You’ll be shocked to discover who favors old fashioned ink and paper over digital composition

I’ve been teaching writing to students ages 12-16 for the past three weeks. Seven students in all. Every one of them is an excellent writer. A couple are legitimately gifted.

Two surprises:

1. Five of my students write with a paper and pen and couldn’t imagine writing on a computer or tablet, at least for their first draft. Only one writes exclusively on a laptop (and she writes primarily for the Internet), and the other switches between pen-and-paper and her phone.
2. A different five read almost exclusively from old fashioned books. Paper and ink. One reads exclusively on a tablet. The last switches between formats.

I was stunned when I saw these teenagers scribbling in journals and flipping through through pages. It’s not what I expected.

A month ago, I was walking down a long line of people waiting to attend a Moth StorySLAM in NYC, and I was both surprised and pleased with the number of people standing in line, passing the time by reading ink and paper books.

Could this be a sign that people are seeking a greater balance between digital and analog?

I hope so. 

The payoff for a writer or a performer is an infinitesimal sliver of the job. Too many forget this and aren’t willing to do the work.

Saturday was a good day for me.

It began with the first performance ever of “Caught in the Middle,” the tween musical written by writing partner, Andy Mayo, and myself. It was produced at a performing arts camp in Bloomfield, Connecticut, and like our previous musical, The Clowns, I fell in love with the show while watching it performed on stage.

   

Then Elysha and I left for New York so I could perform in The Liar Show in the West Village. I told a story about my unfortunate participation in a bachelorette party in a McDonald’s crew room when I was 19 years-old.

A friend was kind enough to comment on how much I had going on that day. “It must be exciting to have so many creative things going on in your life,” she said.

It’s true. Days like Saturday are exciting, but they come with a cost. When I talk to fledging writers, storytellers, and other people involved in the arts, I’m always quick to remind them that days like Saturday are few and far between.

They account for about 1% of the job.

The other 99% of the job is a lot of hard, tedious, and lonely work.

“Caught in the Middle” was more than a year in the making. It involved writing, collaborating, rewriting, revising, and more rewriting. It was hundred of hours spent crafting scenes, integrating music, developing characters, and agonizing over plot. My writing partner, Andy, had to poke, prod, and cajole me to continue working.

It wasn’t easy.

My invitation to perform in The Liar Show was the result of almost three years of storytelling, including more than 40 appearances at The Moth and other storytelling shows and the launch of our own storytelling organization, Speak Up. Thousands of hours of work have made me the storyteller I am today and gave me the opportunity to perform on Saturday night.

I didn’t happen overnight.

I was reading Billy Crystal’s memoir, Still Foolin’ ‘Em, and learned that in order to pursue his career in comedy, he became a stay-at-home father in a time when that was exceptionally rare. When his wife arrived home from work in the evening, he would join her for dinner and prepare his set for later that night, sometimes writing and sometimes rehearsing.

Then at 10:00, he would embark on an hour long commute to New York City, hoping for a spot on the stage at Catch a Rising Star before 1:00 AM so that he could perform his ten minute routine.

Then he would return home by 2:00 or 3:00 and begin the routine again at 7:00 when his daughter awoke and his wife left for work.

Billy Crystal did not become the entertainer and star that he is today because he was talented. He worked exceptionally hard, made enormous sacrifices, dedicated his life to his dream, and was smart enough to marry a woman who supported that dream.

By the way, he sacrificed to find the right woman, too. He transferred colleges as a sophomore, leaving Marshall University, a baseball scholarship, and a chance to play the game he loved at the college level for Nassau Community College and later New York University after meeting his wife and knowing that a long distance relationship would probably not last.

Rather than risk losing the woman of his dreams, he gave up baseball to chase her down.

The man understood how to make sacrifices.

So yes, Saturday was a great day for me. I loved watching something that I had written performed onstage. Hearing my words in other people’s mouths is always thrilling and makes me want to write for the stage again.

And yes, performing alongside the likes of Ophira Eisenberg, Tracy Rowland, and Matthew Mercier at The Liar Show was thrilling, too. Simply being asked to perform in this popular and well-reviewed show was an honor.

But it was a long, long road to Saturday’s payoff. Many, many miles.

Too often, I think that writers, performers, and other people striving for a career in the arts see those 1% Saturdays and dream the dream, forgetting about the 99% (or worse, glamorizing the 99%) that is required to make those Saturdays a  reality.

