Tuesday, Mar 30 2010

This posting concludes the final chapter of the book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective by Charles A. Taormina.  All earlier chapters are posted here at WordPress, in reverse order (see Archive for topics).  To start at the beginning, scroll down to the first chapter, “Our Rebirth of Writing.”

 

ARCHIVE

“Advancement & Transcendence,” March 30, 2010 

“The Writing Life,” March 20, 2010

“Great Themes,” March 5, 2010

“The Novel,” February 15, 2010

“Autobiography,” January 27, 2010

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

  

The following thirteenth article, “Advancement & Transcendence,” will be reprinted as a final chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  The book is now complete.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog in 2008.  All articles, as writing chapters, are finished here and archived at WordPress.com.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources.  All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina.

 

ADVANCEMENT & TRANSCENDENCE

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina

 

            This final chapter of The Writing Arts: An Author’s Perspective caps the earlier twelve discussions by confronting ways each author might advance his or her art and an entire process within our written arts which might transcend the usual.  That should create more for the individual author’s soul and bring about ways for the culture to move beyond its temporal or usual characteristics.  I’ve mentioned the need to be of the culture but outside or beyond it, and want to discuss with some sensitivity what all of this means for new authors.  That should help one preview or foresee lengthier extents to one’s career and ways to continue, advance the sense of full artistic expression, and ultimately transcend one’s goals, themes, scope of current endeavors.

            One should consider that Hermann Hesse completed his Magnum opus, Magister Ludi, published in 1943 at age 66 (then won Nobel Prize), and had been continuing with poetry and his watercolors for many years (with many physical afflictions).  Henry James at age 63-67 took time to redo his earlier works after a full career as an author, penning insightful prefaces to reissued novels and arranging for republishing in a New York Edition of Collected Works (at age 71 he also published his second volume of autobiography, Notes of A Son and Brother); Victor Hugo had his last novel published, Ninety-three, at age 72 and was elected to the French Senate at age 74; Goethe’s novella, Novelle, was published at age 79 and he continued to write poetry and essays about science and literature, plus finished his Faust Part II at age 82 (published posthumously); G.B. Shaw won the Nobel Prize at age 69 after success of his play, Saint Joan, finished a play at age 83, In Good King Charles Golden Days, and wrote plays, took photos, and campaigned politically until his death at age 94; Petrarch oversaw his collection of poems and annotated them, finished his poetry collection, Canzoniere, and other writings at age 70; Richard Wagner conducted the performance of his final opera, Parsifal, in Bayreuth and wrote art criticism at age 69; Henry Miller and D.H. Lawrence moved to painting in final years, with Lawrence continuing to write poems, reviews, and essays; Dickens gave dramatic readings in America and England, started his unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, before dying at age 58.  Our own Norman Mailer published nonfiction and fiction in his last years (even a tome about writing, The Spooky Art), including in his last year at age 84 a novel, The Castle in the Forest, and a work of theological speculation, On God: An Uncommon Conversation.  In other fields, Thomas Jefferson penned his concise autobiography at age 77, wrote extensive letters to John Adams, and designed and later supervised the building construction of the school he had founded, University of Virginia (opened when he was 82).  Michelangelo finished his Last Judgment fresco at age 66, was appointed architect of St. Peter’s at 71, and created architecture, poetry, and sculpture until dying at age 89.  (Wikipedia)  There is a way of not just completing a life or final projects, but of fulfilling the full promise of a life filled with gifts and discipline, long-term blessed creativity, and divine energy.

             St. Teresa in last years of life founded 5 convents and died at age 67; Tolstoy wrote his novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych, at age 58, the play, Power of Darkness, at age 60, short novel, The Kreutzer Sonata, at 61, a final novel, Resurrection, at age 71, and continued with personal Christian practices (Tolstoyism) until his death at 82; Solzhenitsyn in his later years, after returning from America to a free Russia, wrote many nonfiction books and edited his 30-volumes of Collected Works, dying at age 89; Frank Lloyd Wright (architect and author of 20 books) completed his designs and long construction work for The Guggenheim Museum (opening only after his death) and the Seth Peterson cottage at age 91; R. Buckminster Fuller (dome expert, author, engineer) spent the last fifteen years of his life lecturing around the world, dying at 87.  In a spiritual sense we might consider Dante, who did complete his entire masterpiece, The Divine Comedy; however after his death at age 56, nobody could find the final cantos, the epic poem was considered unfinished.  According to Boccaccio, after Dante’s death, Dante’s son had a dream, where his father appeared and pointed to a special area behind a bookcase, in his study.  The son awoke, went to that exact location, and discovered the missing passages.  Or consider J.S. Bach, who composed in his last years Musical Offering, The Art of Fugue, and a choral prelude dictated from his deathbed; Bach was well-respected as an organist and music or organ expert at the time, but only in later centuries was he acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest composers.  Beethoven’s last years included The Ninth Symphony, Missa Solemnis, five string quartets (with Grosse Fuge) and final five piano sonatas, all completed when he was deaf. (Wikipedia)

            With the overall advancement should come ways to move beyond one’s current place of writing.  In my chapter on “The Novel” I discussed my work with a current project, a new novel, with a working title now of Christus Rex.  This had developed from some previous notes for a novel or play about ways of bringing about a renaissance, now with a more spiritual focus.  My current notes contain progressions on exact style, ways to bring about a story that will be forceful, and show the character moving through a current renaissance and a spiritual illumination, plus further kinds of thematic details.  I’ve considered several approaches, one with a traditional narrative as a Bildungsroman, or novel of development, in the third person, or perhaps one that is more haphazard appearing, with notebook and journal entries, other internal descriptions, letters and emails, which bring about a formal stylistic denouement (clarifying the entire chaotic creative process for the character) by a smoother traditional narration toward the end.  The process for the reader, then, would be coming upon all the notes and chaotic earlier papers of a scholar or scientist, moving with the integration of the spiritual fulfillment of the character, to a full plot progression, as the character becomes a prime mover in a modern-day renaissance.  It would provide some of the discovery or fractured reading experience that one has coming upon The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.  With a more experimental or at least fragmented earlier stylistic approach, it would provide the reader the exact feeling or emotion of a master artist/scientist integrating his life as he proceeds.  Those are working notes thus far, but again, it provides me with a way of incorporating decades of my own renaissance research and to produce also an interesting, fictional experience, through a sort of biographical development of a modern-day renaissance master.

            Some of this is detailed here, again, to display an example of my seventh novel project and one way I’m choosing to move beyond previous work.  Although I’ve done other experimental ventures, this should prove the most ambitious, in having to supply the many incidental parts of the protagonist’s life (maybe intellectual papers, types of art work, poetry perhaps, notebooks, emails, other projects as documentary artifacts).  In different words before (Chapter “The Novel”), I suggested that since moving into the new era, The Twenty-first Century, that it seemed now a time for some sort of “colossal masterpiece,” to use a motif often attempted in the Italian Renaissance (Michelangelo’s sculpture of David was called “the colossus” and stands itself as a perfect metaphysical icon of how far humankind had come in the West, by about 1500 AD, as was colossal Leonardo’s unfinished equestrian monument to Sforza’s father).  Mine would be heroic in a different, perhaps more internal sense, of attempting to document emotionally as a word artist some exact methodology or humanistic approach for seeding or bringing about a full-scale renaissance today.

             One of my inspirations, and an insight I’ve written about before (book-length Autobiography), is that by tracking the travels of Leonardo da Vinci, from Florence (near his birthplace in Vinci) to Milan, to Rome, and finally with his move to Cloux, France under the patronage of King Francis I—one is able to see that wherever Leonardo went, so too followed the renaissance; he was a source, inspiration, and in some sense a “founding spirit,” are my intuitions.  That doesn’t mean that many other talented men and women weren’t active, but it does bring about some focus, on one or two initiating individuals or master souls, who so allowed others in his age to breakthrough into the same grand plane for inspiration, insight, and achievement.  Again, as mentioned previously in “Creativity,” often it is a small handful of individuals, sometimes a dozen or even three or four, who continually rebuild our cultures, especially during humanity’s golden ages.  In ancient Greece we point to Socrates, Plato, Aristotle; at the very beginning of the Italian Renaissance were Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio; during the High Renaissance, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael; and we can see similar patterns of a small group of individuals doing likewise with founding America:  Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, plus Adams, Washington, Paine, and a few others.  Michelangelo can be seen as the capstone, guaranteeing with his multitude of works (sculpture, painting, poetry, architecture) the fusion of Christianity with the Italian Renaissance.  Again, one must consider how few people are involved in truly revolving the complete cycle of an age, not only for that particular epoch, but for every succeeding generation of men and women on earth.  With the spiritual, we might consider only Jesus Christ.  Again though, it is a very real question, of just what one man or woman can do?

            Also, when we think of humanism, and the types of individuals who might have been prominent during the Italian and later European Renaissance, we consider basically what might be called “Titanic” or Immense or “Iconic Individuals”—those of such a forceful personality and strength and inspiration, and who are so constantly active, that it completely supersedes other designations.  Often, this is overlooked.  We of our own age try to gain some perspective with imaginative or researched glimpses into that time with works like Stone’s The Agony and The Ecstasy (about Michelangelo painting Sistine Chapel with Pope Julius II) or Merejcovski’s Romance of Leonardo da Vinci, or bio pics like The Life of Leonardo da Vinci by Castellani and Great Courses studies of “Genius of Michelangelo,” books like Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, autobiographies by Cellini and Pope Pius II (Piccolomini), and all the wondrous painterly self-portraits—Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein, Titian.  Yet, I think, the most telling of active portraits is revealed through the Shakespeare plays.  It only takes moments, of watching a professional performance of most any Shakespearean play to understand immediately, that the men and women on the stage are each representing an entirely different, magnified or enlarged, heroic and humanistic personality, a sort of individual of stark insight, will and brilliant characteristics almost vanished these days, especially from the post-modern emasculated, weakened or “modern, civilized citizens” of corporate America and our contemporary world.  It’s an entirely different magnitude of individualism.

            Will Durant in his The Renaissance (The Story of Civilization: Part V) mentions that, “The Renaissance was not a period of time, but a mode of life and thought . . . .”

            So, part of the advancement of my own art process would entail a project, which I would hope, might expand and advance everyone else’s present and future work.  That is what is meant by the “colossal masterpiece,” both with ambition, theme, and the necessary execution projected into the future.  It’s a way of looking over one’s current background, achievements, and seeing or envisioning what is necessary for one’s own advancement, and by extension, of course, for the culture at large.

            I’ve mentioned before, in “Autobiography,” that in this current period of work for me (before the renaissance novel), that I had three other projects to finish first.  All three of these have been in partial or ongoing stages of completion, and now, with more full-time creativity available in my own life (I’ve moved my home from Akron, OH to Johnstown, PA), I’ll able to complete those works.  The first is now achieved, with this chapter, the finishing of my own “Treatise on Writing” or this completed book, The Writing Arts: An Author’s Perspective.  Also near completion in the last few years was my collection of three novellas, Triad (containing the already published Of Rifles And Butterflies, the partially published Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin, and the in-progress novella, The Casting Out).  I still have to complete the last half of the third novella, The Casting Out, and then put that volume together, ready for publishing.  Afterwards, my third project will be the completion of my spiritual memoirs, Each Man Has A Journey (this too, has about one third of the writing completed).  I’m detailing all this to show the next creative period for me—but too, to mention that while I have these driving specific projects, it gets tedious doing all the final edits and publication of longer works, when I want to push ahead with new creativity (the renaissance novel, for instance).

            What I also will do, in the meantime, and this not to delay or defuse my strength or momentum, rather actually to accelerate things, is complete some small individual projects that I’ve been picking at for the last few years.  These will not take as much time, and in the quicker completion, will allow some increase in momentum, to allow myself a degree of refreshment (from editing and revision work and book designing efforts).  This will show my inner self, that many of these smaller projects are being completed and that all the sparks from the unconscious are important.  The first will be the continuation of my poetry project.  Already I’ve published one chapbook of my earliest poems, Rain Folio (1998), and have nearly completed a second chapbook of poems, Cunning, Time, and Prayer, and want to put together a third small chapbook, probably titled, Miscellany & Later Poems.  I need to revise the second chapbook, then go about through my many notebooks and papers and collect together and revise a couple dozen poems already composed, plus add to them a few poems already published individually, then publish the last two chapbooks.  Once that is done, I’ll have three small chapbooks completed, after which I want to compose new poems, plus take the best from the chapbooks, and put that together into a formal book of verse, with a working title, Poems of Consequence.

            My next small project, is less career oriented or even art oriented.  I have been collecting small food recipes of my own creation over the years, and want to put those together into a brief booklet, for friends and family.  All of the dishes are original creations, so that will be fun, again for close friends and family (also since many dishes are “one-pot” meals, perhaps that will interest other authors).

            A third project is organizing my photos together for book publication and also for some sort of museum exhibition.  Part of this is the finishing of previously taken photos (with religious motifs) set for an earlier planned book, Camera Obscura, and then for another book coming up with newer photographs.  Besides the curator functions with this, I want to become more involved with photography and do art-style photographs, more classical portraiture, and types of experimental photography.  Classical or traditional portraiture, again, is a prime topic of renaissance art, so that fits nicely.

            Another ongoing project mentioned in Chapter on “Autobiography” is the recording of sets of notebooks, transcribing them into book form, The Intermediate Years.  These sorts of projects can keep one going through dry times (the rote typing or arranging of previous notebooks) as well as provide one with certain types of writerly chores, perhaps at the end of the day, if that’s a time of exhaustion or dissipation, or during very busy days, when one can only type an hour or two perhaps, with no sustained creativity.  Should one reach the delegation stage, of having a crew or small staff working with you, this is one of the many projects which a secretary might be able to accomplish, as you, the author, move on with high-priority tasks and artistic goals.

            Notebooks and photography, as well as ongoing studies with acrylic painting and architectural drawings and development, provide me with an excellent graphic outlet, to balance all my verbal work and allow rest functions from writing and publishing duties.  Even the reading of biographies and autobiographical letters of great artists serve as inspiration, a different mode of perception, and an excellent change from usual writing processes.  Plus, it’s fun to commiserate with all the past trials and torments others have suffered, living through the creative or artistic life.  (Artist and poet e.e. cummings used to paint in the afternoons and write poetry in the evenings.)

            Others will have their own projects.  I wanted to show how I go about it, so another writer or artist can build the same sort of momentum, to carry on with the advancement in his or her particular center for the arts.  Once moving through some of these projects there will be a great inner sense of achievement and refreshment, allowing me to return to ongoing book revision projects that I’ve planned (novel Legacy; third novel “In-Progress”; book of plays, Tauromenium; longer play, Freedom One), and several screenplays (revision of completed film script adaptation of sixth novel, The Entropy Wars; fourth novel screenplay in-progress, Gratuity; second novel planned screenplay, Endgames), plus three additional screenplays I’ve sketched out.  With that, of course, will come the seventh novel, creating and finishing Christus Rex.

            Other projects may also intrude, with a large marketing plan that I have currently, whereby with a graphic designer I’m establishing a writer’s web site, plus will do more social networking and additional blog work to spread professional word of my works, as well as regional book marketing here in Pennsylvania, which may take the form of local book readings, lectures or seminars, and a probable building of some sort of Pennsylvania Writing Community, either going to other groups or starting my own, perhaps somehow continuing an informal salon tradition to magnify people’s creativity.  Also, as I’ve done much playwright activity in Pennsylvania, in theatre acting, drama writing, playwright readings, understudy as director, and have had my shorter scripts performed on stage in Pittsburgh, I will connect up with those groups as well.  Hopefully, these activities will augment other creative approaches and allow time for continued creativity to get all of my aforementioned projects completed in a professional manner.  (Sometimes, there’s a sense of serendipity, as in contacting a literary book publisher in Akron, Rager Media.  It led to an invitation to contribute to a local literary blog, from which this book project grew, though The Writing Arts had been planned for many years).

            For the new writer or artist the message is direct:  look over your work now, to see how to continue it, how wide and high and deep your current process might go, and ways to advance past challenges, should you recognize areas where growth is necessary.  Keeping out in front of one a continual set of plans is one secret to regular and consistent productivity; often, one project dovetails or begets another.  Even the tedious marketing or networking projects allow one to expand and pull into one’s field of vision or awareness other people, places, challenges, turmoil and joys, which of course for the active author all provide wonderful material for other works.  In my own case, too, I’ve seriously had to consider my current chronological age and the unknown now of how long exactly my activity will continue this year or next—but this is a place in my life, where I need to finish and complete established writing projects first, before considering actual publication of many of my works (which I want to publish, and because of lack of opportunities have been forced to do on my own).  So, it seems best first to complete the work, and then opt for the publishing or a self-publication process (except for this blog, where each chapter is posted as completed, or in the case of other books, perhaps a faster eBook publication might be arranged). 

             Already as of last spring, one full year ago, I had completed for publication a revision of my first book of short stories, Early Tales; the book is still awaiting actual publication.  My delay comes from the extensive time it has taken in the past with digital self-publishing projects (three complete eBooks) and two paperback books that actually took up years of otherwise useful time, when I might have completed new work.  Besides the designing of covers, the interiors, the actual publication at POD sites, there was further marketing with review copies and notices for the press and public, finally re-contacting agents and mainstream publishers to see if those first published “prototypes” might be picked up by mainstream publishers.  It was a lengthy and labor-intensive process, necessary and informative, yet one that I’ll hold off on at the moment, so that at this point in my personal life, I might complete more pressing and new creative projects (first this blog book, the book of novellas, finally my spiritual memoirs).  Each author, again, will have to examine his or her output and goals and place in life, to see what exact manner of advancement fits.

            Another practical way to keep going or advancing, if only writing novels, is to try other projects:  try a play, a screenplay, memoirs, not one short story but a book of short stories—or again, move to other forms of creative expression with photography, painting, architecture, singing or songwriting, composition, dance, acting, or other arts.  Sometimes just a review of one of these arts, or meeting with a practitioner of another art, is enough, to get one going again.  The creative mind thrives on stimulation.  So, when difficult times are upon one or dry moments, move forward always; bring into oneself the other arts, and soon one’s way will open up.  Often, this will provide other insights into one’s writing, for character creation (what that new character might be interested in) and different ways of perceiving or approaching the fictional form of one’s project.  Much can be achieved with variety.

            A prime way of moving through one’s creative life, as mentioned in “Creativity,” is learning or initiating ways to harvest one’s inspiration (at beginnings of projects) and further, with busy regular lives (if continuing with day jobs), how to continually work in a mental fashion at one’s projects, during otherwise cluttered life periods.  At the risk of sounding superficial (considering the moral effort), I’ll mention again, the extraordinary mental preparation and achievement that Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn accomplished, via his own resources.  During years of political imprisonment, often as a forced laborer working as a bricklayer, he would create original verses and other poetry all done mentally.  He had no immediate way either to stop working or to record extensive notes or verbal productions—his only available method, was to do it cerebrally.  The creating part is inspirational; the “recording” part, all done with extensive memory training, is astonishing.  Solzhenitsyn would memorize his poetry, and review each line of each poem on a regular basis; at one point he had memorized over seven thousand new verses and had to set aside, by his own account, one entire day at the end of each month, to go through and mentally review all his remembered verses.  Once released (though still exiled internally within the former USSR), he went about recording his poetry by hand and publishing his verse.  Our instance here provides the fortitude and imagination and perseverance, of course; there’s also the example that we might need to learn new mental abilities, to expand our methods and achieve our own set of works.

             Another case in point, is opposite somewhat from my advice in “The Novel” for an apprentice author, especially the novelist, to slow down one’s reading perception, to understand fully how a master artist has accomplished his or her writing achievement.  (One can copy out certain paragraphs or sections by hand or by typing them on a computer, to examine with care and thoroughness the techniques put into practice.)  The other step, however, is to speed up one’s processing; there are tomes out there for authors, such as Fast Fiction by Roberta Allen, and there are those who work journalism jobs, where the nature of daily routine forces them to write “a stream of readable prose” (mentioned by Zola, Zola, A Life, by Frederick Brown).  Both prompts can be done, that is, work them as exercises to speed up one’s composition process, at least for practice spurts, or maybe small projects.  Writing theoretical essays, after extensive study of the arts and the processes, clarifies one’s own art, educates one as to present or current possibilities, then establishes the path to follow into the future—often done by others like Zola and Henry James and maybe Dostoyevsky (critical articles) or with G.B. Shaw’s early theatre and music criticism, or the hundred volumes of arts writing by Richard Wagner, including his composing in 1850, the ambitious essay “Artwork of the Future” (Prose Works, Vol. 1).

             One author mentioned frequently, concerning short short fiction and almost prose poetry is Italo Calvino, especially in his Invisible Cities. (“A Bridge Flung Over the Abyss,” Martha Cooley, Writer’s Chronicle, May/Summer, 2008)  An earlier inspiration is the master, Jorge Luis Borges (Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges).  Returning to the journalism prompt, it can be amazing though, how much volume one can get used to writing, on a regular daily or weekly basis, once some process is practiced and set into place.  For me, lengthy prose writing is much like a process of learning to jog or do long-distance running.  At the first try it seems nearly impossible, but with practice one’s entire physical and mental apparatus takes on the task, and soon, one is jogging not a few hundred feet or maybe a mile with rest stops, but several miles each day for three times a week!  Learning to write long prose narratives, especially for the novel or in-depth nonfiction such as this, requires a similar exercise and practice; soon, where a short short story seemed challenging, suddenly one is writing many thousand-word short stories, or with longer processes, book chapters of 15,000 words (as in this volume).  My other advice about speeding up the process, and this pertains to one’s continual need as a beginning or seasoned author to read, read, read, is to take courses in speed reading.  For preliminary study of books and authors, and for research and numerous background materials, I suggest the mini-course in PhotoReading at www.LearningStrategies.com (also brief manual PhotoReading by Paul R. Scheele), where visual reading is promoted and practiced enough, so that one can read an entire book in less than an hour or two. 

             PhotoReading, in essence brings into play the full use of one’s mental abilities or capacities, with the conscious use of the unconscious mind, through a trained and disciplined sort of skimming, dipping into a book for review, going through a good intro with a book, and actually flipping through each page as quickly as possible, in full view of your eyes and mind, so that the unconscious part of the brain, takes in the entire book, visually, within seconds.  Then, another review.  It’s an amazing process, again, one that I recommend, less for deep reading of special books or art works, more for background materials, perusing many professional magazines (which one should subscribe to and review) and of course things like daily news.  I have a special writing project, nonfiction, which I’ve planned for about twenty years, and in addition to regular reading and note taking, I’ve also collected pertinent books and educational tape series.  The accumulated books are about twenty-five or so; it is this sort of thing, where one can PhotoRead the collection entirely, and although the set of research volumes normally might take months or years of conventional study, one can now complete the entire set in less than a week.  The unconscious holds the PhotoRead material, and provides “subliminal” answers (supported by initial note cards or mind map sheets in the process of PhotoReading), when one is later writing the project—or as in my case, returning to certain key authorities for more in-depth mastery.  (It has been mentioned by motivational experts that often only 12-13 books separate the knowledge of a beginner from an expert.) 

             Again, with PhotoReading and all reading, I believe authors should take in the discussion of my chapter on “Self-Editing (Part I),” about visual reading and writing in general.  The amount of low-level reading done today, especially in America, leads I believe to a populace here which largely is functionally illiterate (except for news and tech manuals)—astounding and due I believe to the emphasis on phonics.  Again, few sophisticated adults today subvocalize anything at all when they read; otherwise the rate of reading would be slowed to the rate of normal speech patterns, which for those of us speaking American English, are quite slow.  Visual reading, however, (even outside the special accelerated technique of PhotoReading) is the real boon, and allows one both to read and write at a pace more closely resembling the fast processing of one’s regular mental processes.

             The final extrapolation was how exactly might we authors be able to write an entire book in two hours?  Before one laughs too heartily, consider first the other perceptive style for most authors, the visual.  If we move into a more visual mode, then perhaps we might produce the outline or first vision of a new novel, at least in several hours.  This might entail less of writing then, and more of note taking and an entirely different form of brainstorming, where we plot out visually our entire story or novel first—we would take a hint from the usual manner of some screenwriters, that is work with scribbling note cards, plot outlines, and finally some scene-by-scene visual storyboard to complete a book layout.  Some of the problem with this, however, especially for more seasoned authors, who often compose with only minimal outlines, is that often the storytelling process will by its own creative momentum, evolve the continuing story and especially the final ending, thus making sure of a more “organic” or natural plotting or flow to the story (as author becomes seasoned with working or acting out the new character dynamics).  For me, as I mentioned, when I write, too, I will either see or watch in my mind the complete novelistic tale as an imagined movie (scribbling or typing the first draft as fast as humanly possible), or sometimes, when moving through a plodding compositional style, will feel myself writing freely, similar to those authors who claim they are “only taking down dictation.” 

             Before we decry how idiosyncratic and temperamental are the Muses, let it be known that other authors have confronted this exact dilemma and its creative challenge head on.  One only needs to study Jack Kerouac’s background and writing practices to see, that right after his lengthy rewrites and revision (in a conventional authorial way) of his first published novel, The Town and The City, he set about something quite different.  He claims that while becoming involved with a group of poets and authors (Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, William S. Burroughs, Greg Curso, and later Ferlinghetti), for whom he afterwards coined the term, “The Beats,” he converged with the improvisational jazz musicians of the time (Charley “Bird” Parker, Coltrane, Miles Davis) till Kerouac came up with what he said mimicked the solo improvisational techniques of performing jazzmen, his “spontaneous prose.”  This is a case of Kerouac again, as mentioned before, merging with the Zeitgeist or spirit of his times (“Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind,” The Portable Jack Kerouac), so that he wanted his art work to do the same or express part of the same effect, the freedom and creativity and honest personality of on-the-spot, soulful expression.  Kerouac then set about to write in sustained bursts of temporary or week-long blasts of creativity (often fueled by amphetamines or other drugs and alcohol) where he created for instance his novel, On The Road, in a nearly continuous three-week writing stint (later claimed to be only with the help of coffee).  His product was written on the now legendary “scroll,” a continuous 120-foot long roll of paper, with segments actually spliced together.  (Kerouac’s original title, The Beat Generation, was nixed by his editor at Viking Press.)  He claimed that he only did minimal revisions to the text. 

             Further, Kerouac continued his writing of later short novels in a similar fashion, often boasting of finishing a new book in a week or so.  (The Portable Jack Kerouac)  The other side to this, less of a writer unwilling to go through traditional process, is an author, who by his own admission (and he was correct) created a new style of writing and a new manner of creating works, and with all that an art movement, that he himself also labeled, The Beat Generation.  It was Kerouac, too, in his article “Are Writer’s Made or Born?” (Legends of Literature), who qualified his success with the incisive comment “. . . anybody can write, but not everybody invents new forms of writing.”  It was one thing to be talented or create some work, and it was quite another to start or originate new forms of art (his examples of creativity were Whitman, Melville, Proust, Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Hemingway).  This doesn’t mean that we should follow in those footsteps (even if we were able to, constitutionally); it does, however, show us one artist’s successful mastery of the artistic hurdle, of producing more work, with least effort, and more importantly for grander results.  (Some of the side effects, with the ever-pressured attempts to produce such short-term intensity did lead to substance abuse, and in Kerouac’s case, actually his death at age 47, resulting from severe alcoholism.)  

            Obviously, with the time factor in conventional terms, if one has little time during life periods forced upon one with a regular day job, then one needs to use such mental creativity options, especially where one has a few moments, over a long lunch, while shopping or doing errands, to think through a project mentally, to arrange a solution to some tough writing problem on a current project and then to harvest those insights and mental work constructively, so that nothing is lost, no time is wasted.  My favorite harvesting techniques follow those of Leonardo’s, with the constant carrying of a hand-held notebook when traveling, running errands, or on a day job, where I can jot notes, extend lists of projects, work through certain difficult areas and note all that.  (Leonardo transcribed small booklets onto longer, more organized pages, which we today know as his “Notebooks.”)  When driving or on long trips, one might also try a tape recorder or any such function with our many electronic gadgets, which allow one digitally to record our thoughts, in passim, for later notation.  Sheila Bender mentions an interesting aside, if a recorder is unavailable and one has no access to a notebook, try calling oneself and leave a recorded message (“Marry Your Life To Your Writing,” Writer’s Digest, Feb. 2010).  Kristl Franklin mentioned she carried note cards with her everywhere, to jot random ideas (“Writing On The Fly,” Writer’s Digest, Feb. 2010).  Cards have often been used by filmmakers, especially scriptwriting, and too, popularized by Nabokov and Italo Calvino—Calvino worked for years with Tarot Cards, which is unfortunate with all the occult influence.  My only problem with the voice-recorded method of harvesting, is that I’m a visual person, as per perception and mental perspective, so that trying to follow up on tape recorded messages, sometimes all jumbled together, can be frustrating.  Also, then, one is left with having to re-transcribe original notes somewhere, so the recordings are not lost, or are highlighted for attention to long-term productions.  (It’s difficult to index sound recordings, compared with visual scribbles.)

