When do I write? In the cracks between my toddler’s poops and my wife’s contractions.

Two years ago, I spoke at a nursing home about my most recent novel.

I take any gig that I can get.

In a sparsely furnished basement room, standing in front of a 78-inch television, I read a little bit from my book, told a few stories, described my writing process and watched as the smattering of men in the audience all nodded off almost simultaneously.

At the end of my talk, an elderly woman approached and told me that she had an “amazing story that will someday make a great book.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eighty-seven,” the woman replied.

“Then shouldn’t you start writing your book today,” I asked. “You could be dead tomorrow.”

This remark earned me an angry glare from the woman and a punch in the arm from my wife, who was standing beside me, but I stand by my statement. That old lady needed to get writing immediately if she ever hoped to finish her book.

She’s probably dead today. More importantly, she’s almost certainly unpublished.

This was not the first time someone has spoken to me about their desire to write without any actual writing to show for it. These future literary giants, who I call someday-writers, are filled with excuses as to why they are not writing.

Some assure me that they are awaiting retirement, a sabbatical or their child’s graduation before beginning the great American novel.

Others blame their delay on location, claiming they can only apply pen to paper in a non-franchised, locally owned coffee shop while sipping organic cappuccino and listening to the soothing sounds of Nora Jones unplugged.

Still others assert that they can only write on a Macbook Air, a Moleskine journal or a yellow legal pad.

These are not writers. These are romantics captivated by the false trappings of an authorial career. They idealize the writing process because the one thing they know about writing is that it’s hard and therefore assume it requires the ideal conditions.

I write in the cracks of my life. The spaces between work and family. I can often be found sitting at the kitchen table, typing with one hand while balancing my eight month old son on my lap and keeping one eye on my four year old daughter, who is sitting on the toilet, straining to make a poop while watching Max and Ruby on the iPad. Though long, uninterrupted afternoons in idyllic pastoral settings would be an ideal way to write, this is unrealistic for most writers.

For so many of us, we write wherever and whenever we can.

Nothing epitomizes this reality better than the day my daughter was born.

My wife, Elysha, and I arrived at the hospital at midnight. Her water had broken but she was not yet dilated.

I still don’t know what dilated means, and please don’t tell me. The less I know about the lady bits, the better.

After being assigned our room, I was ordered to eat Jello in the lobby while my wife was given an epidural, and then she went to sleep for six hours. With pain medication onboard, Elysha slept soundly. I was provided with an arcane, back-breaking torture device upon which to sleep, so rather than suffering, I opened up the laptop and began writing.

Nurses came in and out of the room throughout the night to check on my wife, giving me odd looks and sidelong glances when they saw me sitting in the corner, pecking away, but Elysha didn’t mind a bit. In fact, during one of these checks, she awoke, turned to me and asked, “What are you working on?”

“Milo,” I said, referencing my manuscript.

“Good,” she said. “Keep working.”

I did.

Eventually it was time for Elysha to push. A nurse told me to grab a leg and refrain from passing out. I complied, but during the first hour of pushing, the contractions were spaced far apart and a monitor alerted us to when each contraction was coming. Rather than wasting precious time, I rolled back and forth across the room on a wheeled stool between contractions, from my pregnant, panting, ready-to-pop wife to my laptop and back.

The nurses didn’t appreciate this one bit.

But this is how writers write. We are either writing or waiting for that next moment to write. And these moments rarely happen at a handmade butcher block table in a fair trade coffee shop at the corner of Trendy and Hip Streets.

Writing happens in the mess of our lives, in the cracks between poops and contractions.

The majesty and utility of the Baby Mum Mum

When I’m desperately trying to squeeze out a few more sentences of my manuscript and Charlie is demanding my attention, I can always depend on a Baby Mum Mum, a tasteless rice treat, to give me the the few more minute that I need to finish.

Charlie loves Baby Mum Mums. 

Unfortunately, he’s so damn cute while eating his Baby Mum Mum that I often can’t focus on the manuscript. 

Recent editorial comments

In working on a short piece of nonfiction with my editor, I was recently offered the following comments:

“Much too self-effacing. People are going to think you’re Canadian.”

“Incredibly stiff. Not your voice at all.”

“Wiffle. Waffle. Adds nothing.”

I’ve always appreciated the direct approach.

My editor, who I adore, embraces it.