The best moment on Saturday for me was a simple one. Standing off to the side, watching these teens and tweens perform the show, I caught sight of my daughter, sitting in the audience, watching my show with rapt attention. Bopping her head to the music. Smiling. Leaning forward in anticipation. Laughing at my jokes.

This was better than all the applause I received that day.

 

Truth

So many people think it’s fun. Precious. Joyous. Something they will do in retirement.  

No, it’s work. It’s great work, but it’s work.

Writers Abroad and perhaps a writing program for adults, too?

For the last month, Elysha and I have been designing a summer camp for young writers called Writers Abroad. The Hartford Courant recently ran a piece about it. As of this week, we’re pleased to announce that more than half of the spots have been filled and we’ve received inquires that may fill most of the remaining spots soon.

Fortunately, we’ve managed to do this without any actual advertising. 

Even more surprising, we’ve also started to hear from teachers, college professors, newspaper reporters and other professional writers who have heard about Writers Abroad and are offering to volunteer to teach at our camp.

We are thrilled.

I hesitated to write about the program here until I was certain that we could enroll enough students to move forward with the program. Now that this has become a reality, I’m writing about the program here in case you may know a student who is interested in filling one of our remaining spots. We are open to students ages 12-16, and the only requirement for enrollment is an interest in writing. Details on the program can be found below.

One more surprise: After hearing about the program, I’ve heard from at least a dozen adults who have asked if I would consider teaching a writing workshop for them. A couple actually asked if it would be possible to enroll in Writer’s Abroad.

The answer to that question was no.

Elysha and I already teach a storytelling workshops as a part of Speak Up, but the idea of teaching a writer’s workshop is intriguing. I’ve tried to join writer’s workshops in the area before but have always been greeted with a certain amount of disdain and distrust. I’ve been asked (in not-so-friendly-tones) questions like, “Why are you here if you already have books in stores?” and “How did you find an agent?” and “Who did you know in publishing?”

I’ve always come home feeling disappointed.

Instead of attempting to find a workshop that was willing to accept me, I  gathered a group of writers and friends who serve the same purpose. We don’t meet as a group, but I send them my work and receive critical feedback from each one. 

But teaching a writer’s workshop for adults? Though it had never occurred to me, it’s something that I might be interested in doing.

If you might be interested in enrolling in a writer’s workshop, please let me know. I’ll gauge interest level and determine if this is something I’d like to plan and execute at some point in the future.
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Writers Abroad

The Program

The goals of Writers Abroad are three-fold:

1. Provide students with authentic writing instruction, from conception to final revision, from professional writers and teachers via a model that guarantees the three most important components to any writer’s success: time, audience and choice.

2. Provide students with a variety of writing experiences in a wide range of genres, allowing them the opportunity to experiment with their voice in a number of formats.

3. Provide students with an understanding of the writing process and the business of writing from the perspective of a professional writer.

Writing Abroad is a four week writing camp running from July 7 to August 1. Classes will be held on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM.

Classes will be based in a conference room in the West Hartford Town Hall, but as much as possible, we will be using Blue Back Square and West Hartford Center as our classroom as well. We will take advantage of the library, the bookstore, coffee shops, restaurants, the movie theater and outdoor spaces in order to inspire and inform our writing. We will take advantage of the unique characteristics of each space in order to broaden our views of writing and begin to examine the world through the critical eye of a writer. It will also give students the ability to be outdoors while working on their craft, which we believe is essential given the time of year.

 

Students will write individually directed pieces based upon their interests and needs, including fiction, nonfiction, college essays, poems, songs and more. Idea generation will also be explored in depth, providing students with the chance to develop an extensive list of future writing ideas. They will receive individualized and small group instruction in regards to their own pieces and have many opportunities to workshop their writing with peers.

Students will also explore a variety of writing genres, using the unique environment of West Hartford Center and Blue Back Square as the impetus for much of this exploration.

Some examples include:

We will spend a morning reading food and restaurant reviews, and then we will eat lunch together and write our own reviews.

We will spend a morning reading film reviews, and then we’ll see a movie together and write our own film reviews.

We'll discuss screenwriting and visit with a screenwriter.

We'll learn about writing skits and plays and meet with a playwright.

We'll spend a morning learning about songwriting and meet with a songwriter.

We'll write personal narratives for the stage.

We'll tour the bookstore on more than one occasion, with different goals for each visit. We’ll identify popular and trending genres, discuss the marketing decisions involved in choosing cover art, examine the structure of picture books and much more.