            Another way of advancing one’s work, again mentioned throughout these chapters, is to continue a regular and consistent writing routine.  There are those who wait for inspiration and those who wait for perfect times of solitude to author some important project, and while that may work, the most industrious creators never depend upon chance and go about some regular and consistent methodology.  (“The harder I work, the luckier I get.” Edison)  Writing each day, with some forced word count, is an easy way; working on a regular weekly basis, maybe every other day, or even some special set of days is best (at one point in last years, I arranged a 4-day week schedule at my day job, all 40 hours completed in 4 working days, allowing me full-time writing on Fridays and Saturdays).  During full-time periods, which seem the most obvious or apparent as to productivity, one still needs some form of consistent discipline or plan.  One needs to write.  Some talk about needing “seat time,” simply sitting down at one’s writing table or computer desk or with a laptop in a favorite chair and writing.  For many years, again, I kept the artistic motto on my desk, “Nulla dies sine linea” (Not A Day Without A Line, used by authors Trollope, Zola, Goethe) as a prompt and reminder.  Getting at the work is the only thing that allows one some regular production and is the only way to achieve, especially, larger patterns of success with multiple long books, either fiction or nonfiction, or in the case of many longer works or interrelated novels, as in Balzac’s “La Comedie humaine.”  Goethe wrote, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply.  Willing is not enough; we must do.”

            Julia Cameron in Finding Water (third companion to The Artists Way) mentioned that it’s best to simply sit down and write, her phrase of “lay down some track” (perhaps an image from the music industry) and her technique of Free Writing (suggested also by Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down The Bones) that one can later return to, often is wonderful and effective advice for starting and moving through a creative project.  A regular routine of writing allows for the harvesting of insights, and also, provides the regular reliance upon one’s complete inner self.  This should not be overlooked.  In “Creativity” I’ve mentioned the recorded instances of creative individuals who solved some major work challenge, by paying attention to their dreams.  Mendeleev woke and recalled the entire view on a wall of his periodical table of elements.  Elias Howe, one of the patent holders for improvements to early sewing machines had trouble inventing the first functioning needle, because he couldn’t figure out the placement of the thread.  He woke from a dream, remembering a large group of cannibals in Africa chasing him.  At the top of each warrior’s spear was a hole—when he awoke he placed the hole in the needle near the end, where threading now actually occurs.  (www.WorldDreamBank.org)  In my own case I woke from a dream, after several years of vague plans to complete a restaurant novel, with a dowager in mind saying, “Yes, love.”  I realized that scene contained the first words of my novel, Gratuity, and set about penning and completing the entire novel over several months. 

             In younger years, in my mid-twenties, because of a continual interest in psychology and studying Jungian material in some detail, I kept for a time a brief Dream Journal, and would record dreams as often as possible.  I kept a small notebook by my bedside, recorded dreams if I awoke at night, or in the morning, and looked over the records later.  It was then that I discovered, that if I slept an average of seven hours, that I would have about four vivid dreams (of about 90-minutes duration), and also, that the more I suddenly paid attention to my inner self, the more my inner self responded in quite articulate ways.  Later, upon studying books of dream symbolism (and this can be used as detail in one’s fiction, of course), I realized that it doesn’t matter necessarily which set of symbols one might accept as “truly valid” (for instance in the dichotomy of symbols suggested by Jung vs. Freud); what matters is accepting some set of symbols as authentic for oneself.  Suddenly, you’ll discover that your inner mind has learned a new picture language, and your next dreams will use those and other symbols, to respond and communicate clearly with your conscious mind, if you are attentive, and more importantly, if you truly are interested. 

             Perhaps, more to the point is the integration of all of one’s mind and mental capacities.  Learning to work with one’s unconscious is significant.  It’s frequent that people will get stuck in the middle of a scene or maybe with some laborious calculation or needed insight (for book or invention or domestic challenge) and later, perhaps in the shower, or when driving the car, or even when walking, suddenly everything will pop up into one’s conscious mind solved or apparent in a lucid, clear fashion.  One can use the same technique at night, often going over some challenge in one’s writing, maybe taking a few notes or reading some background material, all with the view of simply “sleeping on it.”  Usually by morning, one’s inner self will have the complete answer.  Even if you can’t act upon the answer, as in going to a regular day job, at least record the solution in your notebook.  Plan to use your entire mind, and soon, you’ll see all of your facilities advancing and accelerating, so that if practiced regularly for a period of time, eventually you’ll be working upon an entirely different mental plateau than you ever thought possible.

            In my chapter on “Creativity” I mentioned my lengthy study of creativity in general, from my own personal projects and life, and studying the process in others.  Several tomes are important for people with such interest, and to augment your own current writing and creative projects, as well as to advance from current levels where you are.  Many speak today of “going with the flow” or “entering the flow” as a creative experience, and deeper study has revealed there is an actual brain wave function, with alpha rhythms, that seems to augment or suggest a certain inner pattern for creative activity.  Once understood, a creative person can prepare oneself for such an experience by entering into the mood or best receptive mindset for creativity.  Often focusing on some creative moment or super creative period in one’s past will trigger the same again for oneself, as in Colin Wilson’s Super Consciousness; and there’s Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Csikszentmihalyi, which describes the classic process, similar to athletes training themselves “to enter the zone.”  Many inner prompts are available for authors, the easiest of which might be with music.  (See “Get Creative in 2010,” Writer’s Digest, Feb. 2010.) 

             In the past with music, I did this during my creative year in Montana, often for regular work and editing or more low-level writing duties (re-keying of manuscripts) I kept a popular music station on the radio.  For inspired moments and creative writing, my favorite music is classical, and to be more exact, it’s the dynamism of Beethoven, and to be more specific, my favorite prompt is listening to Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas (performed by Alfred Brendel).  These, by the way, are considered among the world’s greatest masterpieces for piano and the sheer joy of listening to them wholeheartedly is impossible to express.  Also, it’s a way of staying in touch with the dynamism, inspiration, and romanticism of Beethoven, without having his crashing symphonies in the background, to interrupt one’s creativity with bravado or complete tears.  I’m sure each author will have his or her own favorites.  The key is to match one set of music prompts to the same inauguration of one’s highest creative flow, so that simply by putting on the same music, one’s inner and outer self “moves into the zone.”  (I cannot more heartily suggest classical music for this, if one is unfamiliar.  My own proclivities are for Beethoven and Mozart, almost exclusively; but other choices include light Bach and Handel and for me recordings like “Best of The Renaissance,” Italian Lute, Monteverdi, Desprez, Palestrina, and diverse renaissance music.  All of that surrounds oneself with a complete and creative aural environment, one with the classical of enough sonic sophistication actually to increase one’s mental output, and some say mental capacities.  There is with the renaissance enough of the spiritual, ballads and human choral singing or basic lute melodies, to provide one with a harmonic foundation for Christian Humanism.)

            Other prompts, which put me in the flow, are visual, with study of paintings, photos, architecture, or on occasion some actual book or novel by an author that I admire.  Usually, again with my visual acuity, it is the graphics which often will refresh me, and I feel, perhaps, inspire or nurture the other side of my mind, the right side, after a long bout with analytical work or verbal creativity (left side).  I feel there is a need to almost tune the mind and keep all parts functioning to some peak level of not only performance, but also levels of inner awareness, so that the writing is fully nourished by all parts of one’s brain and the input of Divine Inspiration.  As I have studied much about Leonardo, one might also consider the popular tome, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb, for a sense of applying the tenets of a world-class genius to expanding one’s creative life.  (Published after my own research and alerting a New York agent to the marketing of renaissance themes, via my audio tape, “Renaissance: An Introduction” [Printed now in Quintessence].)  Gelb mentions the tenets in his Leonardo book: Curiosità (Curiosity), Dimonstrazione (Demonstration), Sensazione (Refinement of Senses), Sfumato (Smoky borders or ambiguity), Arte/Scienza (Art & Science), Corpoalita (Grace), and Connessione (Interconnectedness).

             My own studies and writing (Quintessence) illuminates Leonardo’s admonition with saper vederi, “knowing how to see.”  This sounds perhaps obtuse or even mystical, but with this portion alone, especially in the practice of painting, any amateur or brief sampling or practice of sketching, especially with the application of colors (even if with crayons or colored markers to begin with) will astonish one with the sudden ability to look through the wall of general impressions; suddenly with a “green tree” it is impossible to catalogue all the tones of light and shade and green and brown and ochre and cadmium yellow and on and on.  This comes from one small instance of training oneself in higher levels of observation, again with one example of painting or sketching.  This went further with Leonardo, in his inner or imaginative skills, where he sketched many versions of birds in flight for his study on flying for man; he was able to capture with ink sketches slight or subtle wing motions of birds flying high in the air, all from acute powers of observation and drafting.  What might a writer be able to do, with even a small bit of such training?

            There is also the simple advice, which can work wonders, of making sure there is enough stimulation in your own artist’s life, to jog your mind and activate your imagination and your creative wellsprings.  This is different for every artist, and can be as simple as the advice of science fiction author, Ray Bradbury:  “If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, music, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful.”  (“Secrets of Bestselling Authors,” Writer’s Digest, January 2010)  With that might come the palliative, to make sure some of that stimulation is from sources you don’t normally choose:  if you like sports, watch some soap operas; if you are intellectual, get among some construction guys; if you are a man, read the women and vice versa; all so that some balance might proceed, not only with analytical perceptions, but also in your inspiration sources and of course, for staying in touch with “all reality,” or the wide range of human beings in God’s varied universe.  Don’t forget physical stimulation with regular exercise, especially the more sedentary one may become, during creative projects.

            Again is the discussion about eidetic imagination (see my “Creativity”) whereby certain creative people like Tesla and Blake are able to see their creations vividly in their mind’s eye, and actually study their imaginary work in almost 3-D fashion or as if one’s project (invention or illustration) were outside of one’s mental space and could be rotated or moved.  Tesla was said to be so adept with this that he often built in his mind a prototype model of some new invention, then he would run the imaginary thing and watch how it functioned.  If he needed to alter some part or add something, he did that, again in his imagination; then he perfected the invention mentally.  Only after that would he proceed to a draftsman and model builder, to set about actually to do blueprints and patent models for his works.  (Tesla invented and patented the AC generation system of electricity used everywhere on Earth.)  Eidetic imagination, again, is the conceptual prototype for modern software with a 3-D CAD capability (Computer-Aided Design), to the point today of being able to create virtual working prototype machines, from drawings (Inventor by Autodesk is one such program).  Such software technology has been the working standard for architects, designers, and engineers for a decade or so.  For writing artists, I mention my own case, where I believe this same mental ability can be developed.  A pertinent example is with my own case of writing plays.  After some practice and study (live performances in several theatres), it became possible to visualize each scene of a new play on a stage within my mind.  The stage glowed, appeared in tiny, almost 3-dimensional fashion, so that as I was creating a new play, I might change props, add a character, alter stage directions, etc. until I had the play functioning in a realistic and producible manner (one might call it even, “a workshop of the mind”).  My proof of success was after some long trials; I did watch some of my shorter works produced live in a Pittsburgh theatre and witnessed the effects to be exactly as I had imagined them, better in fact, because of the live performances before an audience.  Again, all of this is about the innate talents of the human mind—not about expensive and perhaps unnecessary software for the uninitiated.

            There are interesting tomes about creativity:  Aha!; Greatness, Who Makes History and Why; Sparks of Genius; MegaCreativity; The Creators; and The Einstein Factor (see Resources at end).  Sometimes, in a slow or dull period in one’s life, just the brief review of one of these excellent volumes, is enough to jumpstart the creative process.  Don’t forget libraries and museums!

            Although much of this is covered elsewhere, the reiteration here is to move from these momentary times of inspiration and a book or two which might inspire one, to ways of truly advancing one’s level of awareness and productivity.  These other concepts might provide leverage for inspiration.  (It was Archimedes, the ancient Greek engineer in Syracuse, Sicily, who said, “Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough and I will move the Earth.”)  Again, for the person new to all this, first one needs a bit of study, and second, the practice of certain techniques in one’s life, and finding of course, things that work or are most effective for one’s own way of perception, what one understands, and more importantly, patterns or actual behavior for creativity.  Because this discussion is so central to the creative author and our knowledge of humankind in essential moments or periods of creativity, I want to consider the inspiration function, too, in greater detail.

             First, one might consider the more general ability to envision in some complete form, but as one visionary experience, one’s long-term work.  This perhaps is less general than we might suppose, there aren’t so many documented cases of it.  At some point, for instance, after writing many novels, Balzac visualized his entire oeuvre, and many volumes still to be completed, within a complete vision, or book cycle he called “The Human Comedy.”  (There is some resonance with Dante’s masterpiece epic poem, The Divine Comedy.)  Next, we have Emile Zola in the France after Balzac, as a quite young author with only a few books published, actually visualizing something similar for his own writing career, with a ten-volume cycle of novels that he later labeled, in realist fashion, “The Rougon-Mcquart” series.  This was so concrete for Zola, not solely some vague inspiration, that Zola drew up written plans for his novel cycle and presented it to his publisher, Albert Lacroix, who agreed to work with Zola (for a small monthly salary) to print the books as he completed them.  Zola did complete the entire cycle; however, it resulted in twenty volumes, not ten, and he went on to continue writing others, outside of the family cycle he earlier had envisioned.  One might also mention, that Zola’s style, a revolutionary almost documentary realism, sometimes plotless and sociological and sensational about seemingly mundane subjects of society, was a new invention.  Like Kerouac’s style, Zola a century earlier, created his own and developed what would be called, “Naturalism.”

             With the envisioning, so too, did Dante hint “at the end of the ‘Vita Nuova,’ that the vision of the ‘Comedy’ came to him as a revelation . . .” (J.A. Symonds, The Study of Dante, cited by Bucke in Cosmic Consciousness).  Other writers, and in this case a poet, Robert Frost, admitted later in life, that his last twenty years mostly were spent revising and publishing poems and material that he had written in his younger years.  Obviously, there was a creative period of great intensity, in which he recorded and ripened and matured his talents; he continued with those creative writings in a professional manner, to publish his earlier material in later years.  That’s important to consider for younger authors, especially during highly creative times, when much is started, perhaps haphazardly yet sincerely; remember, later notes can be used and notebooks followed to complete every one of those inspired works. 

             This, too, has been the case with much of my own creativity; though I did spend considerable time writing and completing my books in younger days (eleven created, revised and completed in one year, my “Van Gogh Year” in 1985).  I am able to return to an unfinished work after several decades (third novel) and keep at the revision or in some cases the authoring of a tome, actually in this production (with notes and inspiration) for years, or including also the start of my seventh or renaissance novel.  As mentioned before, I’ve had the sensation or inner vision of seeing the entire Collected Works of Charles A. Taormina printed in a long length of hardcover books (30-40), stacked upright upon a shelf in the sky (seen through my inner vision).  At times I feel, as if I could pull down an unpublished work from the celestial master library, start on the volume in the here and now, and complete a “new” book.  Sometimes, of course, with training and practice on longer works, as one is involved with the actual narrative process and during the high creativity and fun of the first draft, one feels as if one is only “taking dictation,” or transcribing perhaps a story one sees as an original film in one’s mind.

            Second, I believe there is a psychology to all of this.  My own studies include the work of Carl Jung and Abraham Maslow and other humanist psychologists of the human potential movement (beginning with William James, Carl Rogers, Fritz Perls, Eric Berne) and Viktor Frankel, plus the follow-up work by contemporary British author, Colin Wilson (see both his New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow & the Post-Freudian Revolution and Super Consciousness; note that I have corresponded with Colin Wilson several times).  There is much discussion of what Maslow described as “peak experiences.”  These are moments of wonder, rapture or bliss while often involved with a creative activity, or sometimes, even interruptive moments, epiphanies or brief times of total clarity and joy that individuals have experienced.  Maslow recorded and labeled such moments; Wilson attempted some further delineation of such moments, intentionality (James and Husserl), and suggested such moments could be willed; and for myself (in separate independent work), I wrote about the necessity of engaging our minds more often in such mental practices.  Wilson recently in Super Consciousness put forward a way of staying within such mental tuning or appropriate state (Wilson calls it “power consciousness”), by recalling a past moment of peak experience, centering on such detail (time of concentrated attention during a winter drive, an instance when his lost young daughter was found to be safe), and more importantly, self-consciously remembering moments, all the time.  This is closer to our human potential as pure consciousness, than is some sort of existential despair (fashionable in the twentieth century as sorrow and alienation, later as cynicism and apathy).

            These peak experiences, for those new to such terminology or experiential data, are important for continuing creativity, as delineated previously (“Creativity”), and are a way to understand the inner psychology of great artists, especially those who work obsessively at their art on a constant basis, at the exclusion seemingly of everything else (Van Gogh and Michelangelo serve as examples).  Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs demonstrates how a high achiever will put aside all the “lower needs” (Physiological, Safety, Love—food, security, sex, family) to excel at the “higher needs” (Esteem and Self-Actualization—achievement, creativity, [full integration of personality or self]), allowing one a glimpse into the case of “starving artists.”  Again, though, we must turn the psychology around, not simply to describe or recognize the patterns within our reality, but to put these deep understandings, theoretical insights, and astonishing mental capabilities into effect within our regular or usual personal psychology (as well as for our characters’ delineation, of course, if we are fiction writers, biographers, or playwrights).

            With the psychology, however, is a deeper insight, or one perhaps more comprehensive, and that concerns the nature of human consciousness.  I’ve written here and in other chapters, briefly about my own interest in psychology, the study of it, as a good workman with being a fiction writer and its necessity for understanding the subjects or characters we are writing about—but the real nature of consciousness needs discussed.  My own background includes a general study and interest in the works primarily of Carl Jung and humanists such as Maslow, yet there is a further development an artist needs to consider and this proves a distinct part of our discussion about “Advancement & Transcendence.”  For many years (from before 1978) I researched these aspects of human mental characteristics and awareness, all to be put together soon into a learned volume.  I call the new discipline, “Metamorphic Psychology.”  I have a working title of the same name and it has been mentioned, along with my renaissance studies, during a speech about the topic in Washington, DC, with the World Future Society (1993).  I had also passed out copyrighted copies of my preliminary work at the same conference, as well as promotions for my intellectual newsletter at the time, Virtù; yet rather than receiving further backing or support—I later discovered my paper rewritten with another scholar’s name upon it (one well connected with a university), with no credit whatsoever.  My actual labels and wording had been changed, enough for someone copying my theses and the results of my preliminary studies to commit plagiarism.  (Theft of my original work has happened so often that I understand why Leonardo wrote all of his notebooks in a reverse or “mirror writing,” to keep them secret.)

            To be brief, readers, especially serious authors and artists, should consider the 1901 nonfiction tome, Cosmic Consciousness, by Canadian physician Richard Maurice Bucke.  Dr. Bucke subtitles his book, “A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind,” and does a considerable job in putting across his thesis, of there being three levels of human awareness:  simple animal awareness, self-consciousness in humans, and a third occasional, but unique awareness, which he labels, “Cosmic Consciousness.”  Many might consider this sensational New Age fare; yet all is documented throughout history, with astonishing cases of adult “illumination” as Bucke calls the temporary episodes, which bring on the onset of Cosmic Consciousness.  I’m taking the example further, in that I believe such cases of illumination and Divine Awareness can be studied, digested by aspirants, and brought about more frequently for serious artists.  Some of the “Super Consciousness” of Colin Wilson’s relates in an offhand way to this but still is mostly centered on the brief, ecstatic awarenesses or mood elevations which Maslow suggested as becoming more common and which Maslow called, “peak experiences.”  For Bucke and myself something else is going on.  It is part of a larger pattern of peak threshold growth in human beings, and all that needs a deeper study of consciousness and its implications.  I believe it constitutes a distinct psychological movement:  Metamorphic Psychology.  That will all be developed in my book.

            But what is the excitement here, truly?  Again, beyond the brief peak experiences or euphoria, Bucke goes on to document tremendous or overwhelming periods (sometimes months) of spiritual illumination in certain adult’s lives, whom he believes went through such a bout of Cosmic Consciousness.  He has chapters about Jesus and St. Paul, chapters also about Dante, Francis Bacon (Bucke shares with me also, the belief that Bacon authored the Shakespeare plays), William Blake, later individuals such as Balzac, Walt Whitman, Edward Carpenter, perhaps Spinoza, Emerson, Thoreau.  In each case, the individuals at about the mid-thirties years of age are hearty in health, have proceeded through extensive “training periods” in perspective fields or planes of achievements, and move then through a cosmic period or some experience where they witness bright light, understand the entire world being united and universal (“catholic” for Jesus); there is a wide acceptance and depth of understanding of all humanity, a sudden and overwhelming intellectual knowledge with accumulation or integration of known wisdom, high ethics or morality, and after a period often of chaotic daily existence, the individual remains on an elevated level of awareness (yet not so intense) and goes about, virtually altering history with the products of his endeavors.  Bucke cites the illumination period for Jesus after His baptism with St. John along the Jordan, from which He journeys into the desert for 40 days.  My delineation is more complete, for it incorporates the scene of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ (when he appears with Eliza and Moses, in front of his central apostles) Luke 9:27-36, as well as appearances among the disciples after the resurrection (plus Pentecost’s tongues of fire from The Holy Spirit, Acts 2).

            Lest these seem like far-fetched imaginings or to be kind, fanciful insights into lives of great achievers, Bucke characterizes many passages, especially of diverse writers’ works that show references to such periods and such insights, and with one in particular detail, that of the French novelist, Honoré de Balzac.  Bucke shows Balzac writing of such periods of illumination in his novels (Louis Lambert, Seraphita), for which Balzac called the practitioners or participants “specialists” or involved with “specialism” (from species, sight, seeing all).  Another good example is with acquaintances of Bucke’s, people he interviewed such as Edward Carpenter, who went through similar experiences, plus Bucke’s own personal visit with Walt Whitman (an inspirational case study for Bucke, with references to Leaves of Grass becoming a mystical guide for readers).  The clincher for Bucke, or the precipitating event for him, however, was that he too, went through a minor level of such illumination.  I want to mention here, also, that so have I.

            In my own research, I went on to note periods in great writers’ lives, often in older days it was mentioned only briefly in biographies as “the author had mental or spiritual problems” or a reference to what the populace would think of today in jargon similar to “a nervous breakdown”—yet once examined, one sees that the particular author was of the same age of these instances of Cosmic Consciousness, about mid-thirties, has a long background of dedicated writing or research or university studies (without much actual accomplishment), then a period of mental aberrations, often with the author hiding out almost (trying to integrate the experience, figure out what’s happened, and to move on?) or being secluded somewhere, after which, the author proceeds to move into his or her field of endeavor, as if with a completely different level of mental ability, dedication, perhaps clairvoyant and determined industry.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a case in point, from my own research.

            With my own instance, I went through a similar experience (though I had already studied Bucke and had achieved quite a bit of writing with three novels, a sheaf of short stories and poetry, published journalism, establishment of community newspaper and a literary journal, and other accomplishments).  Cosmic Consciousness altered my entire worldview.  Suddenly, you look around with an astounding transparency and almost hallucinatory lucidity at or through our entire reality, and you sense everything almost like some “advanced extraterrestrial come to Earth” and wonder what is everyone really doing here, or actually not doing, and how can people put up with the outdated, nearly medieval illusions?  Idealism!  Everything’s unified, joyful—God’s world.

            There was chaos in my personal life, to be sure, but the suddenness of “the knowledge,” the complete and total integration of intellectual and much spiritual understanding, the total or transparent insights into those around me, my environment at the time (Virginia) and too, what I later put together for further projects was and remains astonishing, and again, a part of the varieties of God’s divine presence within our worlds, and what each of us might actually and verifiably attain—with a fuller or more complete consciousness.  From that period, for instance, with my other work, I went through months of note taking and insights into scientific cosmology, a preliminary study of entropy (especially of cultures and ways to slow such decay), invention conception and notes for production (dozens of sketches), insights into human healing (first chapters written of the psychology book here under discussion, yet also I planned for a “healing machine” based in part on concepts of “organic forms” developed from Goethe’s botanical studies and further back with Plato), intense recognition of renaissance themes and material from world civilization and about current history, other scientific endeavors (flight and human life science), study of solar civilizations and solar processes, poetry, mystical drawings, idealistic reforms, and numerous plans for other creative writing, mostly prose.  After that, I completed the publishing of my literary magazine, The Blue Ridge Review, in later years the writing of my fourth novel, Gratuity, and then moved to Montana for almost a year of complete creativity and writing, what I’ve labeled as my “Van Gogh Year.”  Again, in Montana in 11 months of that year, I completed 11 books (some were extensive revisions of previous material), one of which was Shared Lives, a book of short stories (35,000 words) written in five days, and felt there the authentic sense of “having completed my apprenticeship.”

            A few years afterward, in Uniontown, PA, I worked extensively on continuing the cosmology studies (with large blotter pads filled page after page with concise ideas and mathematical notations) for advanced solar studies; I completed a nonfiction commercial book, The Photo-Entrepreneur; I researched and circulated my early article about AIDS, “The Solution to AIDS” (collected in Quintessence); wrote my novel, Legacy; started 4 chapters for my autobiography; participated in and studied acting and directing in community theater, including being a playwright-in-residence; attended a second World Future Society Conference in Washington, DC (presented paper, “Metamorphic Psychology” 1993); researched, wrote and edited my global intellectual newsletter, Virtù, and promoted my other publications with regional publishing in Pennsylvania and free-lance photography; and I even studied a local UFO phenomena in Uniontown and took notes from residents who witnessed same.  There was a brief article about my insights published in the local Uniontown newspaper, Herald-Tribune.

             Often, in my surroundings and without me eliciting it self-consciously, I’ve been told how “encyclopedic” are my interests and knowledge, or how “insightful” or “universal” is my awareness (in younger days)—all of that only verifies the aftereffect of these experiences of consciousness and the living upon this other plane of existence.  If one has ever wondered, upon reading some author’s books, how on Earth can someone anywhere or anytime have this much command or magnitude of insights into human existence, it is Metamorphic Psychology that provides the impetus.  Genius (as in inherited or organic IQ) is nothing, ambition is nothing, advanced learning (we’re out of the league of conventional education here) or usual methods of popular creativity count for little.  All of these, of course, are factors in achievement; but none of it can compare with an individual who operates within the higher consciousness delineated here and continues to work upon that same plane of existence for years or decades. 

             To stem the discussion for materialists about IQ, for instance, and at one point to express the magnitude of awareness levels I’m speaking about, I wrote (collected in Glossary for Quintessence: Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance) how this new level brings about the magnitude of an IQ in the range of 4 digits.  The way to understand that is if current IQ is registered for instance, as an example in high school of having an awareness level of those in twelfth grade while one is actually in the tenth grade, then one’s IQ score is that much higher (actual level divided by current grade or age).  [Ratio of mental age to chronological age (Stern).]  Consider simply then, individuals who “live or think in advance of their current age or years” by some great leap.  This sounds fanciful or absurd at first, but it was the modern renaissance engineer, R. Buckminster Fuller (after perhaps a similar period of seclusion, silence, and introspective self-study), who said he had taught himself to work approximately 50 years ahead of his age, on a regular basis. 

             If we move to more traditional studies, for instance of Leonardo (some have suggested that Leonardo da Vinci possessed the highest intellect in recorded history, though others assign that by analysis of verbal ability to Goethe), one can see that Leonardo was working at least 300-500 years ahead of his fellow countrymen (except perhaps Michelangelo), with abilities best described by Walter Pater, as nearly “clairvoyant.”  If then, we applied the popular values of determining IQ, and if we were considering the work of today’s renaissance individuals who work ahead (with studies of history and humanity’s possible historical future) in the course of 500 years and further, over the next several thousand years, then we might speak truly of IQ’s as high as 2000.  As I mentioned in my writing, this is a variable IQ ability, often used only for special creative projects or personal or national emergencies, yet it is achievable (and is expandable in extent by “extrasensory abilities”).  Proceeding beyond that range is impossible; such levels project the consciousness completely outside an individual’s physical frame, resulting in physical extinction, or body death.  My own emotional sensation with all this, which often is suggested in Biblical accounts of God’s visions and prophecy and “great deeds” and of course, miracles (with faith always), best comes from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet:  “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

            The difference here I want to make, however, is how such an increase in consciousness is available to many individuals; it’s not something one or two special people take part in, or part of an “elitist” conception of humanity or something only pertaining to aberrations in creative men and women.  It’s a reality; it’s happening more often these days and recorded these days; and too, as a product of such a process, it is one not just mentioned or flagrantly flaunted about, but is itself the object of study, classification, and full rendition in a further discourse, for the benefit of all of humanity and future history. 