My son is not a USB device

I do a lot of writing with my infant son on my lap.

Yesterday he was chewing on the cord that connects my phone to the laptop. Unbeknownst to me, he eventually worked his way up to the end of the cord and placed the connecter in his mouth.

I immediately received a warning message on the bottom right of my screen.

Here is a closer view of the warning.

While my son is not a USB device, I give my laptop credit for realizing that whatever was interacting with the cord was not normal.

Lessons and observations from a week of The Clowns.

This evening we will meet to discuss the future of The Clowns, the rock opera that my co-writer and I have spent the last five years writing. With two weeks to reflect on the workshop process that brought The Clowns to the stage for the first time, I had some final thoughts:

1. When collaborating on a project, I strongly suggest that you find a partner who is considerably nicer than you and is willing to put forth 100% effort while gladly accepting 60% from you. It is an ideal situation.

2. When given the freedom and encouragement, actors are like writers without keyboards.

3. Similarly, directors are like editors without red pens. They, however, do not require the encouragement and simply assume the freedom.

4. Watching actors say lines that you wrote and become the characters that you envisioned while listening to the audience around you laugh and gasp and applaud is just as good as seeing your novel on a bookstore shelf.

5. I’ve acted before and thought this while doing so, but two weeks of rehearsals and performances confirmed it: Acting is a form of collaborative, non-competitive sport with much of the physicality of athletics and all of the pressure of a championship game on the line. 

Author Jarrett Krosoczka wins over my students in less than 20 minutes. I’m STILL trying to win them over.

I played this video for my students last week as part of our Writer’s Workshop, and they were overwhelmed with inspiration.

Literally.

They were blown away by author and illustrator Jarrett' Krosoczka’s ability to overcome difficult childhood circumstances while remaining positive. They couldn’t stop talking about the degree to which he dedicated himself to his craft at such an early age. Some of them pulled notebooks from their desks and started writing the novels and children’s books the instant the video ended.

One of my students referred to Krosoczka as his newest hero, which I found mildly disconcerting considering  he has yet to refer to me in those terms.

Whatever.

Another student said, “Mr. Dicks, you need to show us more stuff like this.”

I’d like to, but there simply aren’t that many Jarrett Krosoczkas in the world. But I assured my student that I’d keep my eyes open. 

Is this a new and innovative way of writing a novel, or am I simply being stupid again?

I’m slowly becoming obsessed with an idea that I stumbled upon during the weekend  performances of our rock opera, The Clowns.

After workshopping the production for two weeks with the actors, director and my writing partner, the show has evolved in ways I could have never imagined.   

Most surprising for me was the way in which the actors have informed my vision of the characters. In less than two weeks, these characters have become more compelling, fully realized beings, and much of this progress was the result of the talent and insight of the actors portraying them. From improved dialogue to newfound aspects to a character’s personality to invented backstory to something as simple as the way a character walks and moves, these skilled and thoughtful professionals have provided me with an enormous amount of material for future revisions.

In many ways, they have come to know the characters better than me, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve stolen so much from each one of them already, and I hope to continue to do so as we move forward.

As a novelist, I suddenly find myself wishing that I could have professionals like these performing each of the scenes in my manuscript as I finish them. I fear that there is so much more that I could learn about my characters if I could involve actors in the writing process.

This is the idea that has consumed me for the last few days.

Maybe I should give this a try. If I choose the right book idea, with a small enough number of characters (my books tend to be sparsely populated already) and a relatively uncomplicated setting, it might be possible for me to work with a group of improvisational actors and a director to inform my writing process. 

At the minimum, it would be something new, and even if it failed to inform my writing in the ways that I am envisioning, it couldn’t hurt the process.  I often think the publishing industry should be looking for more ways to innovate our product. Perhaps this could be one of those ways,   

Of course, I’d need enough money to keep professional actors on staff during the writing process, but maybe Kickstarter could help.

Would readers be willing to fund a project like this in return for a signed first edition of the novel (signed by the author and the actors) plus complete video footage of each of the scenes as performed by the actors involved?

Is there something else that I might be able to offer as part of a Kickstarter package that readers would enjoy? Maybe a copy of the initial draft of each chapter followed by the revised copy of the chapter after having watched the scene portrayed by the actors? 

