Creative Writing - New York Times Essay Collection - Writers On Writing.pdf - CREATIVE WRITING - askaa192

The New York Times

Writers

[ ]

Introduction by John Darnton

Original Essays by

Saul Bellow Carl Hiaasen Barbara Kingsolver

Joyce Carol Oates Scott Turow

Excerpts from

onWriting

CONTENTS

Introduction

by John Darnton

Hidden Within Technology’s Empire, A Republic of Letters

by Saul Bellow

Real Life, That Bizarre and Brazen Plagiarist

by Carl Hiaasen

A Forbidden Territory Familiar to All

by Barbara Kingsolver

To Invigorate Literary Mind, Start Moving Literary Feet

by Joyce Carol Oates

An Odyssey That Started With ‘Ulysses’

by Scott Turow

Experience Irreverence in

an Age of Reverence

Tune in to a conversation

between Peter Jennings of ABC’s

“Wold News Tonight” and Jon

Stewart of Comedy Central’s

“The Daily Show.” You don’t

want to miss this thoughtful,

provacative and very funny

discussion on new and satire in today’s world. Recorded live at our

Arts & Leisure Weekend in January.

View as streaming video or download to your computer.

To order or for more information, visit

nytimes.com/ criticschoice

Introduction

John Darnton

got the idea for the Writers on Writing series shortly after I decided to become –of all things– a

writer. Actually, to be a stickler about it, I didn’t really decide to become a writer. As with many of

life’s intriguing surprises, the decisions sort of crept up on me and made itself.

I had been thirty years in the newspaper business (where I still am). Much to that time had been

spent abroad, covering Africa, Europe (East and West) and the Middle East. During that time I tried

to craft my stories in what I thought of as writerly way, with plenty of what the foreign desk would

call “color”. But despite the fact that I sent hundreds of thousands of words halfway around the

world by every conceivable means, and despite the fact that those words were presented in

configurations called stories , I didn’t conceive of myself as a writer . Like most foreign correspondents,

I prided myself on getting the facts in a difficult situation, not on how those facts were arranged.

Nor did I object when we called ourselves “hacks”, the self-denigrating term of preference, though

in our heart of hearts when we said it, we didn’t believe it. (If you ever want to reach a report with a

compliment, don’t tell him that he dug out all the facts or presented then fairly; tell him he writes

brilliantly and then you’ll see his chest swell). Once I was invited to a writers’ workshop in Vermont

and I experienced deep ambivalence: I was pleased at being on a panel with writers, but I couldn’t

help feeling like a impostor.

I began a novel, Neanderthal , during a stint as an editor in the New York office when I had some

time on my hands. At first it was a diversion. I had read an article with some new information about

those fascinating, extinct relatives of ours and I thought it would be fun to imagine a little band of

them still existing in today’s world and to bring them into conflict with our own devious, predatory

tribe. I lathered the story with a lot of science, as accurate as I could make it, and so what I was

working on, while technically a novel, was really commercial fiction. That’s the term for a book that

sells, and it’s easier to do because you don’t have to worry about being Faulkner every time you face

a blank screen.

Soon I discovered a little gimmick. One day I complained to a friend and author, a fellow “hack”

from the Nairobi press corps, that the work was going slowly, that I had been writing only a

thousand words a day. He sat up like a bolt, downed his scotch and peered at me through a cloud of

cigarette smoke. “One thousand words a day! That’s terrific! Don’t you realize? That’s thirty

thousand words a month. Three, four months and you’ve got a book.” I did the math; he was right.

I set my computer so that I could knock off the moment I hit a thousand words. The device

worked. A momentous task had been cut down to bite sizes. No longer was laboring to climb a

mountain while staring at the snow-covered peak far above; instead I was climbing a single slope day

after day until one day I would arrive at the summit. And one day I did. I began to feel like Molière’s

Bourgeois Gentilhomme learning that he has been speaking prose all along. The thought struck me

that maybe I am a writer after all.

So, I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to commission a series by writers to let them talk about their

craft? Maybe they would have similar tricks to impart. Maybe they could let some daylight in upon

the magic. Where do they get their ideas? Or perhaps they should talk about literature. Or about

reading–say, the general consensus that we are sinking into the abyss of an alliterate society. I drew

up a list of writers that I wanted most to hear from (which was not the same, I was to learn, as a list

of writers who might want to hear from me). I threw in some big names: Updike, Bellow,

Doctorow. I added other names, younger writers, experimenters, radicals, miscreants. I went to

PEN gatherings and moved from table to table signing up people like a Hollywood agent.

I learned a number of things. Not all writers want to talk about what they do. A lot of them do not

meet deadlines. And unlike reporters, they do not accept assignments gracefully–they actually have

to want to do it. Beware of interrupting a writer in the middle of his working day: if he appears to

want to remain on the line long after you do, that’s not a good sign. Some are perfectionists (one

was deeply miffed by a misplaced comma). Some are vain (one cut his piece by three hundred words

to make room for a picture). And all of them are human in one respect: they wanted to hear, right

away, what you thought of their work.

The series has been exceedingly popular. One reason might be that the writing stands above the

ordinary fare of a daily newspaper. Another is probably might be that the writing stands above the

ordinary fare of a daily newspaper. Another is probably the subjects, which tend toward the personal

and wander over the private range of the imagination. And a third reason, I believe, is that many

people have a secret urge to become writers themselves. All of out lives are stories. How many times

have you heard someone say that she has a good book inside her, if only she could get it out?

Which reminds me of a saucy remark from a friend of my son’s, an English teenager smitten with

premature wit. Lent my first book for a plane ride home, he sent back a postcard in a hand that

fairly chuckled: “I though your book was good”, he wrote. “They say everyone has a great book

inside him. I look forward to yours.”

But I digress. And my computer informs me that I have stayed too long–by twenty-six words.

Creative Writing - New York Times Essay Collection - Writers On Writing.pdf

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