             After delineating all this, where does that leave us?  It provides us with a totally different, new and comprehensive foundation of the human mind, a way of moving beyond our current capabilities for master achievement, a way of advancing our societies, and a new working model for the true potential of human beings.  My Metamorphic Psychology adds also that this is a consciousness that by definition interacts with the usual environment, it changes life.  It defines and demonstrates how all that is a practical and working framework for an author or any creative individual to build a fully functioning and always advancing inner and outer life and to guarantee one’s being able to function and work upon a completely new and accelerated plateau or level of human attainment, to continue at one’s art.  There’s a religious discussion of not only deepening our art with eternal and universal themes; it also puts us in touch directly with Christianity and God’s will.  (See chapter, “Spirituality”)  This is the great doorway, in the sense of mystical and God Union and transcendence, the doorway of complete initiation if you will, but one that all authors must see as being out there, when all else seems to fall a apart.  Often in our lives God will allow our total environments to be demolished, so that we might grow, learn from difficulties, or be able to solve for others and provide some new model of achievement and realistic functioning within his Divine Realm.  Put more bluntly, and in specific contradistinction to my detail and brutal lists of many authors who have committed suicide (“The Writing Life”), if only each of those tortured souls might have recognized more:  the bottoming out of his or her life and emotions as a challenge, as a next step, as a way of moving beyond all that simplistic and materialistic thinking, being caught within the despair of a fragile human being, instead of the true capability of God’s divine potential for every human being. 

             There is a choice, it’s now an existential demand, a command of life, for each of us to grow and become more.  The world is different now and we must learn to function more fully and completely within that new world.  I’ve described this briefly before as Renaissance Consciousness; yet there are other modes with that, which all lead to more than single or isolated individual talents of great verve and achievement, and open the doorway again, for many others to follow and create a more sophisticated, caring world (one for me delineated completely by Jesus Christ, and ancient phrases about The Kingdom of God).

             After psychology, what needs done?  Into the twenty-first century, we might discuss several more concerns for the conscientious author.  We can consider the type and depth of character (again consider the titanic portraits of those from five hundred years ago, from history and as portrayed in Shakespeare, or the opposite even, in an ironic anti-hero Don Quixote, still of bigger-than-life dimensions, iconic actually or archetypal personalities).  There are fresh themes as discussed at length in “Great Themes,” and new ones that will appear as we each move through life today.  One of the many themes undoubtedly will be longevity and with that ever-increasing fact (miracle), we each must confront personal stories of caring for our parents, and ourselves, as we age beyond “cared-for-by-others” situations in our derived or governmental family.  There are multi-cultural themes coming to the forefront in the last decade (rise of Latino authors in US, influx of Indian and Pakistani authors, and a newly articulated awareness with many Chinese or East Asian minorities—a case in point, the metafictional strokes of David Henry Hwang in his play, Yellow Face, as well as others.  American Theatre Magazine, April 2008).  Such themes, however, of the integration of diverse ethnic strains into America have been part and parcel of North American culture and storytelling here, at least since Native Americans complained around their campfires of the first invasions by Vikings in Newfoundland, supposedly around 1000 AD. 

             Other themes I’ve mentioned enter and continue upon the meta-theme plane, those being Renaissance and Renaissance Consciousness, and the ongoing fight for independent liberty and freedom, anywhere that might take place, whether in the offices directing Amnesty International across the globe, the prison system in America, or some other grand and consistent heroic moral and artistic effort as was that of Russian novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  Too, I feel, with the interplay globally, especially with Terrorism and all the horror of Islamic Guerilla Warfare, we must consider not those as themes themselves (war seems always evident among Humankind) but the clash of major religions around the world and the interplay and resolution of those metaphysical battles, with the daily resolutions of faith manifested by God.  Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religious systems.  Again, much of this was treated in my chapter “Spirituality.”  I believe such meta-themes will continue to play out and transform our art discussions and the art itself (as it has every century).  Probably, thrown into this mixture also, are the inevitable (unless we experience some apocalyptic and total destruction of civilizations by nature, technology or the effects of technocracy, or with Global Warming) technological advances in medicine, arts, business, science, space exploration and the alteration in obvious and subtle ways of each of our daily lives.  These might sound like themes bordering on purely science fiction, and some do; except those new art works that avoid these themes will be avoiding some of the larger questions faced by humanity and its burst into technological sophistication, technocracy, and technological horrors (updated atom bombs, new “smart” weaponry, biological terrorism, environmental entropy, things yet to be imagined).  Many of the new techniques, inventions, and more so systems of inventions (leaps of our technological imaginations) will also by their very processes confront directly more humanistic and especially religious concerns, with control of life processes, decisions of birth and death, genetic engineering, and subtle but ever more despotic technological control of populations by governments and their “amoral” engineers and scientists.  Lastly, will be the unknown, or the new themes which will appear, prove with intensity their more than momentary importance, and provide us with greater challenges (and by the same token more developed story reaches).

             Another offshoot yet essential discussion here, beyond the themes for our literary artists, is the need for style investigations and a probable move into other more dominant and realistic styles for what our technology and our psychology and our religion are proving for us each and every day.  I believe that the arts will move into a dominant style where my work already has headed in my last lengthy novel, The Entropy Wars.  This was a spiritual warfare novel, with a pronounced Christian theme, but one which suddenly made use of miracles and the supernatural within an everyday reality or realism.  Though more genre-specific a novel (adventure or war novel), the style was that of what I would label “Supernaturalism” or Realistic Supernaturalism or Christian Supernaturalism.  It allows for plain realistic description of usual events with sudden appearances and manifestations of God’s world (The Kingdom of God) breaking through into our everyday recognition of the world (saints appear, people heal by prayer, warfare is negated by prayer machines, revelations are apparent, discoveries or unmasking of spiritual entities within our reality become evident)—all of this seemingly new to our world of understanding in modern times, especially to fiction.  This proceeds away from even nineteenth century Christian manifestations (usual materialistic mindset of the last two hundred or so years since the European Enlightenment) within realistic literary productions of Dickens in England and Tolstoy or Dostoevsky in Russia, or Victor Hugo and Mauriac in France, Hawthorne or Emerson and more moderns such as G.K. Chesterton or here with Walker Percy and Graham Greene and Flannery O’Connor—that is, projections of Christian motifs and commitment, only within a purely materialistic mindset that seems to say, “faith is total, yet reality is reality” (Dickens avoids that with an enlightened Spiritualism, benevolent ghosts and supernatural or visionary travels, as in A Christmas Carol).  Christian authors with more attention to the supernatural include two contemporary Canadians:  Michael D. O’Brien and Frank E. Peretti. 

             What I’m talking about is a new understanding of reality by recognizing that God works through this dimension, often, and that miracles take place, visions become fact, and many spiritual entities appear here in full dimensional realities (both demonic and heavenly encounters).  As advanced or perhaps “far-fetched” as this might sound to the ordinary author, one need look no further than the four Gospels of the New Testament, for the exact same style, now over some two millennia old—very plain, humble, matter-of-fact or poetical, yet very supernatural, always.  (This too, is away from the escapist or cute entertainments of those pursing “magical realism” and “fantasy fabulism” in that such spiritual discussion proceeds from a foundation in religion of epiphanies, theophanies, Christophanies, even as evidenced in very ancient, pre-Christian times with myths of many cultures.  [The Greeks in St. Paul’s time believed he or his associates might be theophanies or the appearances of their god Mercury or Apollo or Athena, because there had been those actual appearances of the gods on a regular basis in their culture.  The problem with paganism or magic is not that it is false or nonfactual, but that it is blasphemous; there are ways to control reality through what is now called occult processes.]  So, our new religious understanding or commitment must come to a new way of expressing reality in our literature, that again being some form of what I call Supernaturalism. 

             (This too, I believe, is a correction of the stilted worldview of the last renaissance, which feared much that seemed medieval, especially with conventional faith, and proceeded into a romanticized or idealized naturalism, found in the greatest works of the High Renaissance [Leonardo’s Last Supper, Virgin of the Rocks, St. Jerome, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, his statuary with the titans David and Moses and the sublimity of his Pieta and architecture].  They ran from the spiritual to discover the physical; we must not do the opposite, rather we must seek a balance.  We should recall, however, that the serious study of Plato in Renaissance Italy brought with it “dynamic idealism,” Greek metaphysics which included Divine Authority, invisible forms, oracles, contemplative brotherhoods or mystery schools, philosophical beauty, and metempsychosis.  The Phaedra and Timaeus.)

Artistic Credo

             I believe that men and women can create magnificent literature today and will continue to do so into the future.  I also understand that it is within this generation that something extraordinary must be accomplished with writing, to “hold” as a place-saving event the new achievements of our own renaissance.  What follows those events in the near future, however, will only darken and move to the dull—until others again, maybe 10 generations hence, wake up once more.

             I believe that written expression has developed directly from God’s motivation and divine processes to move humankind, to motivate ourselves, to send us infinite instructions on the sublime.  I believe in His grace.  The book, in whatever form, oral or recorded upon scrolls, printed and bound with paper, delivered electronically or instantly by light or consciousness, will reign supreme, forever, as a transmission miracle of our human awareness over time, culture, language.

             I believe, too, that the productivity and intent of each artist, especially of the literary artist, depends upon a foundation of knowledge and practice and inspiration that can only succeed with daily, yearly, constant struggle and perseverance.  Intellect and emotion must harness the will.  All must serve the Soul.  And we, as we produce, must follow God, through Jesus Christ.

             I believe, further, in the artistic process, in the continuation of extraordinary achievement and the ways that each new art work instructs first the producer, second the surrounding culture, and third, succeeding generations of men and women worldwide.  There can only be faith and works, as an addition perhaps to St. Benedict’s ora et labora (“pray & work”), and with that a life further clarified and distinguished and made more complete on a personal, humane, and higher humanistic and Divine plateau.

             Without a credo (our corporate culture likes to talk in terms of “mission statements”), we must try to understand what we are facing here, within our own country, our own national boundaries and how that effects the young and old, and still we must continue.  For me since my early days there was difficulty facing even some intense reading within our own boundaries.  I’m thinking of Henry James’s comment, “Art blooms only where the soil is deepest.”  (Art of Fiction)

             Perhaps it is best to be honest about our culture.  American fiction shows no density, no breadth, no poetry, no ideas; I’ve always found it (especially in younger years) superficial or too regional, often like the daily life here.  Steinbeck and Faulkner tried to make up for it with poetry, Hemingway with simplicity and exotic locales, Fitzgerald with topical subjects and glamour of upper class success, Mark Twain with childish (and this not child-like or innocent) or Midwestern or pioneer humor; they remind one of the critic Leslie Fiedler saying that all the early American great novels belong “on the children’s shelf.”  (Great Courses, “Classic Novels,” Arnold Weinstein)  When younger, to find fiction of interest or soulful concern I had to search the Europeans or go to specialties like subculture intensities with Kerouac, Henry Miller, Kesey, Thomas Wolfe or perhaps older mainstream with Hawthorne, Henry James or late Melville (and short works).  Size or the need to correlate with our country’s massive territory or varied ethnic types is no excuse (contrary to the argument by Wright Morris).  Russia was about twice our size and full of minorities (European and Asian) and it produced Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn; but perhaps there is not the same Slavic obsession in America with history, soul, psychological processes or for global culture, the interrelation of modern revolution upon our populace, or intense Christianity.

             Today, in American letters, it’s death by academic security, by apathy of pop and foreign corporate market forces, and finally by the public’s giving up the demand for serious fiction, which once again engages the world as if the grasp or glamour of gadgets, Internet, TV and adolescent norms and sensationalist drama can ever fill the vacancy or despair within our modern citizens.

             The academics, of course, fight in tenure battles, or secure with the victory of acceptance grow self-satisfied and can only wonder at our needing values, especially if you’re guaranteed $100K or more per year (average US full professor’s salary in 2008, www.insidehighered.com) with little actual classroom work, grad students to conduct free research for professors (usually without receiving published credit), and publication requirements for CVs or university Curriculum Vitae, demanding that you publish your latest field thesis and research (usually nonfiction).  That leads to critical theory stuck on post-modern cynicism, secularism, fragmentation, literary deconstruction (no creativity, no interest in spirit or religion, no interest in biography, no physical needs, and too much time on one’s hands), or deconstructivism in architecture.  It brings about an aesthetic in general that caters to decoration, verbal games, and pompous eschatological arguments, thusly concentrating on foreign authors like Nabokov (whose English was a second language and whose connections for quick success were too facile) and many moderns, all products now of MFA programs, with one book or so and thirty years of easy tenure.  Such books have clogged the publishing system (blocking opportunities for real authors) and show by us never hearing again from academic writers, the true vacuity of such efforts.

             The problem with this academic narrowness today is that it’s driving away serous American authors, while lowering (devaluing) true intellectual and spiritual standards of deep fiction (literature).  It made supposedly literary fiction a thing now of academic or collegiate study (not enjoyment), while otherwise guaranteeing with the scale of academic power or critical authority the confinement of the presses, the end of popular or serious general readers, and the upswing of a fine arts industry that purports to be earnest with its many offerings of periodicals (magazines like Writer’s Chronicle, Columbia Review, and university in-house organs) while all the time it is only proffering trivial yet continuous output, not quite intellectual entertainment (because it is sincere) but so skirting the issues of press confinement, the need in America to address regular and stark social questions, and the constant plumbing of intellectual, spiritual (religious) and psychological or social depths (which always have been the actual province of serious or grand world literature, at least novels and plays) that it brings about a yawn to all those not commercially or academically involved, and a loss of readership or study to those who are, and finally to more independent or ambitious fiction artists like myself a turning away entirely from even the possibility of other results from our shallow halls of academic lore.  It’s institutionalized dilettantism.

             Again, the solution is dire, because most of those now pursuing in supposedly a resolute or professional fashion some semblance of literary writing are a part of the problem.  They cannot address these issues because it would be an attack upon themselves and their very means of livelihood, but worse an admission of the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of much of American institutional and corporate life—just as has fallen in dramatic fashion the auto industry in America in 2009, because the products were frankly incompetent, poorly constructed or designed for anyone in our time, and uninspired for the necessities of contemporary urban driving (gas mileage, sustainability, true comfort, interior and exterior aesthetic beauty, twenty-first century functionality).

             The issue finally cannot be addressed then by those media and university or corporate institutions, because the actual task, the setting and framework of the new fiction must not accept the institutions or their membership, or coddle them and reward them.  Rather, it must at its core confront them with an almost revolutionary verve of depth, questioning and constant confrontation, a different lifestyle, a question of American dullness over a long-term consideration, a real confrontation of the overwhelming and constant vulgarity, crime, and middle-class complacency here, and with all that finally, a taking on not of some outdated and demonically deceptive Marxism, but the acceptance from down under, as it were, of the very same constant battle here of good vs. evil, only as it shows up in complacency, apathy, vulgarity and the militaristic aggression by the middle classes obsessed with convenience, comfort, and security—basically a loss of the soul, and eventually the loss of the very idea that one’s soul should be of any interest whatsoever, except of course for a brief intent in church on Sunday.

             When a true vision of America upended and revolted by its excesses and internal despair is understood and comprehended intellectually, felt viscerally and to the depths of one’s soul, only then will the artist (and with him or her) the serious reading public for today and tomorrow be able to confront the needs and provide the scathing art so necessary for these times in America.  Literature transmits the soul of the culture, and if there’s no soul (or the recognition and expression of that), then for a time at least, there will be no literature.

             Another issue which needs addressed is the mechanization of perception, especially in the technological West, the actual capability for the advance in technology to truly empower (or reach) the same depths of human sensibility, to approach the human condition as in times before, or the ability for serious men and women to even reflect upon their condition.  Some of this was raised quite effectively and presciently in 1923 by Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization, where he notes how society is moving too quickly upon the surface of its culture, to understand or even remember to understand the deeper necessities of world culture and humanity’s soul.

             The fear, of course, with the notion of an ever-expanding horizontal line of sensually attuned technology for storytelling (film clips, links, web sites, maps, info dumps, photos, pop music, adolescent gizmo glamour, gaming gimmicks) is that there’s no vertical access to experience at all; and vertical is quite useful imagery for the conceptual diversion here, as it is a direct process from heaven to earth, God to humanity, humankind to its deeper inner self, upper mind to lower mind, more total involvement of hand or brain with total body, or healthy incorporation of spiritual with corporal expression in a mature person.  Again, is the need externally in society to interact with the elite and the downtrodden, with the power controllers (“Financial Aristocracy”) of usual government with its citizens, and with the very structure of cultural life itself, that is, between the stranglehold of money and power among the professionally credentialed at the top and those more natural or inspired creative persons at the bottom (or perhaps on the outside of convenience culture).

             These issues should not suggest a hankering after younger authors or those with new immigrant status, or an influx of all the superficiality of the bankrupt culture here (vulgarity, violence, sex, lack of education or lack of historical breadth, lack of morals or ethics).  It should suggest a direct confrontation of all that with veracity, real depth of character and spiritual introspection, and of course the energy and persistence of a mature art commitment to produce fiction and other art (especially with a Christian foundation) which in the end can transmute, heal, and transcend all of the decency functions or falls from grace of a superficial and highly decadent America.  Obesity, indeed!

             A process of confrontation begets its own solution (God will provide).

             Clutter of externals (sports, action, crime, accidents, disasters, consumer goods, health issues, financial news) should be managed—solitude is significant for depth analysis, introspection, and taking stock properly or allowing the outward flow and rush of technocracy to stop, to feel what’s individual and come to some comprehension of the true action necessary for life integration and world living or interaction or acceptance (affirmation and true accommodation with meaning and the persistence of meaning, veracity of soul and God with one’s life and culture).  Love, this is the problem; love in its widest course is a total encounter with the world to reaffirm it and enhance it in its greater reaches (God’s splendor), and with a fullness that modern men and women might accept more readily and completely than has been understood before—now that the physical encounter with life has been subdued.  It’s not simply a matter then of recalling more momentum but memento vitae–vital memory of life or moment, or lively momentum; “remember, that we must live profoundly,” with depth, formulating and integrating our psychological needs with just manifestation in our external organizations, so that the inner man and woman here might thrive, in all of God’s true and lasting intensity.  This is no mirage, illusion against time or game for ridicule or jest; it is a set predetermined era for total existence.

             Lucid living (not dreaming) is another term for more profound living from top to bottom, inside out, within without, total veracity with the true spiritual demand of other formation and control of the deeper or darker resonances of humankind, so that one may expand and confront successfully all the requirements or challenges of each day and humanity’s wider, ever ready quest of intensity with Universe.

             Only art can withdraw the finer or deeper reaches of man for his individual and class or societal intake and digestion, as an overwhelming creature bent too much on destruction and control, versus idiosyncratic coming to terms with himself and the center of a modern sophisticated world or universe.  It’s a growth or challenge or warfare of spiritual extremes for a time, fits and starts, zigzags and reversals, yet all moving progressively inexplicably on to solve the  task of greater resolution and care, alone in the greater or more colossal grandeur as might be understood by an eternal all caring or loving God.

             The other side of our spiritual discussion is to consider our culture’s focused commercial emphasis. We need to address in America, with the censorship and breakdown of absurdity of current publishing, opening up publishing and distribution via government intervention or some new model or alternative, one to take advantage of the last twenty years of techno-innovations and yet an alternative also.  This is not so contradictory to current democracies as one might think; look only to France, which regularly supports its own newspaper industry (even those set up as dissenting voices), without which or under current American profit models in France, journalism never would have survived.

            Let us be candid about the possibility for modern authors.  Today with the publishing markets in America, John Steinbeck would’ve become a social worker, William Faulkner a successful postmaster, and Ernest Hemingway a career army officer.  There’s no place today in our nation for that older sort of individualistic, heroic, and singular author of exceptional literature.

            It is interesting that although the nineteenth century is considered the heyday of the novel, and that France was an especially serious nation for the art of the novel (as well as all arts), that publication figures for a “bestseller” in Paris in the 1860s were considered good if they were in the range of 5,000 books (Zola, A Life, by Frederick Brown).  Such figures today, even considering a few thousand copies of a first novel in the United States—and with the size of the United States, as compared perhaps less than with “all of France,” and more with what might be considered a success solely in one capital, that is Paris—are drastically different from the hundreds of thousands desired by commercial publishers in contemporary United States.  In one recent promotional instance, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code had an initial printing of 218,000; the company, Random House, gave away free over 9,450 promotional copies or ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) alone, to reviewers and media influencers, to “prime the pump,” and this for a demonic, Jesus-bashing, soon-to-be bestseller.  Brown’s next thriller, Lost Symbol (about the anti-Catholic Free Masons), had an initial print run of 6.5 million copies, the largest first printing in the history of Random House.  (www.Guardian.co.uk.) 

             In an earlier America some literary books did achieve wider sales, as for seasoned celebrity authors like Hemingway, with his novel, For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940), which sold 491,000 copies by 1941 (805,400 by 1975).  (80 Years of Bestsellers, 1895-1975 by Hackett and Burke)  Remember, however, that Hemingway’s first book Three Stories and Ten Poems was closer to a pamphlet (58 pgs) and was essentially self-published in Paris in 1923 in an edition of about 300 copies. (Ken Lopez, www.LopezBooks.com)  Hemingway’s first novel, In Our Time, also was printed in Paris, only in an edition of 170 copies.  (Shane Dayton, www.Helium.com)  Steinbeck’s first novel, Cup of Gold, sold only 1500 copies in 1929.  Or take a similar case for another literary icon and Nobel Prize Winner, like Faulkner, where his first book, Marble Faun, a collection of verse (51 pgs), in 1924 was printed in an edition of 500 copies (subsidized by a friend).  (www.lib.udel.edu)  Again, would these authors ever have been given a start today, even by small or university presses?  (Today so much depends upon one’s “platform,” celebrity status or the tenure track of young teachers, who soon become tenured professors, not great authors.) 

             Lest we think confronting the for-profit model is modern, even considering the smaller figures as given, we need only look at a similar commercialization of art, and the criticism voiced by Richard Wagner.  Not only does the publication model need redone here, but also the distribution model of how our books are placed in libraries, schools, bookstores and at other book ordering sites (just as does the Indie Film model currently need help with distribution channels).  Maybe we need a National Literature Department in the government, besides an institutionalized funding arm, like the NEA (which mostly assists academics).  That might do something more accelerated these days than even attempted by FDR during the Great Depression with the Works Project Administration (WPA) and the Federal Writers Programs (FWP).  FWP’s humble projects to document America for Americans did create “a sort of cultural revolution in America,” according to Fortune Magazine, www.livinghistoryfarm.org.  (Writers helped by the FWP included John Cheever, Saul Bellow, Nelson Algren, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Louis L’Amour, Studs Terkel, Conrad Aiken, Zora Neale Hurston.  Soul of A People by David A. Taylor)  Or consider France with its Ministry of Culture & Communication, a development from the Renaissance commitment for state-supported arts for national prestige (Wikipedia); still, we should reflect on dangers of what might evolve into Orwell’s Ministry of Truth from 1984 (based somewhat on England’s wartime Ministry of Information), that is, a committee to squelch dissent, as was the USSR’s Ministry of Culture. 

             Maybe if there were a National Press Program here, each school could receive one book in a new or current author’s series?  Also, there would be something to export, not only with an actual book or book production technique, but the exporting of “a renaissance in fine new books” by substantial American authors, which also, would bring in more authors and artists from abroad, to see and share what is suddenly happening here.  We could seed a National Arts Movement!  The key to this isn’t so much a government solution to the arts, as some ongoing country-wide focus upon the importance of a substantial national culture in America, and one we might be proud of, instead of the pop bestsellers or academic tomes fostered so pathetically each year upon our diminishing reading public.

             Perhaps it is time to reconsider those writers who have been successful in the last twenty years in America, and who consistently fail to bring up issues of censorship within our national culture; they should be evaluated astringently as having “worked with the enemy” (their volumes, especially of religious or ethnic minorities, might be considered tokens of non-exploitation).  Really, we’re talking about decades of “soft fascism” here and those who have contributed to the national cultural propaganda by being published, so as to keep true voices silent.  Consider again my term, degratocrary, rule by the overly credentialed, not the talented.  It’s a symptom of the decay of democracy, entropy, the gradual slip into oligarchy or dictatorship, the kinds of foreboding even expressed by the ancients, Plato’s difficulty with tyrants (Dion of Syracuse) and Aristotle’s many warnings.

             So, the relinquishing of control to Academia, to the disaster of our national literature, as bastions of interest and study and too, the training of apprentice authors and ways it makes new literature so uniform, does corrupt and completely destroy the playing field of worthy artists.  One suggestion would be to make arrangements throughout America’s grant-issuing establishment to have as one of the first considerations a criterion for disqualification:  any active employment as a professor, teacher, or instructor in any professional school, training center, community college, college or university.  Fat cats should be the last considered for any grant money.  Why waste a Guggenheim on someone already pulling down $80-170K, when those individuals often use it for light travel (to make more secure their tenure position) or to buy rental property in their university towns to profit twice from nearby students?  Again, all that weakens and delimits America’s possibility for a national culture.  No Teacher Lit!  Give the grants to the highly talented and the ambitious writers who are needy; expand the culture and transcend the dead ends of the learned by leapfrogging over academic deadwood!

             (There’s an additional discussion revealed in Michael Moore’s documentary, Capitalism:  A Love Story.  He cites a 2005 Citigroup internal document that promotes the concept of “Plutonomy,” or our economy powered by and consumed by the wealthy few, in fact the top 1% of our society, which includes a “Managerial Aristocracy.”  Those who disagree with me about America’s oligarchy might study further.  www.scribd.com/doc/6674234/citigroup-oct-16-2005-plutonomy-report-part-1.)

             We should be looking at instead, some manner of starting and increasing a mentoring and patronage program, as with the earlier renaissance, so as to guarantee a substantial future for the next generation.  This takes nothing more than a few of the wealthy starting the fashion for national patronage of individual artists, needy writers and artists, not just for institutions, but for actually productive individuals, outsiders, soon-to-be-knowns.   If we had even, for instance, some publishing showcase each year on the scale and with the ambition of the Sundance Film Festival (and associated workshops and cable distribution), only for original writing and publishing, that might help.  It would also establish the obligation, finally, for anyone with some success currently in publishing to give back to the culture and provide for the future with some sort of breakthrough possibilities for promoting books.  As it is now, the top sellers in the book market continue on with very little other effort, as if their success were actually from some super talent versus connections or chance (or demonic backing).

               At least the great performers and actors from cinema have on occasion returned to humble circumstances to institute such seeding ventures, as did Robert Redford with the Sundance ventures, Tony Randall with his National Actors Theatre, and Lee Strasberg, in a different way with directing and a training breakthrough for the Actors Studio.  We have had authors make attempts, with Norman Mailer helping establish The Village Voice and later taking some active role in PEN (Poets, Playwrights Editors, Essayists, and Novelists), and the posthumous author’s retreat in his name (Norman Mailer Writers Colony, www.NMwcolony.org), or the fine example of novelist Mary Lee Settle, who in 1980 founded a yearly fiction award (PEN/Faulkner Award), after she certainly lived in humble fashion, not with lucrative results from her years of authorship, even including the National Book Award in 1978 for Blood Ties (I helped renew interest in Settle before the award, via contacting critics across the country and publishing my interview with her and excerpt of her novel in my literary magazine, The Blue Ridge Review).  Again, my own example has been to raise these issues here with some realistic solutions and suggestions (including chapter “Acceptance of Individual Authors” and originally in my Quintessence, Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance), especially of adding some tax onto genre or bestseller publishing, as a tax per book sold, to fund a national POD program for first novelists or independent literary publishing.  Also, as mentioned in “Autobiography” my own plans do include a sort of Writer’s Colony in Taormina and other arrangements suggested at worst, for my family to incorporate in Taormina, Sicily, after my death.  Such apprenticeship centers worked for other artists while they were alive, Frank Lloyd Wright, in American architecture being one (center called Taliesan).  Some of this is a rebalancing of culture also, just as internationally, decades ago, I put forth the proposition that our global Olympics should include a grand competitive theater competition, as was similar to ancient Greece, so that the body and mind of humanity could become balanced.