We’ll spend time discussing the nuts and bolts of the publishing industry. We’ll examine the path that a book takes from the formation of an idea in the writer’s head to landing on an actual bookshelf. We’ll discuss the ways that writers and publishers earn income on books sold and discuss the growing world of self-publishing. We’ll also discuss the challenges and benefits of a career in writing and the best ways to prepare yourself for that career.

Most of all, we’ll be writing. Talking about writing. Critiquing writing. Revising writing. Presenting writing. Then writing some more. Students will choose topics for writing. We will suggest topics for writing. Fellow students will inspire topics for writing.

We will be capping the number of students in the camp at 12 in order to allow a great deal of personal attention but also the opportunity for collaboration and peer feedback. 

This small number will also allow for us to accept students with a range of writing abilities, though the desire to write is a must. Prospective students must have a passion for the craft, because the expectation is that we will be writing a lot. While our goal is to inspire students to write, they should arrive with some personal desire as well.

We are accepting students ages 12-16.

The cost of the camp is $1,200.

The Instructors:

Matthew Dicks is a published author, first with Doubleday Broadway and currently with St. Martin's Press. He has three novels in bookstores now and a fourth due out at the end of this year. His most recent book, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, has been translated into more than 25 languages worldwide and is an international bestseller. He has published work in The Hartford Courant, The Huffington Post, Education Leadership, The Christian Science Monitor and more. 

He is the co-writer of The Clowns, a rock opera that was produced for The Playhouse on Park in 2013 and is currently being considered for a New York theater festival, as well as The Tweets, which will be produced in July at a local summer camp.

Matthew has been teaching for the last 15 years and is a former West Hartford Teacher of the Year and finalist for Connecticut Teacher of the Year. In addition to teaching, he has conducted writing workshops for middle school, high school and adult students via colleges, museums and bookstores. He also tutors middle and high school students in writing and a variety of other subjects. 

Matthew is also a professional storyteller and public speaker. He’s a 10-time Moth StorySLAM champion who tells stories for organizations like The Moth, The Story Collider, Celebrity Death Match, The Mouth and many more.

_____________________________________

Elysha Dicks has been a teacher for 13 years. She began her career at Solomon Schechter Day School in West Hartford, Connecticut and later moved onto Henry A. Wolcott School, also in West Hartford. She has taught third and fifth grades and has also worked at a district reading tutor.

Elysha has a Master’s degree in educational technology and is the founder of Green Ink, an in-school design studio where students utilized Photoshop and other software applications in order to design and produce print and digital work for teachers and administrators in the school.

Elysha spent six years co-directing Tributes: productions based upon the lives of historical figures who made positive contributions toward ridding the world of hatred and discrimination. The program stressed teamwork and challenged the students to take the lessons of the past to rise above bigotry and injustice in their own lives.  

Together, Matthew and Elysha are the founders and producers of Speak Up, a Hartford-based storytelling organization that works to bring storytelling to the Hartford region in junction with Real Art Ways. Speak Up produces storytelling shows six times a year and conducts ongoing workshops on the art of storytelling.
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Matthew will be teaching classes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. He will be joined on Fridays (and other days as well) by Elysha Dicks for a more concentrated, intensive day of individual and peer conferencing.

If you are interested in registering for the camp or have any questions, please email us at matthewdicks@gmail.com.

My uninspired work space

The New York Times recently featured the workspace of five writers, including a photo of each.

I’ve always felt a little envious of writers and their workspace, since mine is often the dining room table and the commotion that surrounds it:

The children, the pets, the wife, the television in the next room, the phone, the sounds of cooking from the adjacent kitchen, the buzzing, ringing and beeping of modern-day toys and the constantly encroaching detritus of everyday life.

I try to escape to libraries and similar locations from time to time, but most often, it’s the dining room.

The Hartford Courant photographer came by a couple years ago to take a photo for a story about my most recent book and captured my writing space perfectly: 

The photographer asked me to show him my office, and I pointed at the table. He loved it. I told him that I would move my son and clean off the toys, mail, and other random objects on the table, but he said, “No, I love it. Just like this.”

“Sure,” I said. “It’ll make a great photo, but try writing like this.”

In reading the New York Times piece, I was happy to see that novelist Mona Simpson has a space similar to my own. After attempting to write in an office, she eventually reverted back to her home. The photograph is of her kitchen table, not unlike my own, but she also writes throughout her house.

Now I write at home. I revised the last 11 drafts, red-penciled the copy editing and marked the first-pass galleys at different places in the house; sitting on the floor next to the heating vent, on my bed, at the kitchen table, leaning back in my chair with my feet up on the desk.