I would love your thoughts on this idea. I’ve been prone to falling in love with some unlikely, unreasonable, unfeasible ideas in the past, and if this is just another one of them, please let me know.

Save me from myself.

But if you think it has merit and have any ideas to add to it, please let me know. that as well.

I never know what I’m actually writing about

Long after I finished writing my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, I discovered, only after my wife and therapist pointed it out to me, that I had written a book about my battles with post traumatic stress disorder, my hatred toward my evil step-father and my longing for my absent father.

I didn’t know any of these things while actually writing the book. These revelations were only pointed out to me much later.

Upon finishing my second novel, UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO, I discovered that I had written a book about the challenges that I’ve faced throughout my life as a result of refusing to conform. Though readers might think me crazy, it turns out that the most noble character in that story (at least for me) is Louis the Porn Fiend, a character who my agent suggested I cut and who only appears in one chapter. Louis’s nobility derives from his willingness to remain true to himself, even though the world around him may be repulsed by this essential truth.

As Budo says in MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, “You have to be the bravest person in the world to go out every day, being yourself, when no one likes who you are.”

In the process of writing MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, I discovered that I was actually writing about my obsession with mortality and my near-constant existential fear as a result of two near death experiences and a robbery at gunpoint. In fact, an armed robbery takes place in the book, but while writing the scene, it never occurred to me that I might actually be writing about my own experience and the fear still surrounding it.

Books can be funny this way. You think you’re writing about one thing and you’re actually writing about something entirely different.

It turns out that playwriting is the same.

While watching last night’s performance of The Clowns, I wondered why Jake, the play’s protagonist/antagonist, appeals to me so much when so many audience members expressed dislike and even hatred toward the character following the previous show. His likability has been a question that I’ve been considering for quite a while, and the answer finally struck me like a load of bricks last night during the first act.

Jake is me when I was his age.

The Jake who I wrote is far cooler than I ever was, and the actor playing the role is even cooler than the character written on the page, but at his heart, Jake represents someone who I once was, and in that instant, I understood the character completely and knew that needed to be done to mitigate the loathing that audience members felt for him and develop him further.

This couldn’t have happened had not the actor, Richard Hollman, not fully  inhabited the character to the degree he has. I don’t think I will ever think of Jake without thinking of Rich. There may be other actors who play the role of Jake someday, but in my mind, Jake will always be Rich, and Rich will always be Jake. It was only through his performance that I was able to truly see the character, and in many ways, see myself.

All this probably sounds a little hokey (and I agree), but I can’t adequately express how stunned I felt when this realization finally dawned upon me. Not only did the character of Jake become instantly clear to me like never before, but I suddenly understood myself in ways I had never even approached. 

It was an honest-to-goodness moment of epiphany.

Once again, I find myself thinking that I am writing about one thing when in reality, I am writing about another.

I should stop being surprised, but I can’t. It’s so bizarre.

Writing is a strange gig. I often say that I get paid for making up stuff in my head, and while this may be true to some extent, it turns out that writing is far more complex and mysterious than it ever seems.

At least for me. 

Opening night for The Clowns! And perhaps a new way of writing fiction?

Opening night of our rock opera, The Clowns, was a huge success. Over the last eight days, the actors, musicians and director have taken our original vision and brought it do life, and in the process, the show has become so much more complete.

Most surprising for me has been the way in which the actors have informed my vision of the characters. In less than two weeks, each of them have used the script and score to develop their characters into more compelling, fully realized beings. From improved dialogue to newfound aspects to a character’s personality and backstory to something as simple as the way a character walks, the actors have provided me with an enormous amount of material for future revisions.

In many ways, they have come to know these characters better than me. I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve stolen so much from each one of them and plan on doing so much more.

As a novelist, I suddenly find myself wishing that I could have professionals like these performing each of the scenes in my manuscript. I fear that there is so much more that I could learn about my characters if I could involve actors in the process.

Perhaps someday I might give this a try.

Of course, I’ll need enough money to keep professional actors on staff during the writing process, but there is always hoping.

Actually, maybe Kickstarter could help. Would readers be willing to fund a project like this in return for a signed first edition of the novel (signed by rhe author and the actors) plus complete video footage of each of the scenes as performed by the actors involved?

The more I think about it, the more interested I become. 