              Constructive suggestions for the writing arts in America:

1. New prize, “American Masterpiece Award,” for yearly contest in America, best novel or fiction work, real literature. 
2. National program where works by Americans are printed and given or sold to mass audience through a sort of national book club system, including museums, libraries, and schools.
3. National grants for established authors to take on one apprentice or learner for a one-year period of internship (grant to both writers, to help support interaction).
4. Regular government supervision of all existing mainstream publishing companies with divulged figures (and reasons) for amount or lack of amount of new authors taken aboard each year, multinational corporations functioning within our boundaries (which now include most of our mainstream publishing houses) should be forced to comply.  Other side to this, is a quarterly checking of American authors, to guarantee that their books are exported to other nations on a regular basis, with generous PR, so that American Literature remains connected with and interactive with Global Literature.  Some sort of world-wide “Intellectual Olympics” would prove interesting.  Perhaps, companies not complying with new statures could be fined, and those fines used to promote such world-class intellectual or global literary events.
5. Taxing of any cultural proceeds which are ultra-popular and lend to the superficiality of culture (vampire films, comic books, pornography, gossip or popular celebrity magazines, most of TV, pop music, concerts for the vulgar) to be filtered back through system to support any serious literary author or other artist (a sort of continual boost to National Endowment for the Arts).  This essentially would siphon off or skim a bit of money from the amount thrown away or drained so vigorously by pop culture, to ensure some depth to American National Culture, the continuation or beginning of a true High Culture, a stabilizing of current entropy.
6. Establishment of “No Income Tax in America for Authors,” as has been spearheaded in the past by Ireland (1969 Irish Tax Act for direct royalties, “Artists’ Exemption Scheme,” www.ireland-writers.com/exemption.htm).  A defense of this would be as program is inaugurated more authors would swarm to America to write or take advantage of tax relief, and with increase in intellectual creativity new “hot spots” or creativity centers or “places cool for the arts” would bloom, wherever there is influx of such writers or gathering of them.  Eventually this would lead on its own, to small or minor reinvigoration of certain towns or cities, even outside of traditional centers such as New York City and San Francisco.
7. Underwriting of poetry readings, prose readings, reading book clubs, drama presentations, national literary fairs on a regular basis, and regional festivals each year (to bring about a sense of refreshment and fun).
8. Yearly contest for best recommendations for invigoration of our national culture through literature and the arts (all results from contest would be published and distributed to populace each year).  Cumulative records kept and reviewed for feasibility each decade.
9. Bring back the “Medici Gardens” from fifteenth century Florence as a cultural pattern, with ways to organize in each city, ways to promote, and ways for any corporate, university or private sponsor to support.  Have a pattern or model set up with complete instructions, forms, background necessary and ways to implement in each city or town.  There could be a national Internet version too, as an interactive online workshop.
10. Recognize and promote art movements as they happen in America, with media recognition, books and documentaries and music, support and patronage, and some sort of national trajectory of how that might fit into the chronological and national spiritual fabric of American society.

            

             Visionary experience.  During an intense spiritual episode some thirty years ago (including De Civitate Dei), I walked along an interior corridor, inside a complex where I was staying, only something else was happening.  I was in the present, physically, yet part of an alternative reality, a different time setting, whereby I was seeking, proceeding into the future, humankind’s future, almost as if I were walking, stalking, through this corridor of time.  I imagined it then as a horizontal corridor of the Great Pyramid of Giza (Khufu), which I always had felt was for Ancient Egyptian initiation and visionary experience.  There was a way, almost as Masonic ritual, of acting out symbolic motions in our current reality, which might project a spiritual image or trajectory.  I traipsed into the future, feeling as I walked that I was actually entering future realms, not of years, but farther, of many centuries into the future, and what I eventually confronted frightened me.  I met another person there, in the visionary corridor, only the person, friendly and sociable, was something different—an androgynous being who was shaped almost in a pear-fashion or trapezoidal, with a short height, lack of stocky or traditional athletic build (our usual large head, strong neck, wide shoulders, narrow waist, long thin arms and legs) we would consider today for men, and instead had more of a pyramidal-shaped body, with smaller head, narrow shoulders, wider waist and short wide legs.  My thoughts upon confronting the being encompassed one sensation:  “Martian.” 

             I felt that I was visiting a future, endgame or endnote to humanity here, an Earth progressing into total destruction, as might have happened if Mars had ever once been inhabited.  The vision again was terrifying, because what I was facing, in Earth’s far future of many centuries, perhaps two thousand or more years, was the end of humanity as we know it; what I confronted was a transgender form of some creature who had been altered through centuries of genetic engineering and scientific tampering into a totally decrepit or corrupted form, one also proceeding to evolve right out of existence, a form of human extinction.  (That correlated also with a key for my studies of physics, which I felt proved that our exact form, the “five-pointed” man, fit precisely into the energy-geometry of Earth’s environment.  A differently proportioned form would be unable to sustain existence.)  I continued with my pacing over many hours along this corridor, a sequence again, of walking a visionary timeline and moving into humanity’s future, in a mystical way, and then traipsing back, too, until reaching the present again—only now, with a vision, and a stark reality of the possible extinction for men and women as we know them.  That vision (goal of Vision Quest) now stayed with me, as a relay runner returning from another time, carrying a spiritual baton.  (Quintessence:  Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance)

             I had in those days been studying renaissance imagery (including Michelangelo’s David) and was transfixed by Leonardo’s iconic drawing of the Vitruvian Man (Human Proportion) and what that might truly mean (“proportion,” as a man in motion), more as a sort of cruciform symbol, and now as a further sign, prescient warning, a symbol of supreme importance, to our own locking in of our true personhood or humanity yesterday and today, and something to compare with the future image, almost as a being deformed, in actuality again, humankind destroyed.  This is a visionary sequence which I’ve recorded in my book of spiritual memoirs, Each Man Has A Journey.  I am relaying it here to bring across a deeper sense of transcendence and what that heavily laden word or concept might mean for humanity.  It is this vision, also, which transports me back though all the renaissance discussion to a significant appreciation for humanism, and that suddenly applied against a concept of some other future creature even (Homo corruptus, “corrupt man” or limited humanoid?), that we right now need to ponder, understand, and do something about, today.  This applies to older studies of traditional humanism, but more than a reverence for the past or for Ancient Rome and Greece or the classics, there is suddenly here a unique threshold of humanism, which I believe is Christian Humanism, that is, man made in God’s image (not some futuristic version engineered for us by a scientific elite or some future oligarchy or tyrant).

             Holding the form of mankind, Humankind, men and women, today in our physical form (with advanced mental and spiritual and psychological developments, which I define as part of my Metamorphic Psychology) is a gigantic necessity and one which involves each one of us; but too, it involves those with ambitions in the arts and sciences, and those writers new to the task, who today upon such reading must themselves enter into the fray (either by agreeing or disagreeing).  We must consider this spiritual baton, and be ready, as other spiritual Olympic runners appear, to carry it forward and win the race for all of us.  The future is not predestined or yet totally formed, and thus it depends upon each of our creative actions.  (That’s part of my reasons for delivering speeches to The World Future Society, including “Spirit of Transformation” in 1989 and “Metamorphic Psychology” in 1993, at conferences in Washington, DC.  Also, as mentioned in “The Writing Life,” such notes substantiate continual studies about advanced medicine.)

            Finally then, in this book we have moved through thirteen distinct chapters:  “Our Rebirth of Writing,” “Acceptance of Individual Authors,” “Self-Editing for Authors (Part I),” “Self-Editing for Authors (Part II),” “Creativity,” “Experimentalism,” “Spirituality,” “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” “Autobiography,” “The Novel,” “Great Themes,” “The Writing Life,” and “Advancement & Transcendence.”

            We have been able, through the course of those many chapters, to express a call to arms for authors, to write and save the culture, to come to some understanding of the history of printing and written expression, some of the demands and challenges in the past and the present, editing and creative expertise, to bring to fruition or into the awareness of today some discussion of the necessity for the art of writing, and a vision of Humankind.  We have considered the chapters earlier, literary history, and much of the final discourse for current projects, possible and projected, and ways that each serious artist might raise or elevate his art and his or her own consciousness so as to achieve some serious approximation of the new demands of the twenty-first century for dedicated authors.  All the work here however, is meant again, only as an approximation for some course of study, some inducement to practice, some recourse to the many challenges, and inspiration for further achievement.

              These are the times that call for the new artist, the new literary writer, the unique and serious novelist, the new art, especially as mentioned in “The Writing Life,” where so many of our talented masters have passed on.  Opportunity!

             Only you can further the art, only you can proceed, only your next writing and the collection of your future writing, your entire life’s endeavor, can bring about the true result of the aim of this entire volume.  I’ve meant to circumscribe and provide insight about universal aims, mostly from a private or perspective as one artist, one writer within the writing arts.  The true test will come with each of you, the readers and writers today, who will proceed and surpass all of the work noted over these pages, with dynamic writing of depth and charm and tragedy and comedy, to redefine our arts and sustain our human place in the arts, for a grand world. 

 

RESOURCES

 

1. Books:  Greatness, Who Makes History and Why by Dean Keith Simonton; Aha! by Jordan Ayan; Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Csikszentmilhalyi; Sparks of Genius, Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein; The Einstein Factor by Win Wenger and Richard Poe; MegaCreativity by Andrei G. Aleinkov; Will Durant’s The Renaissance (The Story of Civilization: Part V); Vasari’s Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects;  The Discovers, The Creators, The Seekers, all by Daniel J. Boorstin; The Paris Review Interviews (Vol. 1-4); Cosmic Consciousness by Richard Maurice Bucke; Super Consciousness by Colin Wilson; Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow; Leonardo by Maria Constantino (beautifully printed, brief, large format volume; Vitruvian Man or “Human Figure in a Circle, illustrating Proportion,” pg. 38); The Bible.
2. Films:  How Art Made The World (PBS series), Documentaries about Frank Lloyd Wright, Leonardo da Vinci, Solzhenitsyn and other authors (available for rent from Netflix, www.Netflix.com).
3. Online:  Creative Leadership Forum’s “100 Excellent Online Tools To Feed Your Creativity”:  www.TheCreativeLeadershipForum.com; Available survey courses in literature, the arts, and renaissance history, The Great Courses with The Teaching Company, www.teach12.com.
4. Publishing & Censorship: Publishing, The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter, www.ParaPublishing.com; POD printers: www.LuLu.com, www.Xlibris.com, www.AuthorHouse.com, www.BookstandPublishing.com, www.BookSurge.com; Online digital library, www.ProjectGutenberg.org; Publishing industry, www.Bookwire.com.  Censorship, Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky; Censored 2009 by Peter Phillips & Project Censored, www.ProjectCensored.org; Rich Media, Poor Democracy by Robert W. McChesney.
5. Religious inspiration:  The New Testament; How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.; The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie; Literary Giants, Literary Catholics by Joseph Pearce; The Philosophy of Civilization by Albert Schweitzer; www.CatholicWritersGuild.org; www.CatholicPoetsandWriters.com; www.ACFW.com. 

 

Contributor’s Notes

             Charles A. Taormina’s most recent novel, Gratuity, and a book of short stories, Shared Lives, are available at www.LuLu.com; and his eBook of short fiction, Moments, is at www.AuthorHouse.com.  The Writing Arts: An Author’s Perspective is Taormina’s twenty-first book.  He lives in Johnstown, PA, where he is finishing a collection of three novellas, Triad, a fourth volume of short fiction, and his spiritual memoirs, Each Man Has A Journey.  His writing has been published overseas and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  He is listed with Who’s Who In The World.  Currently, Taormina is in search of a publisher.

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Saturday, Mar 20 2010

ARCHIVE

“The Writing Life,” March 20, 2010

“Great Themes,” March 5, 2010

“The Novel,” February 15, 2010

“Autobiography,” January 27, 2010

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

 

The following twelfth article, “The Writing Life,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog in 2008.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources. All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina.

  

THE WRITING LIFE

(Notes on Being An Author)

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina

 

             This will be the most difficult chapter for aspiring authors to consider.  Part of the glory of writing, I think, is the grand possibility for life as a celebrity, and if not that, at least, some grand success so as to pursue one’s professional writing career in a wondrous fashion.  Who amongst us does not want good pay for our efforts, does not want millions of contemporary readers, media adulation, film offers, publishing impresarios introducing us to other world changers within our culture, who?  Probably, this fantasy is the most common among the general public (and not without merit, for the public often only hears of a few top-selling authors, who do in fact, live out all of this—the J.K. Rowlings, Stephen Kings, Dan Browns).  With those authors, however, it might be pertinent to bring up again our discussion in the chapter on “Spirituality” of The Faustian Bargain, and to consider precisely, what these overt bestsellers are peddling (and for whom exactly)?

             Next, within the literary category, many of great-selling and accepted authors, in America at least, have died, most in the last few years unfortunately (John Updike, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Frank McCourt, Mary Lee Settle, J.D. Salinger, Louis Auchincloss, Philip Jose Farmer, Marilyn French, James Purdy).  Often, serious books, the awards and ceremonies, and some glamour and money too, come only with the usual attachments to university assignments, newspaper jobs, or editorial functions in publishing departments.  The real glamour of past champions of literature, the Hemingway hunting lions in Africa and the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald wining and dinning across Paris and New York, are quaint facts of history (yes, facts), but of bygone days.  More often, Americans artists are fighting every single working day, to make ends meet, to find some publisher somewhere (when most manuscripts are rejected, then suddenly come quality awards and reviews, yet no sales), to persevere.  Some work stable “day jobs” all of their lives, while plodding along publishing independent press magazines and book ventures; many pursue education careers (caught up too often with affluence and security; or derailed by tenure battles, academic isolation, weak literary efforts); some continue with menial “day jobs” off and on, doggedly pursuing a writing career as did painters of old (French Impressionists come to mind)—they continue their art however they might, until fashion and acceptance catch up with a lifetime of adult expertise and productivity (my own story).

             For those thinking the glamorous had quick success, much can be learned by checking bestsellers of years past, years when one might think America would’ve celebrated the publication of literary classics.  (“Bestseller Lists for 1900-1995,” www.caderbooks.com/bestintro.html.)  1929 is an exception, All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque and Dodsworth by Sinclair Lewis were at the top; but as usual, the remaining eight authors are completely forgotten.  That same 1929 also heralded Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury, Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel, Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, and Steinbeck’s first novel, A Cup of Gold.

             In 1930 Faulkner published As I Lay Dying when Cimarron by Edna Ferber was at the top; in 1934 Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night was published and Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen was number one; 1935 saw Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat appear with Green Light by Lloyd C. Douglas as first; in 1937 Hemingway’s To Have And To Have Not was published and Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell topped the list; in 1940 when Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again was published, How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn ruled.  Such lists prove a senseless conglomeration of bad taste and avoidance of great writing.  Of course, today’s Bestseller Lists are worse (March, 2010).  Does Fantasy In Death by J.D. Robb sound like it will end up anywhere except on racks of junk reading at some yard sale?

             Let us consider the history of writer’s lives, now almost legendary if one is used to hearing this sort of thing, but a shocking eye-opener for those aspiring writers and artists, for whom this volume is intended.  Lest we think bad luck, or being ostracized or forgotten is a modern predicament, we should note the destiny of Ovid, the ancient Roman poet (43 BC—17 AD); after writing his Metamorphoses, he was banished or exiled by the emperor Augustus to Tomis on the Black Sea, away from the heart of Roman society.  There’s a Latin tradition for that, with Dante being expelled from Florence, Italy, Petrarch also, plus Machiavelli—and none of them liked their status—though each used the new solitude or isolation to grand, literary vantage.  So, too, in more modern days, Victor Hugo endured a 20-year exile from France (partly voluntary), as was Emile Zola forced to escape Paris for his stand in the Dreyfus Case, Hermann Hesse left Germany voluntarily for Switzerland and later Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht moved to America during the Nazi era (with Hesse’s assistance), as was Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian novelist, more recently exiled from the USSR, and the Chinese Nobel Prize Winner, Gao Xingjian, exiled now as a citizen of France.

             Some of the extremes for writers include prison.  Many an author used such incarceration to creative advantage from the pop stories in the USA by O. Henry to the infamous writing of Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler, or the mental creations by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn while incarcerated for political “crimes” in Russia (mostly their thoughts were transcribed after prison).  Marco Polo was said to have narrated his exotic travelogue about China, The Travels of Marco Polo, while in jail in Venice, perhaps some of Don Quixote might have been written by Cervantes from a Spanish jail, the poetry of St. John of the Cross’s Spiritual Canticle was written while under arrest, and there were other imprisoned Christian authors beginning with St. Paul (many letters), St. Thomas More’s A dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “A Letter From The Birmingham Jail.”  Others who penned books in jail include Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis, Jean Genet’s Our Lady of the Flowers, Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos, Daniel Defoe’s A Hymn to the Pillory, Sir Walter Raleigh’s A History of the World, Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy, and much by Mahatma Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, plus the beginnings of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk To Freedom. (Wikipedia)

             So, those extremes in isolation, either exile or imprisonment, or both, can provide creative stimulus or at least desperate opportunity for many.  Of course, the occasion of imprisonment itself can signal the necessity for expressing vindication, explanation, and transcendence.  Many lives show the inevitable results of creative individuals moving between personal extremes and provide a good case for understanding the distraught circumstances, pained existences, and deliberate or self-created chaos of which many literary artists partake.

             Being an American, it’s easy to start with an author like Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), to show a life of tragic consequences, unrequited extremes or consolation or love, and inevitably a sorrowful ending (nearly dead in the streets of Baltimore, dying soon from unknown causes, age 40).  Also, with my having lived in Charlottesville, Virginia as did Poe, his actual room is still maintained at UVA—where he was expelled for gambling—and his editorial years in nearby Richmond, Virginia, seem ever on the mind.  Those thinking Poe only the author of popular horror tales and tight cadenced poetry, master of the macabre, should note his invention of the mystery novel, the psychological tale, and detective fiction and early science fiction—with lasting effects on his contemporaries, especially abroad, having influenced Dostoevsky in Russia and later Mishima Yukio in Japan.  (Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in England, however, had been published in 1818.)  Poe is one of the earliest practitioners of the short story in America. (Wikipedia)  His art affected Baudelaire, Mallarme, and Jules Verne in France, and H.G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Britain.  Poe’s criticism too is exceptional, so that he stands as a sort of intellectual across several forms of writing and literary efforts.  He was known for his alcoholism, obvious dark moods, the untimely death of his beloved young wife, and an assortment of traumatic events (both parents died when he was 3; though serving two years in the Army, later he was dismissed from West Point Military Academy as well as UVA; early books of poems all self-published) of which, the lack of any consistent or stable income as a writer or editor, obviously contributed to his demise.  To what extent the events produced the chaos or emotions in his life and to what extent he followed such intensity or participated in masochistic suffering is difficult to say.

             Following a bit later in America, members known as part of The Transcendental Movement, under Emerson, should be understood, with some of the tribulations of those involved.  Thoreau’s Walden; Or, Life In The Woods once published sat mostly undiscovered in boxes in Emerson’s attic (the cabin at Walden Pond also was on property owned by Emerson).  Thoreau lived for several years in Emerson’s household, working as a handyman.  “Civil Disobedience” of course was written after Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay his local poll taxes to protest war and slavery, and had a great influence around the world, with an entire strategy initiated by political activists using Nonviolent Resistance—Leo Tolstoy picked up the herald during his final “Tolstoyism” years, then from him Mahatma Gandhi’s brought down the British Empire to free India, and finally it returned to the Civil Rights Movement in modern America, under Martin Luther King, Jr.  In later years Thoreau was an active abolitionist and lectured in favor of John Brown.  Much of his notebooks also record observations as a philosopher and serious naturalist.  Thoreau earned no money from his writings; the two books printed during his lifetime were self-published.  He was a Harvard graduate, who refused to teach and chose instead to live a life of independence.  He died at age 44.  (His writings fill 20 volumes, 14 of which are journals.)

             Melville progressed better, in early public acceptance and some small income from his writings, as long as he excited his audience with exotic sailing stories, until he added or developed a metaphysical component with Moby Dick.  It might be noted that all of his novels were first published in England.  He continued to write but with little popular success; later he did achieve some of his most accomplished fiction (“Bartleby The Scrivener,” “Benito Cereno,” The Confidence Man, and the posthumous novella, Billy Budd), and died in modest circumstances, after working full-time as a customs inspector, then with a small inheritance.  Melville was the first writer to have his works published these days by The Library of America.  (Wikipedia)  His good friend and neighbor, Nathaniel Hawthorne, had writing accepted more widely, but there were earlier years and years when Hawthorne lived a reclusive life, seemingly idle, except for his own reading and intellectual pursuits.  He was known for his short stories and masterpiece novels, The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables.  Among the Transcendentalists he was friends with Emerson and Thoreau and participated for a time in Brook Farm, the experiment in communal living, from which he departed in disappointment.  Margaret Fuller, the editor for the Transcendentalists’ The Dial and a focused feminist in her own right (author of Woman in the Nineteenth Century), did other professional writing and later influenced American activists in the Women’s Movement with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  (Margaret Fuller also was the great aunt of R. Buckminster Fuller, popularizer of the dome, engineer, and modern renaissance designer.)  Walt Whitman is famous for his poetry, occasional forays into journalism and travels and Bohemianism, as well as his continual poetry self-publishing (including setting of type and book printing, Whitman was a journeyman printer) with his verse collection, Leaves of Grass.  He was not so well accepted, especially with his sensual and freedom-loving nature and self-advertised homoerotic tone; yet he also did a stint with Union Army hospitals, as a serious field nurse and helper with the terribly injured during our Civil War.  Emerson, the mentor and exponent of the group, an enthusiast and supporter of many just discussed (launched the magazine, The Dial; offered Margaret Fuller magazine editorship; suggested that Thoreau keep a journal; provided Whitman positive response to Leaves of Grass), lived a more conservative life, first as a minster, later on an inheritance and by giving lectures and publishing insightful writings (Essays, in two volumes) and collections of poems.  (Wikipedia)

             There was a goodly share of American writers who did live a more conventional author’s life with public success and some wealth, including James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and Henry James.  To be fair, Twain only survived financially not through his books but via his celebrity and talent for live performances when for years he did readings and live shows (after seeing Dickens do the same), including years touring Europe; Cooper even lived for a time in Europe with his family but returned to America; and Henry James finally succumbed to the ultimate of wiles with the USA, he became a citizen of Great Britain (as did T.S. Eliot, and Richard Wright, with France).  These writers followed the stable careers of veteran European novelists such as Dickens and George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) and Trollope in Britain, Balzac and Hugo and Zola in France, Turgenev and Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in Russia (here a case should be made for the affluent aristocrats Turgenev and Tolstoy, versus Dostoevsky’s early imprisonment for political crimes and his later banishment to Siberia, then his return to St. Petersburg with several magazine editorships, difficulties with gambling and poverty and his travels abroad, and his happy marriage to his amanuensis, who helped Dostoevsky produce the masterpieces—Dostoevsky, like many famous in history, also suffered from epilepsy).

             Later days in America show the affluence and heights of celebrity with Hemingway and Fitzgerald; yet there were those serious writers not so fortunate, Sherwood Anderson (who lived in quiet poverty, had early critical acceptance, provided mentoring to both Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, helped get their first books published), Gertrude Stein (mostly living in Paris with a life-long trust fund and self-publishing), and Thomas Wolfe, whose extravagant fiction and eloquence were cut short at age thirty-eight by miliary tuberculosis of the brain, and Faulkner who lived much of his adult life in obscurity, until late recognition with The Portable Faulkner and winning the Nobel Prize.

             Henry Miller and Kerouac and Burroughs were penniless early in their writing lives (Burroughs had a small allowance), though many will point to their outsider or underground status as contributing to that (who, for instance, in the 1950’s would support Kerouac’s chronicles of driving cross country listening to jazz and drunken poetry readings and rucksack hiking and bumming on rails, when most of the middle class were racing into suburban tract homes, grey suits, and the haze of staring at national TV?).  It brings to mind Henry Miller’s prescient, The Air Conditioned Nightmare.

             More current authors have fared better with connections, high book sales and literary acceptance, teaching appointments, or movie tie-ins (or combinations of all those) with such as Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Philip Roth, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, Ann Beattie, Ken Kesey, Saul Bellow, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, Toni Morrison, E.L. Doctorow, T.C. Boyle, Jodi Picoult.

             Extremes for writers, or extraordinary events that have attracted worldwide attention, might be noted with St. Thomas More’s execution in England for his stand for Roman Catholicism, Thoreau’s night in prison for his stand against taxes and government authority, St. Teresa of Avila’s many miracles and her brave writings in Spain (during The Spanish Inquisition), Emile Zola’s stand for Dreyfus in France and his exile to England, courageous underground Czech playwright, Vaclav Havel, who in 1989 was elected to Presidency of Czechoslovakia, Solzhenitsyn’s bravery against the Soviets and defense of the wrongly imprisoned leading to exile from the USSR and his later return to a free Russia, and earlier the bizarre yet singular stand of Japan’s Mishima, for the militarist/warrior’s way and a failed coup d’état, leading to his own voluntary and public act of seppuku.

             Probably, it is time to issue a warning to novices, that there are enough cases of suicide and possible murders and the deaths by one disease (TB or the old euphemism, “consumption”) to say, “Beware,” especially of suicide.  “To be or not to be?”  In America in particular, the tragedy of even great authors like Hemingway committing suicide (shotgun to the mouth) fails to account for all the others:  Brautigan (gunshot to the head), poet Sylvia Plath (suffocation by stove), poet Anne Sexton (auto exhaust), John Kennedy Toole (auto exhaust, upon rejection of first novel, only published posthumously when mother took manuscript to Walker Percy), Breece D’J Pancake (gunshot to head), David Foster Wallace (hanged), Hunter S. Thompson (rifle blast to head), Hart Crane (jumped overboard at sea), William Inge (carbon monoxide), Kosinski (barbiturates), and probable suicide by severe alcoholism with F. Scott Fitzgerald (caused at age 44 by heart attack) and Jack Kerouac (who admitted as a Catholic he drank because the church prohibits suicide).  In Europe two champions of Modernism terminated their lives, Virginia Woolf (drowning herself in a stream), and James Joyce, probably through effects of alcoholism, though immediate cause was a perforated peptic ulcer (both died in the same year, 1941).  Again, the ancients saw the Roman suicides of Petronius and Seneca (both by slitting of veins, as probable “state executions” under Nero—Petronius didn’t wait for the sentence).  To avoid shirking all the danger here, there is a list of 400 some writer suicides online; for details of this horrific and grisly legacy, see Wikipedia, “Writers who committed suicide.”  We must make some sincere plea, for authors to stay around:  the future does need you!

             This might be a good place to cite the modern writing coach Natalie Goldberg:  “Take out another notebook, pick up another pen, and just write, just write, just write.  In the middle of the world, make one positive step.  In the center of chaos, make one definite act.  Just write.  Say yes, stay alive, be awake.  Just write. Just write. Just write.” (Writing Down The Bones, Natalie Goldberg, www.CherylRainfield.com).

             While one must defend the tortured souls with mention often of debilitating and painful illnesses, still those entering upon the creative writing path must steel their souls against all such attacks, all attempts at stopping their output and ending their lives.  Of course, St. Paul and St. Thomas More were executed by decapitation, and many in France think Emile Zola was murdered (by a confessed anti-Dreyfus partisan), when someone blocked his bedroom fireplace and found the author dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.  There is the modern “fatawa” by Moslem extremists, calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie, after publication of his novel, The Satanic Verses.  The other warning, I think, is this flirting with consumption, almost in older times as some sort of “death by romanticism,” in that many authors died of TB (“consumption”) or some lung complication.  Tuberculosis is an often deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria.  Writers with TB (some recovered from the wasting lung disease) include Roman poet Catullus, Balzac, Bellamy, Emily & Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Browning, Charles Bukowski, Robert Burns, Albert Camus, Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Maxim Gorky, Dashiell Hammett, Robert A. Heinlein, Washington Irving, Samuel Johnson, D.H. Lawrence, Kafka, Keats, Katherine Mansfield, W. Somerset Maugham, Maupassant, Moliere, Novalis, Eugene O’Neill, George Orwell, Walker Percy, Alexander Pope, Rousseau, Ruskin, Schiller, Sir Walter Scott, Sterne, Stevenson, Dylan Thomas, Thoreau, Voltaire, and Thomas Wolfe.  (Wikipedia)

             While TB is a disease of contamination from other infected persons, often those in poverty suffer the worst (with infection, diagnosis, and treatment).  Authors should be careful of proximity to sick people, of their own writing and living quarters (warm and clean and dry), getting enough aerobic exercise and a good, consistent diet, and some care to avoid smoking cigarettes.  “Smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day also increases risk of TB by two to four times,” and can be aggravated by alcoholism and poor nutrition.  (Wikipedia).  I’ve gone on in detail about TB because so many authors and creative people have suffered from this illness; TB’s almost considered a writer’s disease.

             It is my personal intuition that especially for authors, the disease of TB is particularly prevalent.  It is my thought that the very act of writing, and that meaning using the pen professionally or consistently over long periods on a regular, sedentary basis—that authorship often leads to poor habits in posture, avoiding a healthy diet and exercise regimen, in poor circulation, in the affinity for stimulants (whatever might increase intellect or sensitivities).  This is especially true, I feel, because of the exact process of extended writing, in that it is a concentrated act of introversion, where the usual method of speaking or talking or breathing normally is all attenuated, often sublimated in some sense, and I think that can lead to an affinity or weakness with the human lungs that regular authors must consider (all the shallow or constricted breathing) with so much sedentary activity.  Writers must do something about this, to prevent any possible illness.  Smoking, of course, would accelerate all of those negatives, as would substance abuse in general, as well as frequent habits of artists with “cabin fever” and spending enjoyable time among friends (or in a lively atmosphere like a tavern), where they might open themselves to such illness.  Writing and breathing are intertwined and linked (even with a visually orientated person like myself), so authors must take care.