Her kitchen looks a lot neater than my dining room table, but perhaps her two children are older and less destructive. Perhaps she was also smart enough to tidy up before the photographer arrived.

Either way, it was nice to see I’m not the only writer without a dedicated office filled with books, art, well appointed furniture, and an expansive view through a picture-perfect window.

Still, despite my success at the dining room table, I’d like to have an office someday. Perhaps like Simpson, I would ultimately reject it in favor of what I know, but I’m willing to give it a shot. It would be rather innovative to be able to write five whole sentences without a child asking me to play, a wife asking for a favor or a dog scratching for a bone.

Perhaps it would ruin my writing process and damage my creative process, but I'm willing to risk it. At least for a while.

A guy can dream.

A humble offer to Dunkin’ Donuts

I don’t drink coffee. I rarely eat donuts.

Even still, I’d like to humbly offer my services to Dunkin’ Donuts, a business that has six locations (no exaggeration) within one mile of my home (also no exaggeration).

I watched this commercial last night, waiting for the irony… the moment when the commercial would turn on itself and make fun of its own stupidity, except that never happened.

Someone actually wrote this, filmed it and broadcast it, thinking it was good. Thinking it would make viewers want to purchase Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. 

Dunkin’ Donuts chieftains, I promise you this:

I will write 50 commercials better than this one. Maybe 100. I realize that I am establishing a low bar based upon the mediocrity I witnessed tonight, but I will exceed that bar y a wide margin. I promise.

Make me an offer. Seriously. Make me an offer.

Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks determined the plot. My characters do the same.

From an interview with Judd Apatow, I learned that the characters and plot for Freaks and Geeks (a television show I never watched) were designed around actors.

First they found their actors. Then they developed the stories based upon those people. Their predispositions. Their predilections. Their personal histories.

I’m fascinated by this. 

Similarly, the plots of my books are very much determined by my characters. I find the characters (usually a single protagonist), and then the characters strike out and find the plot.

I just write, hoping that they will find a plot sooner than later.

It’s worked so far. In fact, the only book that I started with plot rather than character first was the book that required the most revision.

Most of my novels were exceptionally light edits. Ready to go.

It turns out that if I take Judd Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks approach and allow my characters to dictate the story, things work out better.

Great even.

How strange. It’s almost as if the more control we relinquish over plot, the better our stories will be.

No one taught me that in college.  

I may not be an author yet, but I write like one.

I’ve published three novels since 2009. All three were sold internationally, including the most recent, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, which has been translated into 25 languages worldwide and is an international bestseller.

All three of my novels have been optioned for television or film.

My next novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, is in the final stages of revision with my editor.

I’ve even co-written a rock opera that was produced at a local theater last year.

Despite this success, I still don’t think of myself as an accomplished author. I feel like I have much to prove. I consider myself a rookie. A newbie. Possibly a pretender.

Maybe this is something all writers go through. I often wonder how many books I will need to publish before I don’t feel odd referring to myself as an author.

Oddly enough, it’s often not the success of any of my books that makes me feel most akin to other authors, but instead the discovery that we have something in common in terms of the craft.  

I read some facts about other authors much better than me recently that gave me hope that I might also be a real author, or at least I might begin thinking about myself as a real author.

Agatha Christie never owned a desk. She wrote 80 novels and 19 plays wherever she could sit down.

I own a desk in an unheated, insulated “office” off my living room. In the winter, the room is literally freezing. I don’t think I have ever written a single word of fiction while sitting at that desk. 

I do much of my writing on my dining room table, but I also write in libraries, bookstores, my children’s bedrooms, fast food restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, public transportation, the teacher’s lunchroom  and any other place that I can find.

I’m always amused by the writer who tells me that he or she can only write in a well appointed coffee shop while drinking a hazelnut latte. I’ve met many, many writers who claim that they can only under of specific conditions at specific times, but I have yet to meet a published author with such rigid requirements.

Stephen King writes every day of the year and aims for a goal of 2000 words each day.

I don’t have a daily word goal, mostly because I am often dividing my writing between two or three books plus this blog and another (and various other projects), so counting words would be hard.

But I have written every single day of my life for at least ten years, including my wedding day, every day of my honeymoon, and on the days that both of my children were born.

In fact, I worked on my second novel, Unexpectedly, Milo, in between my wife’s contractions in the delivery room.

When Anthony Trollope finished writing one book, he immediately started another. Henry James did the same thing.