Our second show kicks off tonight 8:00 PM tonight at The Playhouse on Park. If you’re local and would like to attend, please call the Playhouse on Park in advance. We may be sold out for the Saturday performance.

In the meantime, here is a sneak peek of the show. This was recorded a few days ago during one of our music rehearsals. The song is called Forever, Wrapped Up in a Day, written and composed by my writing partner, Andy Mayo.  

Charity sucks. At least in this instance.

There was once a device marketed to housewives  that would charge anyone who wanted to ring the doorbell 10 cents as a mean of reducing the number of traveling salesmen knocking on their doors.

In order to ring the doorbell, a visitor had to deposit a dime in a slot right next to the bell. This would trigger the bell to ring. If the guest was a friend, the dime was returned upon entrance. However, if the visitor was a stranger, the money was retained by the device and was given to charity.

Obviously the ability for a person to knock on a door rather than ringing the bell mitigates the effectiveness of this device, but my real problem with it is the idea that the money collected was given to charity.

While I am not opposed to charitable giving, it seems to me that if you are forced to endure an unsolicited solicitation from a sleazy salesman, you should be able to profit from the time lost.  

I encounter a similar issue when students in my class win writing contests and are awarded cash prizes. Oftentimes the parents of these fledgling wordsmiths want their child to donate their winnings to charity or to some school-related cause.

I’m always appalled at this notion.

I explain to parents that this is the worst possible thing to ask a child to do. In almost every case, it’s the first time in the child’s life that he or she has received monetary compensation for mental exertion and creative output.

Reinforce this incredible feeling by allowing your child to revel in the joy of cold, hard cash.

Better yet, expand upon the experience. Enhance the reinforcement.  

Take your child to the most decadent candy store on the planet and allow him or her to spend every dime on jujubes and lollipops.

Allow your child to purchase the book that you thought was inappropriate for his or her age level.

Permit your child to purchase his or her first rated R movie ticket.

There will be plenty of opportunities in a child’s life to help those in need, and a charitable spirit is a quality that is well worth fostering in young people.

Just not immediately after a child has been paid for something he made up in his head. Don’t ruin the moment by forcing your child to give this money away to starving children. Not this time.  

It’s no surprise that it took me three years to complete my first novel but less than a year to complete my subsequent books.

Once you get paid for your efforts, you want to be paid again and again.

Team effort

When you read my next book, actually my next next book, know that a lot of it was written like this:

The inexplicable is fertile ground for fiction.

I saw this door in a Portuguese club on Saturday night.

It is set into a brick wall. It’s elevated about three feet off the floor. The top of the door extends all the way to the ceiling. It’s accessible only through a set of impermanent, wooden stairs. The plate on the door reads “Rancho.”

As a writer, I couldn’t take my eyes off this door.

Have you ever seen a better bit of inspiration for a novel?

 

Making his feelings abundantly clear

My newborn son is in my lap, presumably happy as a clam while I tap away on my keyboard.

I’m making serious progress, able to type with two hands for once, feeling good about myself and this simultaneous parenting-writing scenario, when I look down and see this:

Apparently things weren’t going as well as I thought.

Grip

My son’s strong grip required me to type with one hand, which slowed the writing process considerably, but it was well worth it.

 

The first rule of memoir

As I prepare to write my first memoir, I shall embrace this concept fully.

You have been warned, you rotten people who did bad things to me.

Carlos Fuentes understood me before I understood me

Carlos Fuentes said in a 1981 Paris Review interview:

“When your life is half over, I think you have to see the face of death in order to start writing seriously. There are people who see the end quickly, like Rimbaud. When you start seeing it, you feel you have to rescue these things. Death is the great Maecenas, Death is the great angel of writing. You must write because you are not going to live any more.”

It’s a frightening and glorious thing when someone captures your most essential truth long before you ever knew it to be true.

Long before it could even be true.

Fuentes was right. Some of us see the end quickly, and when we see it, we feel the need to rescue things. Preserve them. Carve them in stone.

In many ways I was fortunate. I did not have to wait until my life was half over to see the face of death. Without my two near-death experiences (one and two) and the armed robbery, I would not be the writer I am today.

I might not be a writer at all.

A peek into John Irving’s day

Admittedly I would have liked the video to be a little longer, and it very much appears to be an idealized version of a day in the life of the author, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

The author’s brand: Which approach is best? And please don’t say whichever approach feels best to you, because that is annoying and not at all helpful.