             These harsh extremes as part of the lives of serious authors and with such intensity should not deter us from more mild, elevated, and positive considerations with the writing life.  Perhaps, the first worry with the writing life is the obvious, for an adult:  Money.  Wagner rallied against the establishment in Germany of his time, about the emphasis or necessity of commercial profitability for most art work.  (Goethe received a state pension.)  Virginia Woolf voiced her disdain also, for authors who wrote for money.  Wagner was saved by divine grace, the complete and royal patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria.  Woolf, of course, though a darling of the feminists, was supported entirely by her husband (he even started a press to publish her books).  If one does not have a legacy, inheritance or maintenance income from family, or does not become wealthy immediately, then other means must be arranged.

             The problem with the obvious situation is that the young author is betting his talent, energy, discipline, inspiration, and dedication on his art (writing) against everyone and everything of sensibility in his or her young life.  This is appropriate for a time, then after a certain “romantic period,” there’s pressure for one obviously to “grow up,” or in more established terms, come to some arrangements with the world, that is, get a job, or more directly, figure out how to obtain a regular paycheck.  Newspapers used to be the middle road for many serious authors (Whitman, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway, Willa Cather, Tom Wolfe); but in this century even that medium is shutting down (each week since The Great Recession, more newspapers, and entire newspapers chains, have announced bankruptcy or sold off all assets).  Some were able in the nineteenth and twentieth century to earn a serious living from magazines (Henry James, Jack London, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson) but those avenues, too, seem to be shriveling.  Now, authors often turn to a university life, with young writers flocking to any MFA program (so they can teach when the writing fails), with the quality in published writing of course declining, as a continuous calcification or move to academia of supposedly serious literati ensues (pushing away the average serious reader) and with that, an alienation of the entire book market and wider reading public.  Again, note the sharp comments from Tom Wolfe, in a Time Magazine interview:  “If you add up the college education of Steinbeck, Hemingway and Faulkner, you get to spring break of freshmen year.”  (Wolfe himself, however, has earned a doctorate.)

             In my own case, I’ve had to follow the low road, of working at various day jobs throughout my writing life, and going about all the savvy marketing I could manage, while creatively initiating public vehicles for my work (community newspaper, literary magazine, intellectual newsletter, book publisher, blogs); but this has proven frustrating, demeaning, and a constant source of difficulty (in finding ways to survive and to continue writing creatively).  I have, in effect, felt almost like an illegal alien in America or someone who couldn’t make it through high school (attempting to find high-paying employment), when in fact I was born in the USA, was graduated at the top of my high school class, and hold a B.A. degree (completed in three years), became bilingual in Spanish (with a smattering of French and German and nearly a second major), traveled over Europe twice, all across America, into Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, as well as accumulating establishment credentials (2 years of journalism, 2 years of periodical editorship, 7 years of management, 7 years of sales and marketing, plus a hodgepodge of trades including years as a carpenter, photographer, having my own businesses in photography and book editing, as a playwright and paid actor, and sundry consulting ventures, plus educational renewals through self-study, seminars, and workshops).  This was in addition to my having completed over twenty books, speaking engagements, doing communication workshops, and being honored many times with inclusion in Who’s Who Directories and nominated for awards.  A biographical society in England listed me among the “Outstanding People of the Twentieth Century.”  The best advice I could mention to young writers today is to nail to your wall a phrase from the Bible:  “Cast not your pearls before swine.”

             Also, you must understand at some point, that all of this mounts up to repression of your rights, the censorship of your work, and the internal exile of you as an individual and a literary craftsperson, within your own country or nation—exactly similar to the tactics used by the USSR against Solzhenitsyn and with authors in China today.  (The U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/, championed by Eleanor Roosevelt, states in Article 23-1:  “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”  My italics.)  At some point you have to make a stand and with that by your very life and the dedicated work that your life produces and know if you’ve been serious enough, that you are writing for the future or into the future and that your expression over a lifetime will survive, and more, will inspire or support efforts tomorrow so that such oppression of writers cannot and will not take place.

             Going about this effort, however, has required certain disciplined habits.  When I’m gainfully employed I’m always saving and putting aside whatever funds I can manage, because I know the paying work period will not last long—that is, before I make creative space for my writing and the written arts.  It’s a case of true “artistic poverty.”  This places one in a certain enviable position; suddenly, you’re outside of America’s infamous consumer society (the thing I want is Freedom, not consumer goods), so you have little temptation there and less interest or ability to be bought off by the next corporate bonus or that university appointment or the next business opportunity—if you keep quiet.  A few years ago a new friend stopped my discussion with, “Well, don’t you want to own a house?”  I laughed.  “A house?” I said.  “No, I want to own a printing press!”  At some point, once being on the outside of the consumer society, which is out of control, you’re able to take more things in stride and able to see more clearly, and also able to understand the real boredom here or triviality of our culture as the constant bombardment of “buy, buy, buy!” goes right over your head because you have no disposable income, “no cash, cash, cash!”  One begins to haunt the Goodwill and Salvation Army outlets when one needs clothes, small appliances or a bookcase, or used books.  Most everything is purchased secondhand, even cars.  Somehow, that too allows one some connection to a recycled economy and one that helps in the long run with pollution and the wise use of planetary recourses, some salvation for the environment.  Even Ezra Pound wrote, “Great art does not depend upon comfort.”  (“The Renaissance,” Literary Essays of Ezra Pound)

             This, of course, is a spiritual situation, and it is no accident or extreme of Christianity that The Lord when He walked as a human being on the Earth moved about in utter poverty, as did many of His apostles, later converts and many saints, made famous, naturally, by such as St. Francis, denuding himself of his father’s clothes in public, to move on to his new, sacred life as a humble beggar.  Without all those trappings, things suddenly, instantly and completely become clear.  These are kinds of lessons in current America, that even within our recession, need constant articulation, display, and discussion.  I remember, years ago, when Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited a new hospital wing in California, arranged all in her honor.  The new construction, new furniture, new accessories and technologies all were donated locally; Mother Teresa was brought in for a special honor.  She spent the day in horror, throwing out of the windows room furnishings, telling administrators not to buy things, but to pay attention with love to the victims and people, the patients, that the place was supposed to be assisting.  Here, it’s the same with each locale across America trying to improve education for youngsters:  don’t raise standards, don’t increase teacher salaries or hire talented instructors, don’t increase the students’ wellbeing (with lunch programs and literacy and new academics), but do build new school buildings (so the money is spent on local businesses, construction firms and hard goods, not vague or abstract “humanistic values”).

             When we want to help, we love to throw money at projects; we don’t care if it solves anything, we just want to look at the extent of our monetary investment!  This moves out somewhat from the discussion, as I wrote in 1987 with my article “Psychology & Economics” (now in Quintessence) whereby for the popular culture here every level of value with pop media is judged by box office receipts for films, bestseller counts for books, TV ratings, and giant salaries for “high-profiled” individuals—yet how does this have anything to do with excellence?  Nothing; it has to do with ephemeral popularity, with external and often sensational or demonic mass marketing, and lastly, with the sways and pulls of a woefully uneducated, brash, and naïve public.  (If this were false, how would any of our immense national stupidity continue for even five minutes, how?)  And when the mainstream culture tires of itself, even after getting away with this cultural destruction and entropy and nonsense, when it wants diversity and excitement in its cultural icons, from its “art work”; what it wants is not truth or insights about its own degradation, rather it cherishes “irreverence, iconoclasm, rampant disrespect” for anything of value (church, religious views, the positive, real dissent, sound solutions, honest criticism based on the transparency of society’s faults).  Much of it today is supported again by the term of my creation, a degrotacracy, whereby the diploma mills (universities and tech schools) are ever busy turning out more and more graduates, not individuals with rounded educations and creative abilities or free thinkers, but simple cogs with diplomas that other simple cogs with diplomas (controllers in current America) can recognize as having “verifiable credentials”—all because those individuals by their own mediocrity, cannot recognize talent or other true qualities for success and advanced achievement.  It’s not a meritocracy then, but a degratocracy (see “Autobiography” and “Great Themes”); whereby that denigration and level of society’s incompetence has reached an entropy point of valuing only degrees or diplomas; and that becomes so clear others can recognize it, correct it, attempt to stop the downturn of mediocrity, and work towards some advanced cultural point, towards a renaissance.

             Often those that sound the cultural standard the loudest and with the most sense (as verified by future historians) at least in the arts are Outsiders, those caught outside or under or beneath or beside the mainstream culture; they recognize that and still continue on with a strong body of work (in the arts, with the intellect, with inventions, with metaphysics) so as to excel in the culture and bring about some substantial transformation in every field.

             To move or accentuate the positive, and to conceptualize the writer’s life or the full view of an artist’s orientation, we need to consider what else can be done from this stance; that is, how else might the writer’s life be turned to greater advantage both for the literary artist and his or her own nation, plus the world at large.  Written arts in the usual sense of the word are only part of the solution; using one’s writing talents within the culture for transformation is a secondary part; and third, is that element which brings about personal salvation and self-fulfillment (in the deepest psychological vision).  Finally, some service for the greater work of God in His divine plan for this planet must appear, via compassion and stewardship.

             With my own interests and themes and specific writing talents, I’ve turned several times to larger cultural concerns, and there have been dynamic, historical results.  One of my initial goals was to help local communities (civic projects even earlier in high school), and with that where I was living at the time, Akron, Ohio, and too, working with another group in Pennsylvania, Rodale Press.  I had started many years earlier with a discussion in my book, Infinity, about turning our communities around, to reinvigorate them, to upgrade our efforts and results.  I took to doing a small “Proposal for Reinvigoration of Akron, Ohio” and submitted it to local officials in the city government, and received some kind replies.  Also, I sent that same plan to then Governor of Ohio, Richard Celeste, at his office in Columbus, Ohio.  I never asked for reprinting or credit, only sent it along.  Within the book Infinity, I cited some of the reasons for reinvigoration, especially with Akron—where the name derives from the Greek for “high place” or “summit” (akros) and applied in earlier days to the highest area along the Ohio and Erie Canal—that we could continue with the crime and poverty or turn it all around.  I invoked one of our most interesting founding fathers and mentor for many civil projects and organizations.  I called the offering of revival suggestions, “playing Ben Franklin.”  We could in Akron, either proceed with a low point or continue to rebuild, to bring it back to a high point of culture.  Part of my efforts with that proposal was to offer the same plan for other communities, and with that I enlisted the assistance of the Reinvigoration Project with Rodale Press, based in Pennsylvania.  At the time the press produced an interesting print newsletter and I listed the proposal there for anyone’s use.

             To understand the seriousness of my efforts, I later wrote a short one-act play, a “community festival play,” called “Rally!” (included in Tauromenium) that was intended for production at block parties in inner cities or rural fairs and had two separate scripts of the same play (one with inner city language, the other with rural language), and finally it also included a child’s puppet script.  The intent, as mentioned in a forward to the published play (“Herculean necessity of our age considering some rebirth”), was to assist the reinvigoration of communities.  The play showed a group of teenagers helping another youngster whose mother recently had her apartment burglarized—all assisted then, to bring about some change, stewardship, renewal.

             I can’t say what direct result necessarily happened with these efforts; I do know that there was a general movement to improve Akron, Ohio, and over the years it started with the establishment of an Inventor’s Hall of Fame (now it has relocated), a new library building, new art museum, city parks (around old canal locks) and other improvements.  I did report later on the opening of the Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Akron, while in Uniontown, PA with my newsletter, Virtù.  The play was never performed there (a private film was planned of my earlier play, “The Catalyst,” now in Tauromenium); however “Rally!” did get a public viewing and reading in Los Angeles, CA with a video recording, and was read at a Playwright’s Reading Group in Pittsburgh, PA.

             Around that time, I also started working on a regular basis, as volunteer and member of Amnesty International, with a significant program called “Freedom Writers” (“Freedom Writers Network,” www.AmnestyUSA.org).  It was humble enough.  Each month Amnesty would send a brief notice listing people on an international basis one could write letters to, or on behalf of:  asking for specific amnesty, for mercy or release of the political prisoner; asking for changes in laws if necessary for groups being tortured or repressed; asking for extra or continued legal representation for victims, some in prison around the world, often for years, without any quick trial or any legal representation whatsoever; asking also for the end of torture, extrajudicial and regular executions, and other worthy, heart-rending causes.  I set about then, to write a personal letter to each of the people, written politely and paying attention to diplomatic protocol (some letters went directly to heads of government or foreign directors or political authorities or leaders of world courts), and to send several copies out for each person listed.  It was a way to enlist some of my writing talents for the less fortunate; and I thought too, while standing up to fight for freedom abroad, perhaps eventually there would be freedom here at home (true freedom of press, freedom to communicate).

             Often, with the next month’s notice, we would receive word that suddenly some prisoner was set free, or the case was finally brought to court after years, that an execution was commuted, that a series of legal repressions in some country were lifted.  Times came too, of sadness, where the beneficiary had died, of natural causes while in prison, under torture, or some court-ordered execution.  The releases were times of joy!  Once, I remember penning a special letter for some conscientious objectors, who were imprisoned in Greece, for failing to participate in their military.  Such pacifist attitudes were close to my heart and I felt I put together an effective letter, not only for mercy with the conscientious objectors, but that the courts might look differently upon conscientious objectors in the future.  Sometime later, Amnesty International reported that the actual constitution in Greece had been altered with a new amendment, to allow for the expression of pacifistic sentiments, allowing for conscientious objectors.  What a triumph, and a heart-warming sensation or response to a sincere effort by myself and other Freedom Writers for Amnesty International.  In Johnstown, PA I later met James Healey, head of AmnestyUSA.  (One can imagine the horror, after helping Amnesty stop foreign torture around the world, of witnessing our own nation using the same illegal tactics for terrorists.  In 1994, USA had ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.)

             Another piece of writing linked to my book on metaphysics made history, with an essay I wrote about the prevalence of apartheid then, in the Union of South Africa.  I was working to put to better use some of my writing, circulating other pieces, and later received word that my pacifistic chapter from Infinity entitled, “WAR\Peace-Peace/WAR,” was accepted for publication in World Union magazine in India.  First, I took up another chapter about apartheid, used as a case study, “Position Paper on Republic of South Africa,” to display how apartheid might be done away with by the ruling regime, without a loss of political power, without revolution, without revolt or violent insurrection, and without perhaps the greater fear of the controlling interests, a backlash of the freed blacks against the then white minority leaders.  I took the paper, wrote an extensive introduction and used diplomatic language again, and as part of Amnesty International’s appeal, sent it to the South African Embassy, US Congressmen Glenn and Metzenbaum, and sent the paper off directly to the Government of Pretoria.  I know that there were many people involved with working out solutions for Africa; later however, when the repressive regime actually dismantled apartheid, I could not help thinking that my essay, as a chapter from my book Infinity, helped clear the air and begin a new era in the politics and lives of Africans, both black and white (documented in “Background of Essays” in Introduction to Quintessence, Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance).

             Later, I took an instructional essay, “Psychology & Economics” (also in Quintessence) and though I was going through incredibly difficult personal times—actually, I was homeless, living with most of my belongings packed into my car, and only weeks afterward finding cheap rooms for temporary housing—I still decided to distribute that writing.  A younger brother took mercy on me and passed along a few dollars in my time of need; however, I felt it best to do something entirely different than purchase things for myself.  I set about to print copies, a few dozen, of “Psychology & Economics,” arranged for mailing overseas by printing on both sides of paper and single-spaced, all printed in Samizdat form actually, and I researched various destinations in Europe, free western Europe and Europe under the USSR at the time, also of some destinations into Moscow, the USSR.  I sent off as many of copies as I could, overseas, airmail.  I didn’t ask for reprinting, only sent it out.  Before, when sending out other articles of mine, I often noticed demonstrations in cities where I sent my material, or in other places kinds of responses.  I recalled a Congressional lobby group who regularly saturated Washington, DC with a detailed newsletter and when paragraphs were taken up by the media, even without direct credit, the group tracked what it called an “echo effect,” some influence promoted by their stance and writing and publishing.  That’s what I started recognizing with my papers sent overseas.  In one instance, with “Psychology & Economics,” where I wrote about artistic freedom and even playwrights having more expression or chance for expression (“Today we unfortunately ignore . . . insightful novelist/playwrights such as Mikhail Bulgakov.”), later I noticed news accounts of playwright Vaclav Havel being elected president of Czechoslovakia in 1989.  The total effect of my article was more profound; not long afterwards came the fall of the Soviet Union entirely.  Again, while the articles were important, I realize the immense direct and constant efforts via establishment media for years by such as Pope John Paul II and Alexander Solzhenitsyn; however, seeing those personal effects, with the circulation of my material, especially after I used the last money given to me by my brother, I understood the real impact of “writing.”

             There was a similar effort with sending material into Europe again, including Germany, both East and West, after which, I heard reported in the news of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  At another time in Uniontown, PA, I received word that a friend of mine, one of two brothers who were close to me and my wife and a group of friends in earlier days in Florida; one of the brothers I was informed, had died of complications with AIDS.  This was in 1993, when little was understood about AIDS, and worse, very little was reported in our national news or any of the media.  We only knew that the pandemic was growing worse; it was affecting many Americans, of whatever sexual orientation; and that it was beginning to devastate some third-world countries, in particular at that time, Africa.

             For years I have paid a great deal of attention to medical research, alternative cures, herbal remedies, new research about disease and treatments.  I did not have any particular health concerns of my own, I just always paid attention, read background on staying healthy (plus exercised regularly, followed careful diets, and took daily supplements), as well as being involved with Renaissance Consciousness, part of which, I feel is an understanding, invention creation, and new insights into human medical circumstances (Leonardo’s anatomy studies were one inspiration).  I had, and am still continuing with a personal “Master Project” that is a study of producing or inventing a generic “healing machine.”  More of that at another time; here it is best to note that I had reviewed medical information for decades.  Also, I have had quite a few spiritual experiences, mystical events and psychic phenomena and the seeing of visions, deep intuitive insights, plus the study as I said of current medicine and much ancient material, even with Paracelsus (1493-1541) and back beyond Roman and Greek sources, to Ancient Egypt.  I was very affected by the death of my friend, and with it, the sudden, overwhelming concern about AIDS, what it was or seemed with what we knew, what it might be or become, how it might be treated or alleviated, what sorts of alternative medicines and other ways might help curb or treat or finally, I prayed, cure AIDS.  It seemed that my friend’s sprit wanted me to help, immediately.

             I had some creative time in Uniontown and researched as much as I could of what was currently known about AIDS.  Now, most of this is old news, but learning of a retrovirus, one that replicated the actual DNA of the host’s body cells, one that at the same time diminished the entire immune system, and with all of that had an incubation period of eleven years just astonished me.  It felt like something come alive from a science fiction book or some cheap Grade-B thriller, only this was terribly and tragically real, so real, it had taken the life of my good friend, and of course, untold thousands of others (in Africa soon there would be reports of millions of children suddenly orphaned by the death of AIDS-contaminated parents).  I did research, also put together a tripartite gathering of information and personal intuitions and insights; the three sections:   1. Solar Symmetry Symptoms, 2. The Wrong Stuff (possible origins), 3. Event Correlation, and finally Additional Therapy Approaches.  The entire paper was titled:  “The Solutions to AIDS.”  Completed in 1993, I immediately researched where to send it, again free and again asking for nothing in return or even its reprinting.  I sent it all over the United States, to medical and news organizations, activist groups, homosexual groups, government agencies, groups of doctors, caregivers, and again, overseas to Africa, Europe, Mexico, South America, USSR, to China.

             I’d like to say that some final cure came about; however, it is only perhaps today, some seventeen years later that advances are imminent (Time Magazine, January 12, 2010, reported on Dr. David Ho, who still is searching for an AIDS cure and who was instrumental in early days of putting together the “cocktail of drugs” which allowed some relief and slowing of the deaths from AIDS).  Again, my article did not bring about the full solution, yet.  It did, however, include a sequence about my personal theory concerning event manifestations that I documented and titled, “ECFM” (Event Correlation Form Matrix), which suggests that solutions to events (as well as disasters) often appear with three primary event coordinates, and that solutions most likely will take that form, or could take that form, even, if scientists put together parts of the puzzle that way, via three-part groupings (the entire “event corridor” I suggested leads to a 15-unit event sequence in total, actually 5 linked ECFMs).  I’m documenting all that here, because the “cocktail of drugs” that Dr. David Ho came up with years ago was of course, three drugs used in unison.  I didn’t suggest the drugs or even a combination, but prior to 1993 I did detail the manner of a solution, and did in fact explain (with metaphysics) why Ho’s three-drug combo worked.

             Later, not only did certain people suddenly come up with the “original idea” of Matrix (as in the movie version), but more importantly, within the year the media in the US opened up much more, to help promote solutions and treatments for AIDS, to stop exclusive profiling of homosexuals (Africa’s pandemic was among heterosexuals), and to raise awareness about this horror for humanity.  I’ve never received any direct replies about the article (though I did include the “results” even as “echoes” in the Introduction and updates to the article in my book, Quintessence, which reprinted “The Solution To AIDS”).  Within months of my sending the article, I felt that something positive was moving about (my biggest hope, as a nonmedical professional, was to inspire alternative or “outside-of-the-box” solutions among those who could develop a cure, and those who could finance those professionals, and of course inspire media reportage); perhaps my friend’s spirit was at rest?  I did receive the great honor of being nominated for inclusion to Who’s Who In The East.  (I was accepted and included, because of other achievements, with Who’s Who In Entertainment, Who’s Who In America, Who’s Who In The World.)  The essay also was handed personally to recognized media figures in USA, including Carl Bernstein and Bill Moyers (documented in Quintessence).

             Another note is about that next involvement, putting together many of my original papers and a new essay into book form in 1999.  I arranged the articles, “Renaissance: An Introduction,” “Psychology & Economics,” “Metamorphic Psychology” (a term I coined for a new discipline), “The Solutions To AIDS,” and the new “Tele-Possession,” together with an extensive introduction including updates into the book, Quintessence: Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance.  I copyrighted my book with the U.S. Copyright Office and posted the book as an original eBook at a new site (now defunct):  www.MightyWords.com.  More to the point here, I took to sending out by email dozens and dozens of free, complete copies of my eBook, Quintessence, to significant destinations I could research in America, South America, Europe, Africa, Russia, and China.  I wanted the information magnified, put to use elsewhere to help humanity, to spur a true renaissance globally, maybe bring in some positive reviews and media notices too, and possibly, just possibly alleviate human suffering and bring about global solutions.  I can’t say that I noticed much response.  But it was within this time, I suppose because of gathering all my personal essays together, along with a detailed and intense personal introduction, that I noticed within a month that Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, had resigned and intended to publish his third volume of memoirs (Midnight Diaries).

             My closing notes about all this are not about myself or my efforts; I wanted to demonstrate other ways within a serious writing life, that one’s talents can be made useful and productive and exciting with final positive effects for humanity, should you only commit yourself to assisting humankind.  I believe too, with all my heart, that my own frustration and disappointment with conventional or traditional publishing opportunities in the United States of my life span, that God was demonstrating to me, in very effective realistic terms, exactly what a few dedicated, sincere, profound paragraphs might achieve, solely by distributing those words to other men and women.  It’s a supernatural result.  I feel it was done the same way, for the grand effect of humanity’s salvation by St. Paul, with his multitude of expert, inspired letters sent all over the known ancient world, effectively “changing life on a continent” or area (Turkey, Greece, Rome, Europe, Africa, the Middle East) and by the sending along only a few of his divine paragraphs.  Good News!  (Of course, his letters are distributed everywhere today with the New Testament.)  We might call this in psychic or spiritual terms, “The St. Paul Effect,” should we want to color it in scientific or bold intellectual terms.  Never underestimate the power of expression, of the pen; we all know what it might accomplish once that expression is shared among others.  It’s truly a life-altering proposition.

             The Christian foundation applies almost as a subtext, to the birthing of a renaissance.  “It is not the civilization of a race, but that of mankind, present and future alike, that we must give up as lost, if belief in a rebirth of our civilization is a vain thing.”  (Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization)

             Certainly a different inspiration source for authors is music.  It was my own great fortune to work with a renegade architect in Virginia, Larry M. Hackenberg (my feature articles about him and his experimental and environmental architecture were published in The Times of Charlottesville and collected in Along The Journalistic Path; later I co-authored a book with him, In The Shape Of A Soul).  Although I was familiar with diverse forms of music (folk, rock, jazz, classical), he sat me down and made me listen to his collection of Beethoven symphonies.  He had nonstop, continuous recordings of the classical master playing behind him at all times.  (Beethoven was a favorite also of Frank Lloyd Wright.)  I became another obsessive Beethoven fan, preferring in my later years quieter productions, such as the Piano Concertos and especially Beethoven’s masterpiece Piano Sonatas.  If anyone has missed hearing these, please sit down with a good collection; it’s a treasure you’ll never go without again, creative sustenance!  I’ve also now studied and listened to most of Mozart and Bach and some Handel and other classical composers’ works (before the moderns).  There are proponents today who suggest that playing Mozart in the nursery helps build an infant’s IQ; and students attest to listening to Mozart before an exam and receiving high grades.  “The Mozart Effect.”  (Remember, rock & roll kills plants! www.ChristianHelps.org/rockmusic.html)  Leonardo da Vinci, an excellent singer and lute player, wrote of music that it was “the shaping of the invisible.”

             Traveling should come to mind to keep one inspired; who doesn’t like to take time off and travel to exotic locales, for complete mind-refreshment or “re-creat-ion” as our vacations so suggest?  These I feel are quite important, more than for the personal R & R.  In my book, Visions, Essays on Style, I suggest that our authors must travel and how that should be reflected in their works, the sophistication of them, the move away from some regional or national provincialism.  Readers must demand writing of depth and a wide range of locales, suggesting cosmopolitanism.  (“We have the right to question some of our literature’s background, I think, and first might be how much the author has traveled.”  Visions)  Many masters have been enriched by traveling and inspired their cultures with such reflection and depth, Goethe visiting Italy and Sicily (Italian Journey) and Henry James in England (The Ambassadors and other books), even Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad), Anderson and Fitzgerald and Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe (all wandering around Paris and Spain and Germany, mentioned in their fictions), the Americans of last generation returning from war (Norman Mailer, James Jones, Gore Vidal), or Richard Wright and James Baldwin in France.

             In my own case I made sure of my travels, even on a poor artist’s budget, and without assistance of any military support.  I spent my junior year abroad in Spain (visiting Tangier, Morocco in Africa, the setting for my first novel, Abbas & Merdan), then traveled to Mexico, to Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City in Canada (later locales of my fiction, including my sixth novel, The Entropy Wars), then Jamaica, and in between coast to coast in USA; and I resided in a few distinct states (even Connecticut), doing most of my writing in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Montana.  In between that, I also spent another six weeks touring Europe (publishing small articles in Times of Charlottesville, collected into Along The Journalistic Path).  That included England (seeing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Stratford-upon-Avon and Dickens’s London), Paris, France (Balzac, Hugo, Flaubert, Zola, Proust), Spain again (Cervantes, Lope de Vega, St. Teresa of Avila), Sicily where my namesake town is located, Taormina, then to Florence, Italy (Flowering of Renaissance), and on to Munich, Germany and Dusseldorf (seeing Goethe Museum with Beethoven letter) near Hesse’s homeland, and also viewed Amsterdam (close-up of Van Gogh Museum).  In visiting Germany and my heritage (mother’s side) I forced myself to observe the darkness, stopping at Dachau, the concentration camp/memorial.  Later I wrote about that in “Rocky Raccoon Revisited” in Along The Journalistic Path and “Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn.”  I’m mentioning this European experience in particular because it was so significant for me.

             Upon returning home, after seeing classical art and architecture in Europe, I departed from a love of modern art and became a classicist, studied the Italian Renaissance in earnest (after visiting Florence, especially seeing “live,” Michelangelo’s David sculpture), and returned to Virginia to publish my own literary magazine, The Blue Ridge Review.  Such travels have shaped all my writing since, not only with this book, The Writing Arts: An Author’s Perspective, but other nonfiction works, many novels and plays, including even the mythic one-act, “Tauromenium,” set in the locale of the Greco-Roman theatre in Taormina, Sicily.  There’s the phrase from Henry James, “This moral is that the flower of art blooms only where the soil is deep . . .” (Theory of Fiction:  Art of Henry James).  What traveling does is helps one set down those roots, into where we originated of course, but to inform how our nation began and grew, how the past reinforces our present and future.  It has long been my belief that an American can never understand our nation, without first understanding and traveling over “the old country,” from where grows most of our European roots or at least the broad part of our culture.  It is significant then, that you as an artist store up experience, not property, so that your writing reflects the depths and widths of our world.  Within the thoughts of a writer’s life, make sure that you travel, travel, travel.  Keep journals, photos, sketches, and writing fragments of those times; believe me, you’ll be happy you did.  And so will be your readers.

