me, lost in my world, feeling warm. Sometimes I need to remind myself that . . . through it all--the ups and downs of a writing career--there's always that. Getting lost in a story, like disappearing under a giant Blankley with Demon Baby while we watch sing-along shows on TV.



Is you story ever like that for you? A place of refuge. A big Blankley?

What if . . .

. . . You couldn't write.

I mean . . . what if by some alternate universe, some curse put on you by a witch, some freak of brain function, you suddenly, tomorrow, woke up and couldn't write fiction?

What would you do instead? How would you express yourself?

I've been thinking about the creative . . . I mean, I know people who are creative cooks, or quilters, or knitters, or who do Martha Stewart-esque crafts. And I definitely give credit for creativity in all its forms. BUT . . . writing has this other "communication" dimension. Knitting doesn't. I liken that dimension to music. But that wouldn't be an option for me. I can't sing. I can't compose a song.

And the desire to communicate creatively is so intense, it's not like I could sublimate it entirely into my knitting--no matter how much I like making my kids hats. Eventually, there just wouldn't be enough cold days for my creativity.

So I would say that I would take photographs. I think that comes closest. I would tell a story, just in a different way. Which I guess means the storytelling is what's most primal for me.

Thoughts?