I have been debating the best way to present myself to readers for a long time, and with plans of launching a podcast this summer in addition to the blog and social media presence, this debate has been in the forefront of my mind.

There are two schools of thought, at least in my mind:

1. Focus my attention on a single topic. For me, this could and probably should be writing and storytelling. Present myself as an expert on the craft and devote at least 80 percent of my blog and Twitter posts and 100 percent of my future podcasts to this topic. Make writing and storytelling my brand. The center of my author platform.

Many experts believe that this is the best way to draw a sizeable audience, and they may be right. If I position myself as an expert in these fields, potential audience members do not need to know me in order to land on my blog or listen to my podcast or follow me on Twitter. They simply need to be seeking information on these topics. If the information is good and the writing is engaging, they will likely continue to read or listen or follow, regardless of how well they know me or my work.

2. Make Matthew Dicks the brand. This is the strategy that I have applied up until this point, but as I prepare to launch a new book and a podcast, I wonder if this strategy should change. While many of my blog posts pertain to writing, storytelling and my career as an author, I also frequently write about my day-to-day life, my impressions on current events, my family, my teaching and random thoughts and ideas that strike me as odd or interesting.

My intent is to present myself not only as an author but also as a teacher, a father, a husband, a reader, a golfer, a sports fan, a wedding DJ, a oddly secular minister, a music and film fan, and more. I have always felt that the best way to engage an audience and sell a book is to sell myself. At an author appearance, I prefer to tell the stories behind my books rather than reading from or discussing the books themselves. Makes readers laugh. Show them something new. Make them wonder. If the reader likes me as a person, he or she is likely to give one of my books a try.

But this may be the wrong approach.

While it might be the most satisfying way for me to write, it might not be the best way to generate traffic, garner a sizeable audience and establish a loyal reader base. It might not be enough to keep audience members returning again and again. Even though the post about my daughter’s recent act of cuteness might be well received, does this mean that the reader will return tomorrow and be equally satisfied reading about my hatred for background television or my  progress on my yearly goals or my secret to early retirement?

I’m not sure.

I saw this video recently and hoped that it would answer this question for me. It did not. Dan Blank seems to lean toward the first school of thought but is not definitive.

So I ask you, reader: What are your thoughts on the subject? Do tell.

The 21 stages of accepting an agent’s critique

My agent recently read my current manuscript and sent back an email with some comments. Despite sentences like:

I adore these pages! Once again you left me with a cliff-hanger (although many of your chapters end with suspense), and I can’t wait to find out what happens next.

Caroline’s…breakdown, do we call it that?...is terrific, and the fact that her solution to the crisis in her life is to confront Emily is fascinating,

… I crumbled upon reading her comments and was forced to endure the 21 stages of accepting an agent’s critique:

1. What? She didn’t love every single word? What’s her freakin’ problem?
2. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. This story is perfection.
3. Why is she trying to ruin my day?
4. I’ll just ignore the email. Maybe I’ll delete it.
5. I won’t delete it. But I won’t open it ever again.
6. Fine, maybe I'll read it again.
7. Okay, she said a few good things. She seems to like the story.
8. Didn't she realize that this is a first draft?
9. She's wrong about most of these suggestions.
10. Except she's not.
11. Damn it. She's not.
12. I would never tell her, but she actually makes some good points.
13. Fine. She might be right, but I don't have to like it.
14. Actually, I like a few of these suggestions a lot.
15. This is good. I can definitely do something with this.
16. You know, these suggestions will vastly improve the story.
17. Wow. How did I miss such obvious problems with characterization?
18. Great. Now I have to revise. I hate revision.
19. Actually, this isn’t so bad. It’ll make the rest of the writing much easier.
20. I love revision!
21. I'm so lucky I have Taryn. She’s a freakin’ genius.

Gratitude journal: An abundance of ideas

Tonight I am thankful for the many ideas I have for future books.

My agent has told me many times that I am fortunate to be able to generate so many ideas for books while writers much more talented than me struggle to come up with a single idea for their next book.

For reasons I do not understand, ideas have always been abundant for me. This causes me to have a good problem:

Choosing which of my many book ideas will be next.

While this is not an easy problem to solve, it is certainly preferable to not having anything at all to write about at all.