             In “Creativity” is a good discussion on the general practice of keeping notebooks, and my own success with these efforts fuels my admonition to the new author.  One becomes more serious about producing interesting art and it becomes important to organize, magnify, and harvest one’s inner thoughts and insights, as well as regular connections or notes about one’s surroundings and the people moving in and out of your life.  I kept small, occasional journals when younger, but as my writing and book production progressed, I developed more use for a regular Day Journal (10×13), plus an indispensible small notebook (4×5) carried with me most everywhere, and a working ring binder or “Manager’s Log” (9×6) near the computer, to track production on current, often simultaneous projects.

             I had always kept voluminous files (though not so well organized) in manila folders for various projects once they reached a critical mass in interest and dedication (to add other notes, usually 8×11 sheets, musings and lists and research and copies of online notes); but my dedication came upon studying in depth the Italian Renaissance in general, and Leonardo da Vinci in particular.  His exquisite and extensive use of many notebooks finally provided history with an entirely different side to Leonardo, not only as grand illustrator, but inventor, muse, visionary, architect; and as editor Jean Paul Richter mentioned (The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci), the notations display Leonardo the polymath as quite an effective author.  His notebooks comprise 5,000 pages (thought to be only one third of the originals).  Will Durant suggests of Leonardo that “Quantitatively he was more an author than an artist.”  (The Story of Civilization: Part V, The Renaissance).  While the notebooks explode with grand insights, and even grander projects (anatomy, architecture, futuristic inventions, study of flight, optics, plans for a painting text, “Treatise on Painting,” published as Leonardo On Painting), it is Leonardo’s ability to transcend time and space with his visionary almost clairvoyant musings (recognized by Walter Pater) that expresses his ability to catalog and harvest and inspire his own genius during his age and also, to provide the same inspiration for our own.  (See How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci.)  That allows moderns today to brainstorm, annotate, mind map, use all the senses, and graphically illustrate intense themes (all derived from Leonardo).  This has less to do with the writer’s life per se and more with the artist’s life, but creativity overflows into any art.  Notebooks are essential for organizing ruminations and harvesting insight; plus they become a creative project in themselves, as mentioned in “Autobiography,” with the fragmentary memoir sense of detailed notations, and the ability for one more project, as works of art, to come from your hands.  (See Diary of Virginia Woolf, Journals of The Goncourt Brothers, Diaries of Anaïs Nin, Journal of Henry David Thoreau.)

             Many authors, including myself, have taken to self-conscious language study.  From early days, I’ve been a student of language (majoring in Spanish, with years of German and some French, plus later Italian studies and esoteric work with Egyptian hieroglyphs); and from younger years I paid attention to books and materials about linguistics, including our own language, American English.  Many writers do some sort of language “tune-up” or training for themselves, whether it’s casual with excellent literary reading, sophisticated crossword puzzles, or language studies that might include flash cards and audio programs or even e-mail “word-of-the-day” services.  (Included in Leonardo’s notebooks are lists of Italian words he had encountered and notes of his taking up of a new language in mid-life, Latin, which he never fully mastered.  His notebooks are written in his native Tuscan—the dialect for modern Italian, thanks to Dante and Boccaccio.)  Legions of prose writers have been students of Shakespeare—Melville and Faulkner and Kerouac, among many if not most inspiring authors.  Others read poetry collections each day.  (We might note science’s suggestion to learn a new language in one’s golden years to best stave off senility.)  Reading Shakespeare is a way of immersing oneself in grand if Elizabethan English, poetry anthologies serve well, or for more self-conscious efforts try Vocabulary Builders (“Building a Better Vocabulary” at www.grammar.ccc.comment.edu/grammar/vocabulary.htm).  Concise guides like Word Power Made Easy or 30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary can help, as well as audio learning programs and even subliminal tapes.  Autodidacts quickly discover the power of words in learning a new subject; first you learn the jargon of any subject or field, then relationships, any laws or rules, finally case studies or real-life examples, arguments, portrayals.  (Some years ago I applied for commercial representation for an invention of special vocabulary cards arranged for distinct professions, to be patented.)

             Insightful books about usage are Art of Plain Speaking and How to Write, Speak and Think More Effectively by Rudolf Flesch, other vocabulary builders, and studies such as History of Reading, History of Writing, Story of Language by Mario Pei, Word Play by Peter Farb, Story of English by McCrum, MacNeil, Cran (book and also PBS special on VHS), The Stories of English by David Crystal.  Flesch’s The Art of Plain Talk offers I believe quite sound advice, even for enthusiasts of literary prose.  Most of my prose since early days was an attempt at putting across stories or thoughts in a plain style (not prosaic or pedestrian) so that the story or content stood out for the reader (classical transparency), not as some showy presentation or Modernist narcissism (Joyce).  I feel that a plain style is more lucid and immortal; it wears better over time, is easier to translate, and thus passes from culture to culture, and in fact, holds the true meaning closer to the author’s intent, than does some fancier or poetic or bombastic style (Shakespeare proves the exception).  I have a theory, too, that writing published in America around the 1950s and before was less corrupt, more stable, and still used a standard American English “value base,” which has been changing rapidly, not “evolving,” rather moving to the daily use of corrupted, decadent, or ambiguous forms.  This is another case, as I’ve noted in my chapter on “Self-Editing (Part I),” where a popular colloquial or conversational writing style falls apart, especially compared to a dense, plain or traditional “essay style” (visual prose).  Metalinguistics.

             To that habit, regular writing must be added, as a consistent activity, though for busy lives, one may find that extra care and creativity with many e-mails or corporate documents will provide one with some ongoing sharpening of skills.  More creative writing is best, of course, but without actual production of manuscript pages for a book (you may not be ready just yet), even detailed notes and research and inspirational passages (maybe an envisioned scene later in the novel, a character sketch or run of dialogue, maybe the end, or beginning scene) all serve to move the project along towards actual completion, satisfy oneself, and signal one’s inner self, that the project you have in mind, actually is important.  Tolstoy mentioned that in no other art, besides literature, is a performer expected suddenly to create great work, without having practiced often grueling hours for weeks and months, before performing in something like a symphony.  So practice is essential, as is mental preparation and involvement of one’s total mind.  Many authors use a “Dream Journal,” kept handy near one’s bed; and some note final ruminations before falling asleep, or problem areas to review before the next day, or the recoding of pertinent dreams—all may assist with the project at hand, again harvesting unconscious and more obscure spiritual elements.  Then, completing one’s actual manuscript pages is the goal.  “Nulla Dies Sine Linea” becomes the motto (Not A Day Without A Line, Apelles).

             Several authors, like Jack Kerouac, also have penned unfocused “verbal sketching” solely for the practice of keeping one’s expression, inner or mind’s eye, and skills of observation sharp.  Kerouac often took time wherever he might be to work up verbal descriptions of a character, a scene, or some event going on, just for the practice.  (Kerouac’s preferences are in his “Belief & Technique For Modern Prose,” The Portable Jack Kerouac.)  For others, such pages might be saved for long projects or prove themselves worthy to incorporate within some fragmentary work, based perhaps or centered upon a locale, character or family, or some group.  In a similar fashion, Virginia Woolf often used her short stories as open laboratories (as did F. Scott Fitzgerald) to explore some significant character or theme, which later was transposed to a novel.  I’ve only used this practice during the beginning of a novel, when I might try several different runs at, or experiments within the actual narrative, point of view, or some descriptive style, to see which might look best once actually on the page, and of course, which might best render the story in the most effective way for the reader.  Occasionally, such verbal sketching with a new character fails completely; the tryout is still instructive or points to other projects or necessity in the current writing.

             Reading, of course, is essential for the writer, both for short-term goals and pleasure, and long-term objectives.  I’ve always found myself reading with distinct priorities:  reading for pleasure and books suddenly heard about, reading about some topic, subject, or person who’s taken my fancy, reading for understanding fiction or drama (novel and short story collections, theatre anthologies), reading for specific research for a set writing project (certain nonfiction or fiction projects have entailed the collection of ten or fifteen essential foundation works over a period of years), and the reading of numerous periodicals and incoming magazines or newsletters and newspapers, which I’ve regularly subscribed to and helped support.  My own suggestion of a reading list for novels is in the chapter, “The Novel.” Also, there’s www.adherents.com/people/100_novel.html for contrasting lists of great books.  (I am reminded of the sly humor of Italo Calvino in his metafictional novel, If Upon a Winter’s Night a Traveler.  He confronts the reader of his current tale with possibilities for reading and bookstore choices:  “the Books You’ve Been Planning To Read For Ages, the Books You’ve Been Hunting For Years Without Success, the Books Dealing With Something You’re Working On At the Moment . . . the Books That Fill You With Sudden, Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified.”  See his novel for a complete, hilarious list.)

             Research is a continual process for dedicated authors.  Before coming upon this particular book and blog project, for several years I had been researching continually about the novel and literature in general, including books such as How Novels Work, and Reading Literature Like A Professor, and How Fiction Works, as well as reviewing tried and true writer’s texts that I’ve had for years.  Plus I listened to a series of audio cassette and video recordings of Great Courses from The Teaching Company (www.teach12.com), which included collected lectures about “The Western Literary Canon in Context,” “Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition,” “Classics of American Literature,” “Twentieth Century American Literature,” “Classics of British Literature,” “Classics of Russian Literatures,” “Classic Novels,” “Masterpieces of Short Fiction,” “Art of Reading,” plus “William Shakespeare: Comedies, Histories and Tragedies” and “Modern British Drama,” as well as historical background with “The Italian Renaissance,” “Great Artists of the Italian Renaissance,” “Greece and Rome,” and others.  These were kinds of studies I’ve done off and on throughout my life, but in the last few years I concentrated on several forms of “information transfer” and “perusing the university perspective” with these courses.  I supplemented such research with documentary films, including bio pics and specials and actual documentaries about authors (many available from Netflix) as well as specific documentary research for my “Retrospective for Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn.”  Also, for years I’ve done intense research and study of Christianity and Christian Literature.

             The research process for specific projects might seem obvious or commonsensical.  I want to give a good example of a working author’s way of continuing with the influx of information and subject matter and insights about his field, especially during time periods, which in my own life allowed no regular writing or creative space, with an all-too-regular “day job.”  Following a focused, yet easily segmented or fragmented inflow of information over several years, often at only half-hour intervals or perhaps an hour at a time (for the recorded courses), or with listening productively in the auto during trips to my family or while on errands, allowed increased productivity.  Within that same time, I had two instances of having to physically move and change my living circumstances, and such audio companionship and fulfillment allowed me to fill much “downtime” for hours and days of packing and unpacking, cleaning and re-cleaning, traveling and surveying new locales—all completed, while making valuable use of my “errand time.”  It’s not only a way of Working Smart, but of actually Working Obsessively, and in a saturated manner, so that every hour’s true value is maximized.  I was able to move twice and to acquire or check background for larger, creative projects.  Part of the writer’s life requires the planning and obsessive use of one’s efforts.  Vasari once mentioned, “It is not by sleeping but by waking and studying continuously that progress is made.”  Such activity becomes quite literally, “a rebirth of learning,” or a renaissance.

             Research brings its own joys, with fresh information and insights, reaffirming older knowledge, learning of new authors (modern novelists Delillo and Robert Coover, Laclos of France, a new awareness of authors like Willa Cather, Zora Neale Hurston, plus Mauriac in France) and others about whom you want to do further research, to study their works in detail.  Research periods also dovetail or in certain cases propagate other creative projects in differing fields or media (for me with photography, painting, architecture, film, opera, science, and religion).  Again, moving to different arts allows projects in other disciplines and widens one’s scope, understanding, and expanse or total range.

             Such diversions can serve one well, not only to refresh oneself after dedicated writing projects, but also to help move one along, perhaps from certain uncreative atmospheres or settings.  I’ve done quite a bit of photography in my life (photos published in literary magazines, regional publications, even The Washington Post), but I want to continue with fine art photography, including experimental designs, landscapes, and especially portraits.  I feel the theme of terrific portraiture is one suited particularly to a renaissance period (humanism), and will be concentrating much on that (including self-portraits, portraits of friends and family, strangers).  I want to produce several fine art books with my photographs and museum exhibitions.  With the writing, many years ago for my experimental volume of short fiction still in progress, A Title That Sells, I included notes for a short story with photographs.  Painting has been another constant interest, the study of masterpiece painters and painter’s lives (especially Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali); and I have done some scattered acrylic paintings myself, including a few self-portraits (my autobiography has a painted cover portrait I’m working on for that exact tome).  I think too, that only painting provides a direct lesson in observation.  Too often we look at something, say trees or a landscape or even a familiar face and see only one color or perhaps a shade or two; all of a sudden, once a brush is in one’s hand, with the other holding a palette of vibrant oils or acrylics, the subject transforms into a myriad of contrasting colors, light and shade, loud and muted tones, blends of exquisite colorations that are a challenge to imitate.  The eye must recognize, the mind must compose, and the hands, the actual moving touch of fingers, must translate color and form into art.  It was Leonardo who mentioned the necessity of saper vedere, or “knowing how to see.”   But it was another writer, I think, who truly captured the joy of painting:  Henry Miller, excellent with his modernist water colors, which are gathered under his poignant title, To Paint Is To love Again.

             I’ve mentioned before of my doing architectural sketches, and to have been working for several years (off and on) at original architectural projects, including a modern cathedral, private homes, art community building, monuments and private tombs, and a city-wide project (spiritual).  There is something grand about enclosing space in certain forms, and the ability of specific design styles (classical) to renew civilization and renaissance periods, and also, to help shape the environment in which each of us resides, loves, works, worships, dies.  Understanding those spaces, the extensive and varied international history of architecture and planning your own buildings is an exhilarating enterprise.  I have too, worked for decades, to develop a unique new style of architecture, still in theory, but using alternative heating, sustainability methods, and especially solar functions to bring about a wondrous art.  I’ve mentioned that I believe there is something transcendent about doing architecture designs with one’s dedicated art.  (“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama” presented an interacting or interwoven understanding of theatre and acting as a competent playwright; that’s only achieved by assimilating theatre construction from its grandeur in open-air Greek amphitheaters to renaissance reincarnations [Palladio in Venice] to The Globe Theatre of Shakespeare, to today’s playhouses.)  I don’t think one can move to the top of dramatic art without personal interaction with architecture (an example is Wagner’s adaptation of his masterpiece Bayreuth Festival Theatre in Germany, for production of his Ring Cycle and Parsifal).  Other writing projects can appear as well, as did my helping co-author a tome about experimental architecture in Virginia, In The Shape of A Soul (with Larry M. Hackenberg).  Winston Churchill mentioned, “We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.”

             Film projects may interest one too, especially with the roaring success and interest by the public for film today, in America, and the accommodation by Hollywood as well as insightful Indie productions fostered largely by Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival.  There’s the rapid following internationally not only of traditionally inspired nations (especially of art films) in France and England and Spain and Germany, but more recently with the popular renditions (often complete knockoffs of established films) from Bollywood (India) and original films in Morocco and South Africa and the rise of “Fifth Generation Film Directors” in China.  This is a separate and specialized world for the traditional writer, and one, according to reports, where it’s easy to be corrupted or destroyed, and yet one, perhaps that some will want to consider with their other writing projects.  In my case, with many novels and original short stories already completed, the ability and opportunity to adapt many of these works into films is obvious (I have completed a film script adaptation of my novel, Entropy Wars, and am part way through adapting my novel, Gratuity.  Others will follow.).  Also, there are certain projects for me now that, rather than taking complicated time to do full-stage renditions, would be better suited to original screenplays.  I have three scripts sketched out already, dealing with overt Christian themes, where there is a great need.  It is a way of practicing another art form, if even on paper, transcribing one’s vision and sharing those insights with the public.  Again, as I am a visual writer anyway, and one who’s always described the novel writing process as that of transcribing the movie appearing suddenly in my mind, it’s not a far jump simply to write the script for that film first.  Too, with my love of still photography and experimental cinema and short films, I also plan to do some experimental films and perhaps a documentary.  Today, software and digital options put such projects within reach.   The study of film can provide one with other motivations and inspire one (observing excellence or recognizing mediocrity) to go on to do your own.

             Opera is another field of interest, but perhaps too complicated, in an obtuse way, to go into much here (its creation in Italy coincided with the Renaissance).  I have had an interest in composing several operas, not solely the librettos for an opera, but going through with the rest.  While I have composed a series of amateurish ballads on keyboard and have some brief training with guitar and larger intellectual study and understanding of symphony, those projects will have to wait.  Again, though, there can be adaptations from certain novels, novellas, and short stories, so that may happen soon.  And too, the link to the other arts can be profound.  If everyone took some time to read a book or two about opera, and listened with some attention to a few masterpiece composers, or watched one opera live, I think everyone would attend live opera more frequently and the form, at least in America, might revive.  Let it be said, if one is in a melancholy spin, or trudging through a dry or uninspired time or feel like one’s emotions have reached a “calcification point,” only turn on some arias by a famous baritone like the late Pavarotti or Placido Domingo, or grab a cross selection CD containing Rossini, Verdi, Wagner, Mozart, Beethoven, Puccini, Strauss, Bizet, Handel, and Tchaikovsky.  Listen for an hour, with the music loud, and your room booming with vibrant emotions, melodrama and the human voice supreme.  The renewal can be a lot of fun!

             With science as a topic, I think that might seem the driest subject for those coming from the romantic arts, or the core of writing.  Yet, the popularity of science fiction these days is evident and everywhere, and the ability for much science fiction to address social issues or the field of “speculative fiction” is spectacular (Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Huxley’s Brave New World, Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, Asimov’s The Foundation Trilogy).  There is so much going on with new discoveries and advancements or refinements of all the sciences that it’s difficult to keep abreast of it all, and harder still, even with anyone with a sound educational background in science (math, physics, anatomy, psychology, astronomy, anthropology, geology, medicine, etc.) to reach some sort of expertise.  For a novelist, I feel it is essential for the author to gain a wide sense of psychology, so that is one field that comes with the territory (creating characters and human drama, plots); others may reach into one’s mind as does one’s interest grow or natural talents so indicate.  Many a modern author uses much science (Huxley, Orwell, C.S. Lewis, Pynchon, Doris Lessing, Ursula K. Le Guin, myself [The Entropy Wars], Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe with nonfiction), so one’s understanding and possibility grow with one’s continuing knowledge.  For me, I also have a long-term interest in medicine and healing advances, also cosmology, and with that astronomy.  Some of my background work or research is not only about my own personal theories in psychology and cosmology (about which I plan separate nonfiction books), but will go to inform some character research on a future novel project of my planning.  Again, such themes illuminate other works, open new doors, allow one to expand one’s range, and finally can inform one’s characters for a different interpretation of the world, more than if you shied away from science altogether, saying “that’s not for a liberal arts sort of person like me.”  Also, it is part of the full swatch or breadth of an author working within true renaissance traditions.  These are supplementary considerations, which truly round out the possibilities for anyone moving through the writer’s life intently or as a diversion, or to add to one’s social graces, or at least bring out the art of “good conversation.”

             I have detailed my interest in religion and its importance or centrality to great fiction in the chapter on “Spirituality.”  In my younger days such study of religion, philosophy, and parapsychology (involving the supernatural) was part of my regular reading, searching I think for breakthrough insights, traditions, and some understanding for what I felt was a reality larger than that portrayed by materialistic science.  In later years, when I returned to active participation in the Catholic Church, I went about a regular restudy of my own faith, church background and history and details of rites, and with all that deepened my faith and understanding of God’s world, possibilities for the future.  It was necessary to research writing about Christianity, in my nonfiction and fiction, so there was much study of Christian authors and Christian literature (still Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Solzhenitsyn, Dickens, Mauriac, plus G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Graham Greene, Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, Joseph Pearce, Taylor Caldwell, Louis de Wohl, Michael D. O’Brien, Frank E. Peretti).  Background study was necessary with The Bible and theological works (Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, histories and lives of the saints, writings and autobiographies by St. Augustine and St. Teresa of Avila, and even anthologies and films and documentaries about saint’s lives, hagiography as it’s called).  These have helped ferment and augment my other books, a novel, The Entropy Wars, a collection of essays, Quintessence, short stories, criticism (“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn”), this blog book, new fiction, and work on film scripts.  I see this as much a part of our new global renaissance as it was in sixteenth century Italy; it becomes essential to consider our religious commitment with depth, inspiration, and freshness.

             Within the creative community in general the writing life can open doors, socially, at least with like-minded artists, students, other serous authors.  For a time in Charlottesville, Virginia that happened with many individuals who made friends with my wife and me; we were able to attend parties with a diverse and talented crowd, have over friends for small dinners, or sometimes traveled with for certain publishing projects.  Such a community falls short of the Platonic Academy of the Medici’s in fifteenth century Florence; yet any regular intellectual gathering or court is significant.  History is replete with the lasting success of the literary or artistic salon in Paris (Gertrude Stein) and the centuries of earlier French and Italian intellectual salons (“tertulia” for the Spanish), the camaraderie of Zola’s author dinners in France, The Bloomsbury Group around Virginia Woolf in England, some coffeehouse worlds and set “communities” or now historic groups of individuals, Transcendentalists, The Beats, my hip community in St. Petersburg, Florida, the early Village scene in New York City, Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, 1970s Art Movement in Charlottesville, VA (and today some might argue for the efficacy of online communities).  (Wikipedia; Joy of Conversation; “A Complete History of Salons” by Gary Kamiya, www.Salon.com)  A true creative community can accelerate your life with suggestions, new books, publishing opportunities, friendships, laughter to keep grounded, love, and shared experience.

             At the other extreme, I’m sure the novice would like to take part in more and perhaps weighted cocktail party conversation; but I’ve rarely been one to take part in such diversions (for the diversion’s sake) and have been too creatively involved with book projects for too many years, to take time to impress a new acquaintance with some particular novel under production.  I believe, too, as many authors from Hemingway to Mailer have commented, that often talking in a gossipy way about one’s current unfinished manuscript might dissipate one’s creative flow, defusing the tension, as Mailer mentioned, before anything gets done.  I think it’s often the naïve author or beginner, thrilled that finally after ten years he or she is at page 15 of his first novel, who goes about trying to impress others.  A scene of laughter would ensue, if that person were standing near me, using bombast and amateur insights to raise some self-importance; however, a humble craftsperson citing the start of a creative work and being excited as any author might, is another proposition.  Most likely, the newbie is searching for confirmation of his or her “talent” or at least intent to develop talent, and I suppose that sort of social acceptance or affirmation is natural enough.  The point to start talking with some seriousness is upon introduction to anyone having anything to do with legitimate publishing or an agent or agency.  Promotion of oneself (as a professional author) and one’s finished works is quite different from cocktail braggadocio; and it’s probably the wisest and healthiest thing for one to continue.  If one has books published already, then hand out business cards with titles and purchase locations and one’s web site or blog site listed:  build your audience!  Many a serious author keeps boxes of his or her latest books in the car at all times.  ABM or “Always Be Marketing,” as sales people instruct.  (Self-Promotion for the Creative Person by Lee Silber is an insightful text.)

             For those considering MFA programs in writing, or attending such or similar styled workshops, of course there is always something valuable to be learned.  I am not a fan of “group think” or the sorts of “encounter or focus groups” so popular at universities and among corporate boardrooms and film marketers; that kind of feedback is remiss, often damaging or useless, and at best a good sounding of where one’s comrades’ weaknesses lie.  MFA programs are probably best for making publishing contacts, as often and as in depth and as much as possible, for whatever one’s time period at the institution.  Work those contacts, offer any finished manuscript, follow up every publisher or agent recommendation or artistic connection.  Learn from the system, without being belittled, corrupted, or destroyed in the process, and one’s way might be eased.  That’s especially the case should a writer truly want to teach (versus living a serious author’s life) or simply enjoy the entire academic process (traditionally at the opposite perspective of most high-achieving artists, who are usually renegades, haters of authority, exiles from anything calm and usual, unswerving individualists), or one wishes to meet and marry another literature fan.  Write the best you can, and no matter where you find yourself, your work will excel and survive.

             The personality shift in the writing arts within the American MFA programs is discussed with honesty by novelist and program graduate, Amy Shearn, “Revenge of the Nerds,” (Poets & Writers, March/April 2009), subtitled, “Where are the Badly Behaved Writers?”  She wonders, “Why don’t writers get to be barely functional, substance-abusing eccentrics anymore?”  She questions why in school there were no Hemingways, Fitzgeralds, Bill Borroughses, Hunter S. Tompsons, or Norman Mailers.  Soon she sums up the dilemma, and it takes little reading between the lines to comprehend my discussion about “Teacher Lit.”  Shearn admits, “After a while it became clear that the writers [in her MFA writing class] who were going to make it—the ones who were getting the grants and publications and cushy fellowships—were those who buckled down and worked hard, the nerds in the wrist braces who filled out paperwork with the diligence of accountants.”  Again, be careful with such programs; it is my contention that most of those students will never be heard from, happy as they will be with tenure and a secure hefty paycheck, while ruining as undoubtedly they will, writing classes far into the future.

             From the academic community, however, does come a favorite line of advice, by sociologist and author, C. Wright Mills.  When asked by a student about suggestions for young authors, he said something like, “Learn to make beef stew.”  Only those never having to feed themselves during an intense writing period of months will laugh at that fatherly insight.  Crockpot cookery can serve one well!  (Vegetarian or three-bean stew is healthiest.)  There’s also the common-sense advice by Christian novelist, Jerry B. Jenkins, instructing writers to find the best chair or seat possible:  “. . . go into debt for any one thing, it should be your chair . . .”  (Writing for the Soul).  With the extended “seat time” required for this sedentary pursuit, it is wise to obtain or change any current seating to make oneself as physically stable as possible, ergonomic furniture is the key.  There’s also Anthony Burgess with his sarcastic writer’s note, “I start at the beginning, go to the end, then stop.”

             Part of the draw to the writing life must be in its challenge, finally; it is a different sort of existence from any other.  There can be no offering of “it’s easy” or “it’s difficult” or “too often sad” or “only momentary joyful” because the writing life is not an outside choice by itself, rather it is the result of a man or woman choosing to follow an intense creative path. (The activity of writing though, within periods of creative expression can be understood as providing bliss, “peak experiences,” as Maslow suggested.)  We have since the time of Plato heard of Socrates saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living”; yet we should add, how exactly is one to examine life, or one’s self, or our external world?  Surely, there are cases of the exceptional singular meditator, hermit, metaphysician of one sort or another; even within those choices, however, writing out one’s thoughts and observations is a key element to coming to terms with life.  It’s often been said by authors that, “I don’t understand my thoughts until writing them down.”  Beyond that perception more is involved; one may not even begin to reflect upon something in depth, unless one transcribes or broadcasts the results or reactions, perhaps only in a spoken or performance fashion in ancient days.  Finally, one’s reflections need to be articulated in some public manner, for that result to reach others, to survive.

             “The actuality of thought is life,” wrote Aristotle (Metaphysics).  That’s part of the draw with writing; it’s part of the necessity too; and it’s part also of the absolute value of building within oneself enough intensity about living, so as to be able to make sense of it, to color it or decorate it or interpret it, or all of that, and then to cast that back upon the world, not solely as an artifact, but as a new part of a world that’s in a process of ever becoming.  It’s a way of living that requires an in-depth transaction with the world and some ongoing and often, very often painful and tedious reaction or interaction with society sometimes over the course of decades, to produce kinds of artistic expression which altar, explain, or transform life into a grander experience.  I am reminded of the ancient biographer Plutarch saying, “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited.”

             It’s almost as if there is a requirement of certain individuals that they cannot in all honesty traipse through some kind of dull existence, and must instead investigate and explore and record some artistic chronicle of the times, if, if those individuals are truly active participants in God’s wide world.  Many feel such a transcendence, perhaps unconsciously, through bearing and nurturing children, which is surely a part and measure of life; yet how can one continue with only one sort of experience such as family without growing through all that for everything it might be worth, and of course, for the sharing of those insights and perceptions with others, so that the very experience of raising children is suddenly twice or three times what it once was (Dickens).  The same might be said of courting relationships or family (Jane Austen, Brontës, Dickens, Tolstoy), historical periods or national experiences of historical eras (Dickens, Balzac, Zola, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Proust, Henry James, or Twain), the same for religious or metaphysical insights (St. Paul, St. Luke, St. Augustine, Hesse, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Frank E. Peretti), the same for life-and-death issues (Schweitzer, Solzhenitsyn), and the continuation or rebirth of civilization (Petrarch, Vasari, Burckhardt, Will & Ariel Durant, Albert Schweitzer).  The writing life is a result of men and women living at an accelerated and exhilarating rate, and too, being able to transcribe the expression of people experiencing that life with intensity, and finally the product of such things as books or drama or poetry adding to the value of life and the depth for all inhabitants who follow such men and women.  Is the writing life worthwhile, or is the question born of such naiveté that it can never be answered by those who have failed to pursue living with true vivacity?