When I finished my first novel, Something Missing, I resolved to take a three month break from writing and begin the process of finding an agent. I typed the final word of the book on a Saturday afternoon, closed the document, sat for about 30 seconds, pondering my next move, and then opened a new Word document and began my next book.

I have done the same for every book since.

The kid has a data driven writing process

Last year I spoke at a local library about by books and writing. Sitting front and center in the first row was a young man who wants to be a writer. He was on the edge of his seat, ready to absorb all that I had to say. He listened intently, asked lots of questions and at the end of his talk, he introduced himself to me.

His name is Caleb.

Since that day, Caleb has sent me some of his work from time to time, and when I have the chance, I will read it and send him back some feedback. He’s young, but he’s already showing the signs of a promising writing career.

He has chops.

Almost as important, he’s polite. He’s social adept. He understands that a teacher/author/wedding DJ/father/husband/minister/storyteller gets busy and sometimes can’t read everything.

I can’ tell you how many adult writers do not understand this.

Recently he sent me a series of graphs that display his writing production. On the right side of the first graph is his projected word count, and along the bottom of the graph is the timespan that he has been recording data.

He has labeled the three colors on the graph so you can see each color represents.

The writer in me loves his “projected word count if not for school.”

The teacher in me is less enamored with it.

I also love the “winter break comeback” label. As a writer and a teacher, I understand a winter break comeback very well. I often live and die by the winter break comeback. 

This second graph shows the daily word production.

I’m not sure if Caleb is going to become a bestselling author someday, but I know that he is committed to the craft. I also know that he is taking an approach to writing that I don’t see often amongst writers:

The kid is being honest with himself. The kid is being opaque about his productivity. The kid is using data and accountability to drive his word count. 

Absent a boss or supervisor, he is using data and graphs to meet his goals.

It doesn’t mean his writing is great, but in my experience, the more you write, the better you get.

Caleb has chops, and he’s only getting better, one data point at a time.

Watch The Rolling Stones write “Sympathy for the Devil”

I have always wanted to sit quietly beside a writer and watch him or her work for a few days. I’m fascinated by a writer’s process, and I often wonder if writers are applying their craft in the same way I do.

Actually, I’ve wanted to do the same thing for editors.

Are they applying their red pen with the sinister grins and diabolical laughter that I envision?

Probably.

This video doesn’t show the kind of writing that I had in mind, but it might be better. A documentarian filmed The Rolling Stones as they were writing “Sympathy for the Devil” and captured their process in full.

I’ve watched it twice already. Completely fascinating. 

Naissance de "Sympathy for the devil " (one+one... by cinocheproduction

A writer’s worst enemy

The plan was to spend the afternoon in the library, toiling away at the manuscript. But as I was packing the laptop, this was happening, which means that progress on my book ceased around 1:30.

I’ll regret the lost time in a few days when I am pecking away into the wee hours of the morning, attempting to polish a modicum of perfection from an ugly slab of granite, but at the moment, I don’t regret a damn thing.

   

My daughter’s first manuscript

My daughter can only form a handful of letters from the alphabet, but she started writing her first book after being inspired by the television show Max and Ruby.

Television promoting the written word. Who knew?

In a strange turn of events, however, she insisted on writing the words herself and asked me to draw the pictures.

She clearly doesn’t understand her father’s skill set at all.

 

A genius author and I have something in common. I’m not quite the hack that I thought I was.

Tom Perrota, author most recently of The Leftovers (which is about to become an HBO series), is a far better writer than me, but it would seem that he and I have something in common. When it comes to choosing the settings of his novels, Perrota tends to choose the locales that he is most familiar.

From a recent Wall Street Journal interview:

It's just laziness. This is what's right in front of me. I've chosen to live there. I've never been the kind of writer who goes off in search of a book.

I have often said that with all the stuff that I have to make up in order to write a novel, why would I spend time inventing a place when there are perfectly good places all around me?

As a result, all three of my novels are set within just a few miles of my home.

Is this laziness? Absolutely. But it turns out that Tom Perrota does this, too, and for essentially the same reason.

I feel like slightly less of a hack today.

Left handers rejoice! Ink smears be gone!

My friend (and fictional character), Mrs. Gosk, has a tradition of giving me a new pen at the onset of every new school year.

This year she has outdone herself, introducing me to a product that I did not know existed. 

 

To think that I could’ve spent my childhood free of the smear of ink that could always be found on the side of my left hand.  

Kids have it so good these day.

Can’t find the time to write?

When people tell me they don't have enough time to write, I tell them to throw a trashcan through the window of a bank or airport.

– Dan Kennedy, author of Rock On: An Office Power Ballad (which I recommend in audio form), American Spirit, which is sitting on my shelf, and Loser Goes First, which I just discovered while writing this post. 

  

My wife played an enormous role in my recent Moth StorySLAM victory. Here’s how.

On Tuesday night I told a story at a Moth StorySLAM at Housing Works in New York City and was fortunate enough to win.

On Facebook and Twitter, I expressed gratitude to my wife for the role she played in helping me to craft the story. A lot of people responded with  questions like “How does that work?” and “What did she do to help?” and “Did you perform for her in the living room?”

They were genuinely curious about how we collaborate on projects like this, so I thought I’d explain a little bit about how Elysha and I work.

Let me begin by saying that I am fortunate to have someone as involved in my creative life as my wife. My friend, Kim, has always said that the most important decision you will ever make in life is your choice of spouse.

She couldn’t be more correct. Not only is Elysha willing to be involved, but she is skilled and intelligent in her approach to creativity, too. So much of my success is the result of her influence on my work. 

I have won a total of 5 Moth StorySLAMs during my two years of storytelling, and Elysha has been involved in 4 of those victories (and many, many second place finishes). In one instance, she actually convinced me to change the story I was planning to tell about five hours before the show. I thought she was crazy, but she was adamant. After some moments of indecision, I took her advice and prepared an entirely different story during my lunch break.

And I won. It was probably the best story I’ve ever told.

I’ve learned to listen to m wide whenever possible.

The theme of Tuesday’s StorySLAM  was Summer. My story was about a doomed romance during the summer of 1993.

I didn’t perform the story for Elysha in the truest sense of the word because I don’t memorize my stories. They are always true stories from my own life, so I don’t worry about getting lost or mixed-up during my performance. I actually did these things, so I should damn well remember what happened.

I also like the organic nature of storytelling that comes from a story that is not memorized or overly prepared. It allows me to make adjustments on stage, pushing or pulling back on certain aspects of the story based up audience reaction. If the humor isn’t playing well, I can shift to the heart. If the audience thinks I’m hilarious, I can take some risks and push the humor even more.

In at least two instances, I found entirely different and much better endings to my stories in the midst of telling them. In one case, I returned to my seat and Elysha asked if I’d been keeping the real ending to the story a secret from her for some reason.

“No,” I said. “I found it while I was up there.”

At another non-Moth performance, I found a way of turning a sad ending into a funny one. The producer of the show, who had vetted my story beforehand and knew it well, was backstage and not really listening to my performance. When the audience erupted into laughter and I turned to leave the stage, she asked, “What happened?”

“I found a better ending,” I told her.

Had I relied on memorization, I don’t think either of these moments of unexpected discovery could’ve happened.

As a result, every time I tell a story, it sounds a little different, so performing for Elysha in the living room would be silly and unproductive.

It would make me feel silly, too.

But even without memorization, I do have some strategies to get me through the story:

• I find important transition points in stories and memorize those specific sentences so I have stepping stones to the end.
• I find moments of potential humor and try to find the funniest way of delivering those lines.
• I memorize my first 2-3 sentences of my story.
• I try to memorize my last line of my story, though that last line often changes while onstage.    

I don’t write my stories down anymore, and I don’t time them before the performance. Writing them down has become unnecessary. If I simply run through the story in my mind dozens of times and consistently hit those stepping stones, I’m much better prepared than if I had a sheet of paper in front of me.

The Moth’s 5 minute time limit stressed me out when I started telling stories, but after two years, I’ve developed an innate sense of what a 5 minute story sounds like, and since I don’t memorize the story, I can always edit the story if needed once I receive the first warning bell.

I do almost all my thinking about my stories in the shower now. It sounds crazy, but it’s where I do my best work. It takes about a week’s worth of showering to finalize my story in my mind, and only then do I tell Elysha the story, usually while I am driving.

It makes me feel less self-conscious than simply staring at her and telling the story at the kitchen table. 

But rather than telling her the story, I speak about the story aloud. I start to tell the story, usually getting through the first few lines, but then I stop in order to explain what I’m trying to achieve with a specific line or bit of detail, and I ask her to think about whether or not it’s working. Or she stops me to ask a question or comment on something. I think through my story as I tell it to her, including her on the internal debates I’ve been having over how to deliver a line, how to transition through time or space, and what to add or remove. I rarely tell her the story straight through.

Instead, I tell and we talk. Stop-and-go. Simultaneously.