             I think the writing life begins the moment one looks up from paper and pen, the first time, perhaps in shock at the hours which have passed, and with some vague blinking and thought, that one is gazing outward at an experience momentarily less real in actuality, than where the author has been.  Grasping that intuition and articulating clearly to oneself starts the process; learning to articulate in adequate fashion for the language and customs and behavior of one’s age to convey the essence of that experience to another, is the move through the writing life, first crawling then walking then running, which allows one no escape.  It’s a move through a doorway, a self-styled mystical initiation, whose entry into another super real or perhaps supernatural realm allows no return whatsoever (why those who have been there, can choose only world creation or self-destruction).  There is no choice, only continual discovery.

             Afterward, there is no success or failure on the other side; there is only the question of continuance.  A past master phrased it for Hamlet as “to be or not to be,” but that is not the question at all; the question is the answer:  to be, one must continue one’s becoming.  Being is a verb, a process, an ongoing continuation within a different realm of existence.  One can only keep moving, producing, keep understanding God’s realm and expressing that for others (“become or not to be”).  Once the transference of expression to the world is accomplished, the world is completed, or becomes more, and yet still it is always incomplete, waiting for each new author, awaiting your next work.  Write, do, be.  Create.

 

RESOURCES

 

1. Books:  The Paris Review Interviews (Vols. 1-4); Legends of Literature, ed. by Phillip Sexton; Sparks of Genius by Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein; The Joy of Conversation, The Complete Guide to Salons by Sandra and editors of Utne Reader; How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michel J. Gelb; The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila; Tolstoy by Henri Troyat; Rosy Crucifixion trilogy by Henry Miller; On The Road by Jack Kerouac; The Diary of Virginia Woolf;  Roughing It by Mark Twain; The Solzhenitsyn Reader, ed. by Ericson and Mahoney; Story of Language by Mario Pei; Story of English by McCrum, MacNeil, Cran (also VHS program for PBS); The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination by Daniel Boorstin; Books That Changed The World by Robert B. Downs.
2. Periodicals:  Poets & Writers Magazine, The Writer’s Chronicle, American Poetry Review, Writer’s Digest.
3. Online: Salon ezine at www.Salon.com; Writers Write (excellent reportage and resources for authors) www.WritersWrite.com; “Building A Better Vocabulary,” www.grammar.ccc.comment.edu/grammar/vocabulary.htm.
4. Film:  Many documentaries, including Solzhenitsyn interviews and Mark Twain by Ken Burns, also Biography, Great Writers, and Great Women Writers film series to rent from Netflix, www.Netflix.com.  Check your local library.
5. Courses:  The Teaching Company, The Great Courses, www.Teach12.com, see offerings of many audio and video lectures series about writers and literature (Watch for regular, special sales).  Libraries might be able to obtain.
6. Groups & projects:  PEN American Center, www.Pen.org; The Catholic Writers Guild, www.CatholicWritersGuild.com; Dramatists Guild, www.DramatistsGuild.com;  Author’s Guild, www.AuthorsGuild.org; SPANnet, “The Definitive Self-Publishing Community,” www.SpanNet.org; AmnestyUSA’s Freedom Writers www.AmnestyUSA.org/FreedomWriters/; Prison Writers; help with hospitalized or elderly in doing letters or reading; also volunteer to read and record for the blind, one place is Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic (RFB&D) at www.rfbd.org/Support-Us/Volunteers/33/.
7. Communities:  www.writerscorner.com; www.writing.com; www.writerscafe.org; www.authorsden.com; www.coffeehouseforwriters.com; www.everyauthor.com; www.inspiredauthor.com; and again many resources at www.writerswrite.com.

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Friday, Mar 5 2010

ARCHIVE

“Great Themes,” March 5, 2010

“The Novel,” February 15, 2010

“Autobiography,” January 27, 2010

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

  

The following eleventh article, “Great Themes,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog in 2008.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources. All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina.

  

GREAT THEMES

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina

 

             Knowing how to write, being blessed with many verbal and artistic skills, and even having the time and discipline are only part of the picture in becoming an author; one has to know or proceed with what to write about.  This is a topic which for some will seem obvious (write about what you know), for others pompous (the themes must chose the author), and for some even controversial (post-postmodern writers don’t work with themes).  The caring artist, however, will move about many centers for this discussion, and will know, in his or her heart, that it is what you are writing about, which will make all the difference in the world, about your own passion, commitment, achievement, and for readers’ enjoyment and edification, as well as whether or not, your writing, especially your books (novels, nonfiction, drama) will survive temporary popularity (even bestsellerdom).

             While the theme for most commercial authors comes with the territory (genre book authors will have a general or broad category by definition, romance, mystery, fantasy, thriller, science fiction); still there will arrive many distinct and significant decisions within the writing projects as to exactly what the story is about.  Long-time bibliophiles, of course, understand that from the outside, there are probably only a limited few in actual types of stories, as well as a similar short review of archetypal characters.  Some would even say there is only one type of story (How to Read Novels Like A Professor, Thomas C. Foster); and many an author has given some perusal, once started upon the authorial path, to writing guides such as 20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias (he states all stem from two basic plots:  “plots of the body, plots of the mind”) and 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt (she works with 7 Jungian archetypes plus another, and some substantial variations for characters).  Plots and characters are different from the theme; yet they interweave in symbiotic ways with a story’s subject.  My stance in this chapter, is that the serious author, will be working with certain important themes in most of his or her writings, some of which will come directly from his or her life and experiences, many more of which, will be supplied by the time period, geographic locale, and historical/national culture and politics and religion, within which the author is composing material.

             This will probably prove to be a controversial issue, as well; myself and other writers and critics of the last few decades, including major authors such as Tom Wolfe, have decried the current American novel’s lack of social background, criticism, commentary on lifestyles, insights about living today in America, and with all that, the inferred lack of humanistic drama, wisdom, transcendence, which many current literary works display.  Some would even argue that it is the themes, the felt or committed sense of passion about the time period, which delineates great writing.  Such things led award-winning American novelist like Norman Mailer, before his death in 2007, to speak in terms of the novel’s decline (“The good serious novel, and most certainly the rare great novel, is now inimical to the marketplace . . .” 2005, National Book Foundation Award, Carolyn Kellogg), and for senior literary lion like Gore Vidal to speak about “the death of the novel” and recently of gloom about serious American fiction; and with all that, even university professors lecture about how devoted readers today are leaving the fiction bastion of yesterday in droves, to find the usual insights, world wisdom, character depth more in nonfiction these days, especially serious biographies, historical accounts, memoirs, general nonfiction (Arnold Weinstein, “Classics Novels,” The Teaching Company). 

             Many an author, too, has forsaken the “meaning arsenal” in current fiction, to pen urbane modern stories with a heightened poetic treatment (John Updike), without really discovering that the poetry will not suffice or prove any kind of substitute for insight, depth, or profound themes.  Escapees from academic writing programs follow techniques pioneered by Russian story writer and playwright, Anton Chekhov—a minimalist, with ambiguous and brief fictional treatments, sketches.  Students today, evidently feel that is the only sophisticated manner of writing fiction, without realizing that Chekhov came at the end of the Russian Golden Age (after Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky), armed with a light or defused style.  Remember, Hemingway called Chekhov, “an amateur writer.” (Ernest Hemingway On Writing)

             Into the argument must be figured high points of the past, with questions of what would the work of Charles Dickens be like, without his intense social commitment to issues of Victorian England or his love of children or his sense of Christian ethics, or comedy for that matter; what would the oeuvre of Emile Zola in France have been like without his sociological passion for the masses and the workers and the “ordinary” scenes, often of degradation, in the Paris of his time; or if Tolstoy had no real interest in history, in the emancipation of the Russian serfs, marriage, the nobility or real activity of the aristocratic classes (which can be seen as an archetype of all humanity), or peace and war, for that matter; or consider Herman Melville without a love of the sea and metaphysics; Ayn Rand without her strident Objectivist Philosophy; or Hermann Hesse, without his poetry, his insights into intense psychology, depths of Christianity and Buddhism and other Eastern religions—where would any of those authors’ masterpieces have been, would there have been any literature, with these authors, without some obsessive commitment to personal and national and international themes in their work?  Would, we might ask, there be any literature at all?

             This is the topic, I feel, which immediately separates the vague romantics of a tradition of “storytelling around camp fires” from a truer visionary tradition of “shaman painting the first bison on cave walls” and priests indicating the first stories of an afterlife, to be painted on Egyptian tomb walls.  Biblical revelation?  What keeps the stories and the true storytellers continuing (and sometimes over the course of several millennia, as in the case of Homer) if not Great Themes?  These men and women would not have continued, would not have worked in their lifetimes to complete beautiful tales and epic poems and drama for the short-term, or for some immediate gratification, or if even been able to continue or even be popular among more substantial cultures (as in the Greeks), if it were all a matter of “writing what you know,” or letting “style make the man,” or artsy techniques, or group entertainment, stylistics, colors, verbal gymnastics, whatever—the style ain’t what keeps us watching and studying startling performances of Oedipus Rex.

             “Technique holds a reader from sentence to sentence, but only content will stay in his mind.”  Joyce Carol Oates (www.CherylRainfield.com)

             Theme has been defined as the unifying subject or idea of a story (Wikipedia), and can be associated with more decorative functions (graphic theme of a web site) or an ethnic cuisine as at Olive Garden (themed restaurant), or to the musical soundtrack of a film (movie themes), and also pertains to music such as a motif or leitmotif (Wagner) via a musical sequence or theme associated with a person, place, or idea (and used to identify that dramatic musical element in operas).  Thomas C. Foster adds:  “Story is what gets a novel going, but theme is what makes it worthwhile.  Theme is, roughly speaking, the idea content of the novel.”  (How to Read Novels Like a Professor)  Stephen Minot states:  “. . . Theme is that portion of a work of fiction which comments on the human condition.”  (Three Genres: The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama)  Wikipedia gives a brief yet significant discussion about themes:  “The idea about life revealed in a work of literature.  The message may be about life, society, or human nature.  Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and may be implied rather than stated explicitly.  Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. (Raymond Obstfeld, Fiction First Aid)  [It] is the statement or feeling when you read a piece of writing.”

             My own definition includes subject matter and traditional theme, but more the author’s “take” on the matter as to the theme (Dickens’s showing decrepit orphanages or awful child labor practices), and should include more, the overall drift of the plot (not it’s action but the result and why), and a combination of more abstract yet significant intent with the storytelling, what one might call the oblique aftereffect or overall flavor to a book (Kerouac discusses how the reader of his new writing “. . . cannot fail to receive telepathic shock and meaning-excitement . . .” “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose,” Portable Jack Kerouac).  Some characteristics of constant themes with Kerouac are certainly spiritual at base (both with Buddhism and his own Roman Catholicism), but work at the stance against consumerism, lifestyle traps, and express a sense of joyous (not infantile) freedom, especially with mountain hiking, traveling the rails, discoursing with friends.  Themes with Tolstoy certainly are about the serfs, responsibility among the aristocratic classes, adultery and also spiritual topics—but there is a constant turning in Tolstoy’s work, as to the meaning of life, to family, consciousness, and to nobility of character, even with his portrayal of aristocrats (his own class), but more as an example of all of our own human potential to live some higher or refined life (natural nobility of soul). 

             In more stringent works, like Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World, there are of course tales of dystopia (a future dysfunctional society) but alternating visions of despotic futures or possible extremes of mass culture and the governments and politics which control it; while those are overt subjects and surface themes, the undercurrent in both shocking, unforgettable novels, is the price and access and choices of each human being’s freedom, and the larger issue, of what each person allows to happen, by his or her own citizenship, within the society or government at large.  (Jack London in 1908 preceded both tales with his futuristic novel, The Iron Heel, about the rise of tyranny in America.)   While 1984 is the more obvious and more popular image of society gone wrong, either in fascism or communism, it is perhaps with the subtle vision of Huxley’s, of everyone enjoying themselves and having most problems taken care of (at the expense of any freedom or concept of soul, or even motherhood or fatherhood for that matter, the society is built on mass eugenics and automated and external embryology), people popping “soma” pills when distressed and frequent vacations and free sexual encounters, that rings truer for Western technocracies, where the young or middle class are more worried about material security than almost anything else.  (It is noteworthy today however, that filmmaker Ridley Scott is working on filming Brave New World, perhaps with actor/producer Leonardo DiCaprio.  www.SlashFilm.com).

             So, theme can be defined or recognized in any short story or novel, drama, epic poem, or film; it can be broken into more minor considerations in as terse an explanation as betrayal, courage, truth, comedy, growing up, love, hatred, revenge; but the approach I am centering on is the larger concerns or focus of a work of art.  We might consider these, then also the meta-themes of writing, and the more intense, the more such meaning permeates a writing, the more profound and emotional will be the reader’s experience, the more the work will stand out from the culture as both a recognition and portrayal of a moment in time, a universal experience for humanity (one exactly suited to the time period yet also timeless), and one that in an historical perspective will come to define an age, people, nation.  We can think of Fitzgerald’s coining of the term “Jazz Age,” just as easily as absorbing that same experience in his This Side of Paradise or The Great Gatsby.  Do we need anything besides A Sun Also Rises to help define, in oblique tones, the alienation and disaffection of Hemingway’s “Lost Generation” (via Gertrude Stein)?   There’s On the Road and Desolation Angels by Kerouac which immortalized the 1950’s with a Beat flair for younger Americans of all ages, and for whom Kerouac coined the phrase, “The Beat Generation.”  A later youth culture born of that Bohemian stance looked to the Swiss author Hesse with his Der Steppenwolf, Beneath the Wheel, Narcissus and Goldmund to articulate a cultural revolution with profound spiritual proportions.  Much can be said even of an earlier America, with dislocation and social trauma during The Great Depression and Steinbeck’s poetical The Grapes of Wrath.

             On an international scale, consider the theme of incarceration on a mass scale, concentration camps, of society out of control with repression to the point of mass slave labor which permeates the background of all of Solzhenitsyn’s Russian works, One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Cancer Ward, August 1914.  This is an example of meta-theme which transcends or goes beyond even the “meta-category” here; it serves as discovery and warning to every citizen of every country in every time period, to watch for the dictatorial control from the top or betrayed revolution from the bottom, and the destruction of societal values (humanism and religion) everywhere.  Such trans-national, trans-epoch, trans-cultural themes move across all boundaries; yet they are instrumental to our learning, understanding, personal wisdom, national awareness, to our literature and to our humanity.

            In a more subtle fashion, for the written arts, we have the writings of Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse), Joyce (Ulysses), and Faulkner (As I Lay Dying) bringing across themes of lyric awareness, self-consciousness, and depth of emotion all through a masterly experimentalism, which has framed those decades of the Twentieth Century and cultures (England, Ireland, and the United States) in ways never recognized before, and marveled at after—revolutions in written art, but too, in human understanding, all through obsessive renditions of theme, family, mythic, personal, all done with an expertise and originality, so as to be a part of those years (Modernists) and still a part of all our years.

            I have written before (“Creativity”) about the necessity of the author merging or being a part of the Zeitgeist or World Spirit (Hegel) of the time, of not only understanding the intellectual currents of his or her day and age, but swimming amongst those currents, yet being a sound part of the ancient past intellectual tradition and absorbing the present in felt human experience and expressing that with originality, all again, to guarantee that the writing is a permanent part of the future.  Longevity is not a part of the topicality; it has nothing to do with recording the fashions of our day, unless there is meaning in those fashions and unless enough citizens of an epic take those fashions on as some significant part of their lives; it’s the difference between pop lit of today (chick lit, gangsta fiction, punk lit) and the seeming similar molding of culture, music, and fashion of the 1950’s-1980’s, which produced brilliant tomes like Tropic of Cancer, Another Country, Catch-22, Desolation Angels, Trout Fishing in America, Sometimes A Great Notion.  These are works outside of the academic, outside of publishing elites, outside of conventional art, contrary it seems to others published either popular and foolish beyond belief (Love Story) or decadent (Lolita) or reminiscent of university tenure wars (John Barth or Bellow).  Did Americans forget about the concept (theme) of Individualism (thank you, Mr. Emerson)?

             This was too, before our publishing houses were infiltrated and taken over mostly, not only by large corporations (no stranger to American business) but by foreign corporate conglomerates; and those working so closely, so as within twenty years, to nearly destroy any sense of a literary publishing tradition within our own national boundaries.  Cultural Colonialism, Occupation.  Greed and insensitivity are one thing, foreign manipulation and cultural destruction quite another.  (By 2006 Little Brown and Warner Books were owned by French Lagardere; Random House by Germany’s Bertelsmann; Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Henry Holt and St. Martin’s by Germany’s Holtzbrinck; Viking, Riverhead, Putnam by British Penguin Group. “Das Book,” David Gross, www.Slate.com.  Finally, those thinking I exaggerate need only ask why the international number coding for all book publishing is handled entirely from Germany, ISBN system.)  Today even the concept of the Great American Novel has evaporated, save perhaps for a few lone practitioners such as Delillo or Oates or Tom Wolfe or Pynchon, with its replacement by commercially competent first-generation immigrant fiction out of New York.  Again, with there being over 40,000 native authors in America yearly unable to get their new books published (see my early chapter, “Acceptance of the Individuals”), we must question where has gone all the inspiration, the brains, the guts.  (For an excellent rendition of the Great American Novel and many current authors, see “An Elegy for the Great American Novel” by John Walsh at Independent Books, 2007.)

             How does my generation take to more books by East Indian or Chinese descended authors in America, when others like myself still can’t get fiction about Italian immigrants published (short story “My Cup A Dreams”)—and my people discovered the Americas?  This isn’t xenophobia or even conservative politics, it’s a brief question about who’s really running things in USA?  Should we be submitting our work to the UK or Germany or the new Russia?  (If the Nobel committee had any idea of the absurdity of our lit culture here, they’d never consider any American authors at all, or if they did, first they might disqualify anyone published by the mainstream press, especially those associated with the university diploma factories.  Do these savants pulling down all the bucks and the press coverage and the foolish readership really think their publications are because of talent?  Somebody’s watching too much TV.)

            Such comments were brought up in this discussion because the topic is one of the necessary meta-themes in America right now, and since it’s a part of our culture, it’s also open to worldwide discourse.  The discourse is a part of the theme, and again, even bringing up the topic of themes, or meaning is in itself controversial and part of the larger picture.  One shouldn’t have to search about for general subjects to write about or general meanings for one’s writing; rather, by being involved with one’s world, the international, national, regional, the human and institutional components, one should be passionate about the ongoing debates these days and one’s characters, then themes, and the plots, should reflect all that.  Without knowing the intellectual currents of one’s age, and the individual processes or lifestyles, none of that can happen.  Or key personalities of one’s lifetime.  Also, without a sense of historicity to one’s work, the grand literary tradition always behind one’s work, it is impossible to fit that to the preceding generations and millennia of humanity’s transmission of its inner culture, its soul, its heart.  T.S. Eliot tried to bring that about, in a stark and obvious fashion in his poetry, including The Waste Land, by grafting onto his poem resonances with preceding culture’s work (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Petronius, St. Augustine, Dante, moderns and the Bible, Upanishads, Buddhist texts, and Celtic mythology) as did Joyce (mythic elements of Ulysses), and perhaps Faulkner, in less obvious and indirect ways, in bringing out his attachment to humanity’s culture through the depth of his emotion, verbal range and experimentation, and oblique resonances with earlier classics (The Gospels and Shakespeare).

            So the discussion here doesn’t bog down in generalities, I’d like to go through some personal examples of themes and treatments in my creative works.   My first novel, Abbas & Merdan, again was set in Morocco with a young street hawker accepting an apprenticeship with a master artisan, a rug weaver.  Themes of the book included a father-and-son motif, which grew more into a sage/student relationship (for the novel’s metaphysics), the meeting of East & West, with Straits of Gibraltar nearby, a meeting between Spain on the tip of Europe, and Morocco on the tip of Africa, of modern industrial world (the book’s reading public) counterpoised with ancient third-world setting of the story, and mercantile themes with what might be called today “Small Is Beautiful” (after E.F. Schumacher’s book) by showing the entrepreneurial urge as a corporate upstart might envision business (the apprentice as he becomes a technical master) versus artisanship or masterpiece creation (by the elder Master), and finally, with the bridging of East & West, sage and student, modern and ancient resonances, all that centering on the central theme of the book:  Enlightenment.  That was written during the 1970’s in America and encapsulated in oblique ways much of what was happening in the counterculture and what was filtering from the cultural revolution of those days back into mainstream culture in America and the international scene (massive student protests and peace marches were common in every major European capital, even within the USSR and Mexico).  These were not set discussions within the book, nor were they even represented so symbolically (as individual displays of themes), but the topics were what the book was about truly, should a reader ponder the story as it resonated through his or her mind upon a reading, and what might be said, by an intellectual or literary critic penning in-depth reviews or a study about the novel.  It might also be said to encapsulate the deepest feelings of why I, the author, created the novel, and how I felt it would illuminate or express the undercurrents of American culture at the time.

            Endgames was my second novel.  The presentation was experimental, or a series of eight sections focusing upon eight characters, all told through an experimental “time-telescoping” rendition I created (sparse dialogue for youngest age, external description and dialogue for adolescence, external and internal description with dialogue for adult) with all that interposed with diary entries, internal monologue, and other stylistic variations.  The theme of the book was a massive consideration of the entire human maturation process, the growth of consciousness into adulthood, and with that examination (by the principal protagonists, and young wife and husband) an awareness of bringing children into the world (with or without such maturation).  Some of this was obvious, with the baseball game sequences, then the chess title, Endgames; but it should resonate more clearly with “it’s time to stop playing games and grow up!”  Other themes were less apparent, with the eight character sections each focusing on a close friend of the husband’s, each about to meet at a ten-year high school reunion:  the nature of friendship, differing possibilities for maturation within a small Pennsylvanian town (setting of novel), but too an examination of character archetypes.  I’ve written before, of my study and feeling of importance about Carl Jung’s Archetype Theory with human personality (his too, was the differentiation between introvert and extrovert).  In my book, one character is a poet, another a photographer, another a sports buff and salesman, another religious, another a married middle-class person, and so on.  Also, there is a backdrop of historical themes with the Vietnam War of the novel’s time period (1970’s), the relationship of marriage, the formative years again of high school and college for most young Americans.

            Intellectually, one of the literary themes of the novel was in the form of the experimentation, in particular, as antipodal or a counterpoise to the Joycean technique (as mentioned in my chapter on “Experimentation”) of ways accurately to depict childhood remembrances.  Is it a sonorous or aural error in memory as in Joyce’s “ . . . met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo . . .” from Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, as he suggests, or is it actually a developmental difference in each child’s awareness or level of consciousness?  For me, the later proved the case, and brought about, I think, a greater awareness within the characters and therefore for the reader of what is consciousness, how does it develop, what level are we within some consciousness at this exact moment, and of course, the later extrapolation, of what does an advanced level of awareness or wider consciousness imply for the art of the novel, and greater, for humanity itself.  (It might be noted, that my book about literary style, Vision, Essays on Style, is divided into sections about just those terms:  Full Consciousness, Experimentalism & Classic Form, Transcendentalism, A Conscious Future.  Also, discussion about advanced psychology and Renaissance Consciousness appears in my final chapter here, “Advancement & Transcendence.”)

            My third novel, whose working title is still in-progress, was written about a countercultural group in Florida, similar or under the influence of much of the Beat writing of Jack Kerouac.  I was living at the time in St. Petersburg, Florida, only three years after the death of Kerouac in the same city.  The themes here were pragmatic and obvious, documenting the countercultural revolution as lived out, moving to a “back-to-the-land” phase, showing in picaresque or rambling fashion a group of young people serious about life but outside the middle class and living a fun, intense, and dedicated bohemian existence.  This was the “hippie” novel that New York should’ve been waiting for, which never showed up elsewhere (mine still needs revisions), and was only treated in passing by academics like T.C. Boyle, in his Drop City novel, about which mid-wealthy jaded establishment types like to think everyone sold out like they did and that the rest of the cultural revolution was only to be made fun of or denigrated, because that’s what the mainstream wanted our national propaganda to promote (remember the popularity of the absurd Love Story film in 1970, when documentaries, Indie Films, and real books about the revolution should’ve been in the forefront?).  The press and the academics want the rest of the country to think the 1970’s were only about rock & roll and drugs, or maybe a few eccentrics and free love, whatever the cheap, non-thinking fools could push off on the unsuspecting, naive public.  Propaganda. 

             (I had a similar sensation, upon interviewing short story writer and novelist, Ann Beattie, in Charlottesville, Virginia, after her first publication of both a first novel and a book of short stories. [Interview published in The Times of Charlottesville, and later collected into my nonfiction book, Along The Journalistic Path.]  She was a professor of about my own age, who regularly had been publishing short stories in The New Yorker.  Critics and reviewers of her work at the time (1976) were speaking in terms of her rendering finally what my generation was really going through in America.  When I asked her what was her sense of the ‘Seventies . . . to the ‘Sixties, the whole activist generation, she replied “Oh I probably viewed it the same as everyone else viewed it.”  My understanding, though, was that she viewed it from being a graduate student, on track for university teaching.  Upper Middle Class.  What I suddenly realized, was that she didn’t represent my generation at all; what she represented was what my parents’ generation and those of that age in charge of the national media wanted everyone to think of our generation.  Our presses rarely print the real story.)

            Again, however, the themes of my third novel bespoke the turmoil of the epoch, with a disenfranchisement of young intellectuals such as me (many of the people I ran around with, by the way, all had completed undergraduate degrees), potential professionals too embarrassed by Nixon’s America to ever want anything to do with propagating the same nonsense upon the world.  With that came the theme of joy de vivre or maybe even carpe deum, living life to its intense possibilities, exploring too, one’s immediate environment to make the most of it (this again was set in Florida) and too, an early awareness of environmental themes in saving the Everglades, birding, enjoying the outdoors and nature and learning to live within that, to protect all of that or live as an integral part of it (to steward Earth as we might say today), versus the greed and brutality of corporate America’s regular industrial exploitation of nature, humanity, and God’s graces.  Another of the indirect themes, of course, was literary, in a questioning of exactly what should our literature treat or how should it represent our community lifestyles and what might become of all that, once it is written about or worked over within one’s creative art.  Naturally, this was a central theme as well, with Kerouac and Ginsberg and Corso and Ferlinghetti and William S. Burroughs, which was answered in a certain existential and experiential way—it was treated, questioned, options ridiculed if necessary, explored metaphysically and poetically, dramatically—by the significant serious works of the writers themselves.

            Gratuity, my fourth novel, has been treated at some length in the last chapter, “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama.”  It’s the story of a love affair between a maitre d’ in a gourmet French restaurant and precocious art student at the nearby university, all set in the wine country of Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia, in Charlottesville, also the location of the University of Virginia (wondrous buildings actually designed by Jefferson).  The themes involve recognition of a burgeoning art movement at the time in Virginia, the completion of several of Jefferson’s dreams (he had lived nearby at his home, Monticello) with planting vine growths for producing excellent European-styled wine, and growth of indigenous culture (such as the writing arts, restaurants and reinvigoration of downtown Charlottesville), as well as rebellion—displaying the continuous disaffection by young professionals for the dead-end jobs of the establishment in America (this in the 1980’s).  The Outsider theme (via Colin Wilson’s The Outsider) is illuminated, showing again how those on the outside of society often create substantial cultural change.  An obvious theme, also, was the display of restaurants in America as a source of employment and community for many serious artists, as well as students, hangers-on, and others, which was rarely if ever portrayed in American literature (and perhaps not done so in any significant fashion in English literature until George Orwell’s Down and Out In Paris and London).  In the novel’s preface, I made mention not only of the art movement and the everyday heroes taking part in that in Virginia (Outsiders), but too, how it was being avoided by the establishment press and publishing companies (unless, of course, there was some university tie-in to sell books to students), and that the real issue is:  Censorship.  I bring this up again, especially within the production of literary works in America, (as well as treated in earlier chapters, “Our Rebirth of Writing” and “Acceptance of Individual Authors”), because, it is a grand or master meta-theme.