Elysha doesn’t hold back. She doesn’t attempt to be gentle. She doesn’t equivocate. Her comments are often pointed and opinionated. It hurts, but it helps. It's tough medicine.

All of the work we did for Tuesday’s story was done in the car during our 3 hour drive to the city. Until we climbed into the car, she had almost no idea about the story I planned to tell.

Elysha eliminated two sections of detail in the beginning of the story that were unnecessary and slowed things down. I was overly attached to one section because it represented a bit of personal suffering, but it wasn’t needed. A woe-is-me moment. 

I thought the other section was funny. She disagreed.

Ironically, Elysha almost never laughs at any of my stories while we are working on them. Based upon her initial reactions, none of my stories are amusing in any way. She may say that something is funny, but the actual laugh does not come until I am performing onstage.

This can be disconcerting, but I’ve learned to accept it.

She also identified two key lines in the story and transformed them into stepping stones for me. One line summarized my thoughts on an issue succinctly, and she thought the other was both insightful and funny. She thought both lines were important and should not be dropped, so I committed them to memory. 

She also found the all-important last sentence of the story, which I had been struggling with all week. Much of storytelling is decision-making. What to tell and what to leave out?

In this case, the question as where to end my story.

Do I end my story here, or do I tell my audience about what happened during the following week as well? Or the following month? 

I ran through the ending several times with her, trying a variety of approaches, and when finally I hit upon the right line, she knew it immediately. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s the last line. Stop there.”

She was right.

She also identified areas where I could emphasize the theme of the night better. In truth, she tried to convince me to change my story completely. Since I spent most of my childhood summers at Boy Scout camp, she didn’t understand why I hadn’t chosen any of the dozens of stories I have from my years at Yawgoog Scout Reservation. I went so far as to tell her one of my camp stories in the car and nearly switched to it before deciding to stick to my guns and tell the story that I had prepared. 

In this case, I was right and she was wrong. This almost never happens.

These minor changes made an enormous difference in my story. They allowed me to maintain momentum onstage. They kept the story focused on only those elements that were important to the narrative. They eliminated unfunny bits that would’ve fallen flat. They kept the story under the 5 minute time limit without the need for any onstage editing.

Most important, she helped me end my story at just the right moment.

That, in considerably less than a nutshell, is how we work.

Had Elysha been here when I wrote this post, I’m sure she could’ve made it better, too.

Where do you get your ideas?

I am often asked where I get the inspiration and ideas for my stories, especially considering that I’m fortunate enough to have so many ideas from which to choose.

A few years ago I wrote a post explaining my process. Since I continue to be asked this question almost more than any other, I thought I’d update that post here. I’ve completed two more books and a short story since then, so I have more to share on the subject. 

It’s rally the kind of question that is impossible to answer with a single sentence, because I never know when I might stumble upon an idea that could make a great book. I tend to be the kind of person who asks a lot of “What if?” questions, and through these questions, many of my ideas are born.

But since that is a relatively meaningless answer, I thought I’d give you some specific examples of how some of my stories were born.

SOMETHING MISSING: Over dinner several years ago, a friend bemoaned the loss of one of her earrings. She opened her jewelry box and could only find one of the two earrings that made up the pair.

In an attempt to make her smile, I asked, “What if someone broke into your house and stole your earring but left the other one behind so you wouldn’t suspect theft?” As I gnawed on a dinner roll, I found myself trying to imagine the kind of person who would break into every home in America and steal just one earring from every woman’s jewelry box.

Although I didn’t know it at the time, that was the moment that Martin Railsback and his story were born.

UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO:  For a long time, I wanted to be a film director.  At one point I had the idea for a movie in which three less-than-savory characters steal a video camera from a family on vacation in New York City.  After watching the videotapes in the privacy of their cockroach-infested apartment, the trio realizes that the memories captured on the videotape mean more to the family than they could have ever imagined, and they decide to return the tapes to their owners. They watch the footage in order to glean clues as to the owner’s identity, and in doing so, they become uncommonly attached to the family as a result. This idea served as the basis for UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO.

However, I also dipped into my own life for major pieces of the plot, including:

The separation and divorce from my first wife in 2003.

The two months spent in fourth grade helping a friend plan his escape to an uncle’s house in the Midwest. Chris wanted to run away from home, something he had done before, and though he never made the journey that we planned in the back of the classroom, I often wondered what might’ve happened if Chris had run away from home and had disappeared in the process. How would I have felt knowing that I had a hand in my friend’s disappearance, and how might that have impacted the rest of my life?

This became a major plot point in the story.

CHICKEN SHACK (an unpublished manuscript): There was once a potato chip factory in my hometown of Blackstone, Massachusetts that produced a brand of potato chips called Blackstone Potato Chips. The factory closed years ago, and on a trip back to Blackstone, I noted that the factory was now a funeral home. “Wouldn’t it be great if they still sold potato chips and embalmed dead people at the same time?” I said to my wife as we drove by. A moment later, the idea of a funeral home that also sells fried chicken landed in my mind and CHICKEN SHACK was  born.

Once again, I dipped into my own personal life for other key elements to the story, including:

The disappearance of my brother, Jeremy, who I had not seen for more than five years after my mother died.

A public, and in the words of many attorneys and law enforcement officers, unprecedented attack on my character and reputation by an anonymous source several years ago.

My occasional forays into amusing and ultimately meaningless forms of vigilante justice, mostly as a teenager but occasionally as an adult.

MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND:  This book began with a simple conversation with my student-teacher about an imaginary friend that I had as a child. In the span of about four sentences, the idea for Budo and his story was born.

I also managed to take advantage of my experience with autistic children when writing my book, and on an unconscious level, my constant, persistent existential crisis became a key element in the story as well. 

THE PERFECT COMEBACK OF CAROLINE JACOBS: My next book began with a conversation that my wife and I had in bed one night. We were talking about her childhood home, and she told me about something cruel that a friend had said to her during a sleepover.

“Wouldn’t it be great if you could find that girl today and finally tell her off?” I asked.

Just like that, the book was born. 

My next book is the story of a woman who suffered at the hands of a bully in high school, and much later in life, decides to finally do something about it. I used some of the bullying and hazing that I experienced in high school as inspiration, but most of the story was born from that simple question asked to my wife while lying in bed one night.    

BETTY BOOP:  The idea for this manuscript, which I am still tinkering with on the side, was born after reading about a 2009 law outlawing prostitution in the state of Rhode Island.  Prostitution was actually legal in Rhode Island between 1980 and 2009 because there was no specific statute to define the act and outlaw it, although associated activities, such as street solicitation, running a brothel, and pimping, were still illegal. With the passing of the 2009 law banning prostitution, I found myself wondering what a prostitute in Rhode Island might do now that his or her previously legal means of earning a living were suddenly forbidden. I came up with an solution for my theoretical prostitute, and that is the basis for this book.

Farewell to Arms: I recently wrote a short story that is currently under submission to several literary journals. It is an uncharacteristically dark story of an armless soccer team.

It was written on a dare.

Someone at work commented that soccer is so popular around the world because you don't need anything to play. Even a crumbled-up bit of newspaper can serve as a ball.

"You don't even need arms," I said. "That would be a story. Huh? A soccer team with no arms."

"Even you couldn't write that story," my friend said. 

I took up the challenge and wrote the story in three days.

The friends who have read the story like it a lot. I’m waiting to see if the literary magazines agree. 

Writers are lucky. Not special.

It’s always fun to act self-important, grandiose, battle tested and imposed upon, but Ray Bradbury was right.

Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun with it. Ignore the authors who say ‘Oh, my God, what word? Oh, Jesus Christ…’, you know. Now, to hell with that. It’s not work. If it’s work, stop and do something else.

The two best pieces of writing advice that Roger Ebert ever received

I’m listening to Roger Ebert’s memoir and loving every minute of it.

 

The two best pieces of writing advice that he was ever given (forgive me for forgetting the source) is advice that I can get behind wholeheartedly.

1. Don't wait for inspiration. Just start the damn thing. 
2. Once you begin keep on until the end. How are you supposed to know where to begin until you see where the story is going?

Ebert was known for being one of the fastest and more prolific writers in the business, but he contended that he was no faster than anyone else.

“I just spend less time not writing.”

I try to live my life by this principle.

I wrote a poem. I need a critique. Please help.

I wrote a poem about my son today. I’ve been working on it for three days, including about an hour this morning. I’m ready to hear what people think.

Suggestions?

The second line was especially troubling for me (I’ve written it about three dozen ways), as was the transition from the second line into the third line.

I also need a title.  I have many options. I like none of them.

______________________________________

Untitled

Watching my baby boy crawl across the polished kitchen floor,
low to the ground like a Marine traversing a field of barbed wire, 
thinking he’s making his way to me,
his Daddy. 
only to realize that his target
was the rogue Cheerio
on the floor beside my sneaker.