            I first became aware of such censorship in American literature, with an article reprinted in Utne Reader, by Noam Chomsky, titled:  “Propaganda, American Style.”  It was there that Chomsky mentioned, “If Orwell [in 1984] had dealt with a different problem—ourselves—his book wouldn’t have been so popular.  In fact, it probably wouldn’t have been published.”  (Propaganda Review, Winter 1978-88)  This was part of Chomsky’s recognized stand against the corporate function of modern publishing and news generation in America in many tomes and subject of other documentaries, Manufacturing of Consent, and  many books such as Manufacturing of Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (with Edward S. Herman).  (I had first heard of Chomsky with his early, brilliant work as a linguist—I too, had studied languages in college.)  After considering Chomsky’s work, and his other insightful criticisms, it’s impossible not to recognize what was happening in American culture, and that the “strip-mining” of our culture or massive dumbing-down of books, newspapers, magazines, TV and films in the last 20 years can be understood as a plan.  With mediocre mainstream offering, there would be less dissent, less views of dissenters or social critics, more importantly less popularity for those viewpoints or political persuasions, and with all the rest, a way to insure that politics and fumbling through everything on the national level could proceed as usual, with the same stuffed shirts and same money-grubbers all getting their pockets lined, without too much static or resistance.  (Some years ago, it was published, that the quickest way to become a millionaire in the USA was to become a US Senator.)  We used to have regular laughter at the expense of these incompetents, in the style of satirists Mark Twain (“There is no distinctly criminal class—except Congress.”) or Will Rogers (“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time the Congress meets.”), but now, of course, disagreement is considered unpatriotic.  News, of course, to our Founding Fathers, who fought over everything.

            It is my contention, then, with a just, accurate, and thorough understanding of what the news and book publishing media has been doing for twenty or thirty years in America, that authors everywhere should stand up to this:  we should be using that as a regular theme in our novels, stories, dramas, nonfiction, and we should be doing whatever we can in the outside culture to promote Freedom of Press and Freedom of Communication, Freedom of Thought, and even these days, Literacy itself.  (I am reminded here of the great Satanic ploy, of getting much of Christendom within the modern world, to laugh at or denigrate even the idea of the existence of the devil, or any active intervention in human affairs by Lucifer.  It’s so much easier when the enemy is completely “ignored”—he really can get his work done!)  Part of this, too, for me is not only the voicing of these concerns with this meta-theme, and the demonstrating of ways of articulating the theme through my own works, but to suggest quite seriously, that those mainstream authors who never mention our censorship and enjoy the laurels of current publishing in America are a part of the problem; the authors are “working with the enemy,” and just as resistance fighters in France after their WWII liberation had to extricate the enemy collaborators of the Vichy Regime, so too, must we oust the current benefactors.  (That is treated in greater detail in my final chapter, “Advancement & Transcendence.”)

            As mentioned in early chapters (“Our Rebirth of Writing” and “Acceptance of the Individual”), those suggesting that “the public only wants escapist fare” should understand the degree to which such nonsense or outright trash can be propagated by commercial interests in the publishing arena, to create the escapist tendencies (and therefore ever more propaganda).  My example was how the publisher of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (slandering the Roman Catholic Church and the reputation of Jesus Christ) set out to take a medium-selling thriller author within their arsenal, and where most current novels might have an initial printing of 10-20,000 books, Brown’s The Da Vinci Code publisher (Random House) gave away free over 10,000 review copies alone, to promote the junk.  My backup suggestion, however, is more insightful.  I believe that one needs to consider popular culture games, in particular Sid Meier’s “Civilization,” a video game where one sets up differing civilizations (“. . . build an empire to stand the test of time.”) and deals in gaming fashion with warfare, insurrection, elections, and other challenges, and how the incisive game notes suggest that the more repressive the empire, the more emphasis must be put on entertainment.  Actually, in updates of the game, entertainment becomes a “form of conquest.”  We can think of Ancient Romans with senatorial or imperial habits of “bread and circuses” to pacify the masses, just as today there’s a similar argument about TV and the national news groups taken over by corporate and monetary concerns.  The watchdog media critic Peter Phillips adds, “. . . this monolithic news structure creates intellectual celibacy, inaction and fear.  The result is a docile population, whose principal function within society is simply to shut up and go shopping.”  (See Project Censored, www.projectcensored.org)  Consumerism!

            It should prove of note and I think less ironic, rather than perhaps a symptom of complete decline, that with the massive publishing surge of books in American by “Indie” authors, especially with Print-On-Demand technology (discussed in detail again in earlier chapter “Acceptance of the Individual”), where suddenly there is an influx to over 200,000 new books being published each year (an approximate 300% increase over previous decades of repressive publishing practices in the US), that not only did our newspapers fail to make much note of it, or let’s say keep the same amount of book reviewing in newspapers or even, as recessional practices might suggest, decease the amount of book reviews, but many newspapers completely eliminated all book reviews whatsoever.  Now, those same “savvy editors” are wondering why those very same publications are dropping like flies through bankruptcy, Kindle Reading Devices, and a lack of reading public not solely with the young and “e-connected” generation, but with more and more intellectuals, who can see how much real news and news that can make a difference to every citizen in the United States is completely avoided (a euphemism for censorship).  I don’t appreciate it, will not tolerate the falsity, and will use whatever means still are available to keep promoting freedoms of all our guaranteed rights.  As Patrick McHenry used to say, “Give me liberty, or give me a second mortgage! (Or give me something, please.)”

            This of self-publishing authors is more than a situation of a bunch of “wanna-be authors” printing books; it’s a massive creative movement across our land, including the decades of “Indie Films” and Internet authorship and Community Theatre and Independent Press Movement (for small magazines)—which all adds up to a verifiable reinvigoration of the American culture, a massive vote for the creative individual and the products of creative individualists, and with all that, within an epoch and with a serious concentration, actually helps define a Renaissance.  There are even newer POD Espresso Book Machines, set up in some bookstores nationwide, which will print out a physical paperback book in 4 minutes (On Demand Books, www.OnDemandBooks.com).  This means an entire change from usual book distribution techniques, not to mention the ability for entire collections of usually out-of-print books to remain open for purchase and taking home.  So, too, is there the ability for such machines at universities to expand the University Press option, with essentially instant publishing (Poets & Writers, March/April 2010).  Let’s recall that those participants and creative artists of the Italian Renaissance were very self-conscious about their new art and their new productivity and their new cultural status and they used all of that, to magnify the grandeur and achievement of their age.  We will, too.

            In an earlier section, “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” I discussed my three-act drama, Freedom One, which confronts more of this publishing theme head-on, with a publishing group and new literary artists bringing about change within the publishing world, and some of the dynamics of that.  The theme of Freedom of Press, however, is foreshadowed more by the concern that the importance of written art to each individual and to each nation or culture, and to the world at large, especially to the world of future readers, becomes the meaning itself, of transcendent literature.  Bringing about some awareness to the public is one thing, to bring it about again, for other playwrights and other creative writers, to ensure its steady mention and evaluation throughout a culture is absolutely necessary and another, if oblique, goal or theme of my drama.  Other dramatists have tried in their fashion to jumpstart the culture and allow for a foundation set of works to stand as a permanent sign for others to proceed seriously, that being Wagner in German Opera (“music drama”), G.B. Shaw in British Drama (some suggest Shakespeare also, however we have no self-conscious admission of such ambition, lest we consider the scientific Instauratio magna by Sir Francis Bacon), and Eugene O’Neill in American Drama, Lope de Vega for Spanish Drama, and Goethe for German or World Literature (Weltliteratur).  It’s a question of themes, of using serious subject matter on a constant basis, and too, of inspiration, expertise or talent, and total artistic discipline, showing what can be done in each of the arts, to promote such an orientation and the continual display of meta-themes or significant art.  My issue here, though a participant in creating plays, is to question where is all this with contemporary American fiction?

            My fifth novel, Legacy, is a smaller novel, contains a love story and also is set in western Pennsylvania.  My major theme with the book was about literacy and bringing some awareness to the question of literacy and reading in general (society of readers and writers, booklovers, a bibliocracy?).  My main discussion within the book, with a character who works for a literacy group, was a new redefinition of reading, and with that an emphasis on visual reading versus phonetic.  I’ve gone over this topic in the earlier chapter, “Self-Editing for Authors (Part I)”  but am mentioning it here also to show how that theme so important to me and my own work (I am a visual reader, and write in visual ways) can be portrayed and illustrated within a larger work of fiction.  It is important because without the visual component I believe that writing and reading is denigrated, that the phonetic emphasis lowers true reading recognition and brain development, and stalls out the culture at the foundation level (how reading is taught in primary schools).  It’s another step in the dumbing-down of culture, because what is lost is not only the speed of reading and comprehending visually, but the concept of visual mental processing and the grand leaps in awareness such accelerated reading and writing methods allow the individual mind.  Phonetics is a step away from master achievement, I believe, and a step closer to more mundane, slower, aural-styled mass enculturation.  (See final chapter, “Advancement & Transcendence.”)

            Another theme with Legacy, however, shows the development of an Afro-American entrepreneur in the novel (via new-found literacy), an inventor, and also with that a mythic element with the resonance of the Daedalus Myth.  Daedalus built wings for flight and escaped from a prison in exile with himself and his son, except his son flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax of his wings, so that he plunged into the ocean.  Daedalus, however, did make it; he created wings, escaped, went on to continue creating as the gifted artisan, however with the tragic loss of his son.  There is a fire in the novel, where the black entrepreneur loses his new business and his life, but others go on with a follow-up of the inventor’s plans.  The reading experience with Legacy ties together two themes of literacy and mythic creation, in that we are able to read of such inspiration and use it in our own creative lives.  Also, it marks a good combination of the inventive character, as archetype, and his instrumental role in reinvigorating society (renaissance), or showing inventive ways to others.  The novel was written in Uniontown, in western PA, during a period of extreme loss to the industrial base in Pennsylvania, and a swing or transformation over to more technological and service-oriented industries (part of the PA “Rust Belt Syndrome,” not so much from dying steel mills as the lack of industries to replace earlier days of Fayette County’s coal and coke production).  This was the same locale, also, for much other writing of mine (autobiography, newsletter publishing, cosmology research) and my activities with theatre, in being a playwright-in-residence with Theatrix Unlimited, and an actor and understudy for play direction with Scottdale Showtime theatre in Scottdale, PA.

            For my sixth novel, The Entropy Wars, some of that is detailed in the chapter on “Spirituality,” as this is a Christian adventure novel.  The themes of the book involve, of course, love and devotion and faith, but I wanted to show the possibilities of real “entropy warfare,” about which I had taken many notes for decades (and coined the phrase, to be precise, “Galactic Entropy Warfare,” earlier than even my mention in a public speech in Washington, DC, for The World Future Society, 1993).  I felt the possibility for such aggressiveness and psychic violence possible and probable, and I wanted to demonstrate some of the tactics and defenses Americans might use in such unusual warfare.  Entropy is a scientific term that indicates the amount of energy loss in a system, until the system degrades to zero or nothing.  The term could be applied to the usual decline with use of a battery, the natural aging of a person, the decline of a government or people, even to a planet.  In my book, I wanted to demonstrate what might happen if individuals learned to manipulate an entropy factor, and were able to use a weapon to accelerate entropy in an enemy’s location.  Throughout the novel, however, Entropy becomes increasingly associated with Evil, and that in Christian terms.  So, the story moves in and out of science fiction themes and dramatizations within an apocalyptic context, conventional and psychic warfare, and a thriller/adventure component; a small team of entropy fighters bands together to save America (actually a futuristic North America, made up of Canada, US, and Mexico).  A larger meta-theme with the book is the significance and relevance of traditional Christianity to wider and seemingly technological issues.  Minor themes involve treachery, marital love, brotherhood, racial harmony, the fighting and exorcism of demons, and other components of Spiritual Warfare.

            Probably those noting my earlier reverence for Leo Tolstoy will immediately suggest that this is my War & Peace; they should understand that the book was not written upon the same level (in a literary sense), nor with the same realistic or traditional ambitions of Tolstoy (writing a lengthy romantic epic, almost an historical novel from Tolstoy’s point of view, about his contemporary or near contemporary Russia).  Mine was a futuristic warfare novel but grew from much independent research about astrophysics, entropy dynamics, and conjectural questioning of warfare possibilities and with that an intense study of Christian techniques for an aggressive “warrior-style” prayer methodology, called “Spiritual Warfare.”  Also, I had to research many traditional or conventional warfare books, documentaries, and studies (as delineated in “Spirituality”), in addition to my earlier school experiences, both with an introduction to U.S. Army ROTC at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an earlier stint at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.  So leadership and warfare and military strategy all came into play, but again, grounded in supernatural themes (using a novelistic style that might be called “Supernatural Realism”), as well as giving an affirmative nod to the speculative mode of fiction, often used for social commentary in some science fiction (Fahrenheit 451, Foundation Trilogy, 2001:  A Space Odyssey, Stranger In A Strange Land).

            It is probably worth a moment to discuss Spiritual Warfare in more detail.  Some of this has been delineated in “Spirituality,” but here as a theme it should be considered closely.  I had in my own life gone through years of psychic and other intense spiritual experiences, some of which were part of what Christians know as exorcisms, and also ways to go about praying over a certain geographical region, over an institution, over one’s own house even, if necessary to reestablish that Higher Angelic Beings were in charge and acting upon God’s Salvation in the background, versus some control or manipulation by Satanic entities.  Many current people in our surroundings can be recognized or in narrative characters could be “unveiled” as other entities, both good and evil.  Also, as I had experienced it, I recognized that once this is understood as still happening within our current reality or time period (versus some acceptance, say, for such events only happening in the time of Ancient Judea with Jesus Christ), then one understood that no election, no national event, warfare, no string of circumstances was entirely free of such possible demonization.  Extensive prayer was one method of aiding salvation, as was a recognition (Christians would call it “Discernment”) of good vs. evil, as was placing these values actively within some real context—important for larger themes, again a meta-theme in Christianity, of bringing about The Kingdom of God.  (Part of the meta-theme is an individual soul taking an active part in the salvation plan; more than simple evangelization, it might be considered with the Pentecostal designation of “Deliverance Ministry.”  There is, of course, a long history of exorcism beginning with the Roman Catholic Church.  A modern pioneer of this sort of warfare fiction is Frank E. Peretti with his bestselling Christian thrillers, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness.) 

            With my short fiction there has been some discussion in earlier chapters, but I’ll mention again the themes in my first book, Early Tales.  Two stories of intense interest for me were “Retribution” (a tale about West Virginia coal miners) and “My Cup A Dreams” (about Italian immigrant experience with a barber).  The themes move about larger issues for the coal miners (many of mother’s family were coal miners in PA), both with a compassion and illustration of the downtrodden in society, abuse by the social system, and too, a cross-current or slashing of the potential sentimentalism of that sort of tale, with the final denouement, in that the coal miners finally receive the Federal money they’ve searched after for the entire story, supposedly to finish their foundation as a home; instead, the final closing of the story’s frame, from the social worker’s point of view, is how the poor coal miners spent most of their money on a new pick up truck, to go hunting, not rebuilding of the family home.  It was, then, a larger ironic issue, not of receiving money (who exactly deserves that, who should support the downtrodden, etc.), rather a question each and every one of us faces within this usually affluent consumer society:  How does one spend his or her money?

            The story “My Cup A Dreams” again details the experience of an immigrant Italian barber, who saves his tips to return to Sicily, but when he does he realizes that he’s as much a stranger there now as a grown-up (nobody can understand his now-broken Italian, just as in America nobody can understand his now-broken English) and he’s robbed and insulted, and he finds himself so disillusioned spiritually, that he longs only for his own death—he is a man caught between citizenship in two lands, USA and Italy, and even his children don’t subscribe to his older heritage.  The tale is softened by the Irish-American character getting a haircut, when the youth realizes that this is the barber’s very last day, his shop is closing.  He invites the barber home for dinner.  The themes then involve the immigrant experience; but larger, what does society gain with such immigration and with the acclimatization of immigrant citizens into the larger U.S. society and what all that might mean, even forgetting the old ways and ancient traditions harking back to Rome, for modern Americans.  The story was a development of a folk tale told in my own family, on my father’s Italian side.

            The story, “The Message,” deals with a love affair between a professional photographer and a young woman, who also aspires to become a photographer.  The play of forces thematically for me, was to explore a mere photojournalist (male), who has no passion for photography but is competent professionally, with an amateur (female), who is impassioned with the artistic possibilities for photography, by someone who could become serious about it and work doggedly to some level of exhibition and publication prominence.  The themes developed, I suppose, from my own encounter with a jaded professional photographer, and my own more artistic involvement (my feminine side) with photographic art.  Also, I wanted to play with the development, in verbal writing, with photographic paraphernalia and photo themes, especially as pertains to character development (photojournalist awakens a humanistic side to himself; art photographer becomes more confident, independent), and the dealing with childhood within all that (love interest, woman photographer, has a young child), to show how that might be treated or valued, a character arriving at some sense of maturity would be that theme.  Finally, I liked the ironical sense of writing about a photographer who had to figure out, how to get his message across to his lover; and after many letters to be sent, he, of course, decides to take a series of photos of himself, to convey exactly his state of unrequited love and sorrow, to his potential wife.  While the reader is saying, of course, that a picture is worth a thousand words, in actuality, it is me, the author, as mentioned in “The Novel,” who shows that all the pictures in the world could not have conveyed the entire short story; that is, it actually took five thousand words!

            Another story of intensity with my first collection, Early Tales, is “Olivia’s Favor.”  This is a tragic tale, a steady portrayal of a young woman and young mother’s giving up of hope, being engulfed by the grief of self-hatred or self-dissatisfaction, and ending with her taking her own life.  Suicide is one of the themes of much fiction (Sorrows of Young Werther, Beneath The Wheel, Another Country, The Bell Jar), and maybe put in the context of “life & death” presents one of the common, solid, and ever recurring meta-themes for human storytelling.  I worked with a fictionalized composite main character and situation with a well-meaning boyfriend, as a last and desperate love, but I was prompted to write the story, to understand a friend’s acquaintance, who actually did commit suicide.  The event never made sense to me, as an author or a man, until I could work through and experience the drama on my own, though again, all of the details were fictionalized.  The greater theme here, perhaps, is that with compassion and empathy one comes to formulate some true sense of how others might experience intense and tragic events in their lives.  We grow as others, readers, and experiencers of such tragedy, that is a possibility for gaining or experiencing wisdom, and with the wisdom, I like to think, gain a grander and bittersweet acceptance for what exactly is this life experience we each go through, the complexity of our human condition.

            A final story for discussion in Early Tales is the symbolic “Mourning.”  It’s a sort of working-class parable, of a lost artistic soul, a poet, in line at a day labor agency, who cannot go through the terror of that mundane employment, compared to the glory of his own, inner visionary sense.  Again, the story was prompted by my own attendance one day at such an agency, in between writing novels and being broke, then hearing suddenly of the death of a painter inspiration of mine, Pablo Picasso. (Upon leaving a military academy in earlier days, one of my inspirations was considering an artistic vocation, via reading Life With Picasso.)  So, there’s a constant play between the words “morning” and “mourning,” between a helpful comrade in the waiting line, a house painter, who laments finally to the youth, that what he has left after all his wandering north and south, his lost jobs and family, his alcoholism, his decrepit life and health and temperament, what this one other lost soul has left, “is his stories.”  The comrade becomes a sort of symbol for the writer’s soul (named Paul, for “Pablo” in Spanish), witnessed or externalized as a downtrodden bum by a self-centered and depressed poet, who can muster neither enthusiasm for the work offered, the circumstances (still full of freedom of choice), nor his own failed writing attempts.  The poet finally leaves without getting the day’s work he came searching for, but in the mourning, the transcendence of experience, here the lost wages and opportunity and greater, the possibility of genuine human contact, he becomes a person in grief—really, for a failed artist of sorts (still young and changeable), compared, of course, with the prodigious life-long achievements of Picasso.  The grander theme is just what is the value of art and the value of the visionary experience, and what exactly can be done to increase not the success of the individual artist, but his or her actual fulfillment.  (My own choice that day was to return home and write the short story.)

            With my second story collection, Moments, many diverse themes were covered and discussed in “Experimentalism.”  Experimental writing was a primary constituent of my short story, “Before This Story Gets Rolling.”  There’s an inner story, an outer story, with characters jumping out of the tale, confronting me in front of the reader, and doing other humorous absurdities of post-modern fiction (published in 1979).  Themes within the story are ironic, in what way might certain fictional characters, not necessarily archetypes for author or stock characters for a particular writer, but as set foundational forms for characters disappear, which is what happened with Karl Sherwood Ottoman, the male protagonist.  (He is same character used for Ending #2 in chapter, “Experimentalism.”)  He is the foundation for previous roles in other stories, even a fictional novella (for the female protagonist), and is characterized via a biographical sheet presented to the reader.  There’s an unconscious theme here with the amount of work an author goes through in writing fiction or creating character and plot, as well as the amount of intellectual material, which can be condensed even into a longer fiction.  Such satirical usages of footnotes in the story (before this became an academic cliché), fake book titles (a la Borges), and cuts at the preponderance of university or critical effort stuck then on Joyce (today one might do better satirizing the Melville craze) all bring about a healthy look, finally, at the criticism industry.  Other themes concerned formatting (as mentioned in my Introduction to Moments), whereby it was quite creative to adjust different fonts and spacing for inner and outer stories, footnotes, and blackboard lists and postcard type, all done on a conventional manual typewriter at the time (this before PCs and the ease of changing formatting with a few cursor strokes).  Creativity itself became a theme in the fiction, or metafiction, as well as the entertaining use of obvious intellectualisms to increase the meaning density and the possibility for the fiction to reach truly serious dimensions.

            “The Butcher” was dedicated to “A.S. & P.N.” upon first magazine publication (later spelled out in full, Alexander Solzhenitsyn & Pablo Neruda).  I have documented in earlier chapters as well as my “Retrospective of Alexander Solzhenitsyn,” how I turned from a window in my apartment in Charlottesville, VA, after reading one of the first volumes of The Gulag Archipelago, with tears in my eyes at such inhumanity, of one human’s treatment to another, regardless of the culture.  I sat down then, and wrote out completely the story, “The Butcher.”  It’s set in Chile and shows a man coming home from work carrying a small box, with a kitten in it, for his only son, Jaime.  The wife asks for him to punish his son, and without asking why, the husband takes off his belt and spanks the child.  Only as he is spanking the child with the belt, he forgets, actually falls into a usual rhythm and keeps whipping and whipping the child, until his son is on the floor, and his wife, too, when she enters and faints.  There’s a confrontation later, in which the wife says to the husband that he always does too much, it’s why he’s called “a butcher,” when in actuality he is a prison guard used to beating political prisoners in a nearby detention center.  The end of the story shows the wife leaving and the husband drinking white wine, yet dreaming of her return holding a child with a misshapen eye.  The husband screams, “Noooo!”  That character’s name is Juan Q. Apatia, Spanish for “John Q. Apathy,” the public’s real concern for such brutality and inhumane treatment.  The themes encompass those of Solzhenitsyn’s, only in a parable-like tale, where the reader must question this punishing of innocence (the child), the collusion of the lie (the wife) with the violence and the living of the lie (husband, or “butcher”).  The meta-theme with this, as resonates with “the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker” phrase, is a deep questioning of how does ordinary humanity in whatever culture allow and participate in such monstrous and violent behavior?  These tie in with larger meta-themes of religious compassion, ethics, political considerations, true humanism.

            “Incantation” bridges a gap between the metaphysical and fictional rendition.  It’s a story of a young woman who receives a letter from a past male lover and re-experiences not the actual incidents so much, as the power and intensity of this one person within her life in the past summer, and again somehow, that happens with solely the reading of his handwritten lines.  She ponders, deeply, in unconscious ways which are presented in a musical style of repeated lines and questions, “such men move among the living and no one can explain,” the real psychic import that one person can have upon another, and an oblique theme, again, of the real significance or possible meaning or substance transferral available with the simple process of writing and reading a personal letter.  What in fact is reading and what exactly can a writer put across to sympathetic readers, and how, how in the usual rational ways of the world, could all this take place, with such intensity, simply from the reading of written words in a personal letter or story or book, even?  “Incantation,” again, is meant to broach the larger subject of metaphysics but more, more than some traditional religious sense, more of a mystical rendition, of bringing across a total transferral of the intensity of one person’s expression to another.  From the author’s point of view, for me, the style considerations were a way of painting with words, using a heavier impasto technique, in many senses writing as would Vincent Van Gogh paint, to bring across an expressionist impression, an emotional saturation within the reader.  That larger theme, then, of the effectiveness of art or the possibilities of art are brought right into the forefront of this fiction.

            “Moments” is the namesake of the short story collection of the same title, and shows the interaction of a man and a woman, ostensibly as friends, checking to see if the woman might rent an apartment, and them looking through the empty rooms.  What happens, however, is a bringing together of the two good friends, and an understanding of how unhappy the woman is, how much she needed to show him this potential living spot for herself, and the understanding, at the end, that the woman never really wanted the apartment.  The man knew it was a gentle moment in understanding the woman, the showing of her “interior rooms,” and that it was those actual intense, rich, and personally fulfilling times or moments that the male character cherished not only in his interactions with other people, but in life, as adding real meaning to existence.  From the end of “Moments”:  “Such fragments, of those meetings I told her, will not hide away the sway and fear of weary purpose, cannot stave off the lostness, but sometimes in their kinship, can appeal for one to live another way.”  With that the man’s life intensifies and deepens.  A major theme also evolves, of this being symbolic of the author’s function in penning a discrete short story, and a reader’s total involvement.

            “A Russian Discourse” is considered under “Experimentalism” because of the stylistic innovations of traditional narration with short bursts of poetical description of an exterior event, all happening upon a construction site.  A young laborer is almost killed by a falling crane bucket, but in that same instance, the laborer also confronts the image of Ivan Ilyich, from Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich.  Essentially, the character is confronting the possibility for his own death, the meaning of his mortality, and a look back upon his young life, as to Tolstoy’s phrase, “What is the right thing?”  The themes here present an analytical look at a possible accident and an inner poetic reflection upon one’s existence and the priorities which might truly mean something, to one’s soul, should one perish soon.  Again, the “life & death” master theme is played out, with a nod to the spiritual and introspective fiction of Nineteenth Century Russia.  The character is a disaffected intellectual, forced by the lack of opportunities in America in the 1970’s to work as a laborer.  He even mentions, “It’s surprising whom you meet in ditches these days,” in reference to a possible chess partner.  The character is more from Dostoevsky or Gorky however; yet he confronts the major life or spiritual premise of Tolstoy’s wondrous novella, by saying that he hates Ilych, for his deathbed revelation, which now haunts his younger years.

            Moments also displays a series of sketches or “document parodies,” as I call them, so that the short fictions resemble other forms of printed publications.  “Between The Lines” is presented as a short book review, a narrow column of tight newsprint in a newspaper or newsprint journal.  There’s a sort of inner “doubletalk” with the reviewer, as he admits to never having read the book under review, to using his name-dropping to impress an associate professor who allows him to publish, and to hurry through his critical writing, almost as if playing a sport, so he might run off to do what’s really important, polishing his new Porsche.  Themes here go beyond satirizing mediocre book reviewers (this was written at a time in America when there were actual individual book reviewers and many newspapers also, not AP reprints syndicated throughout America of another best-seller package, tritely ordered by some foreign-owned New York publisher).  The theme is a display in one sense of how a sincere reviewer might go about approaching a book and also a play on the usual negative or scurrilous tone of many of the East Coast book reviews of the time period.  One might say, with the doubletalk and admission of inner neurosis that the character double is in a sense out of Dostoevsky, being able to articulate the negativity and hypocrisy from his unconscious, but also an example of poor reviewers in general.  The wider theme is being able to recognize the mediocre regularity of these sorts of reviews, how innocuous they are or were, and to search for more substance in the media when we go about judging the books of some author—what effect exactly does the peripheral media have upon our printed tomes?  (I suppose we must recall the cynics who always state, that any notice whatsoever is better than none at all.)

            “The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin” is the other document parody, presented as a mini-scholastic collection of letters from an obscure scholar of Esperanto.  Themes here go back to a certain transparency (of all forms, especially popular nonfiction or journalism, academic criticism), used for irony here, where the letters are all said to be in Esperanto, when in fact, all of them are printed in English.  Esperanto becomes a euphemism or metaphor for seeing through things to the reality, and so again, the critic in bamboozled fashion makes many mistakes and writes actually horrifying faux pas to various famous and infamous people of his past (to Hitler, offering to send plans of the scholar’s home town), to Solzhenitsyn, offering to take pictures of the South Sea islands for his book about the Gulag, to Nixxon apologizing for ever sending the then president his mini-tape recorder resulting in all the “expletive deleted” records, etc.  Part of the theme was countercultural, in looking through the absurdities of reverenced American institutions (presidency, employment or lack of excellent jobs in 1970 America, scholarly departments, for the University of Iowa as having some insightful expertise, when the actual definition of the word “Iowa” in Sioux, is “the sleepy ones,” and on and on).  Further, there are post-modern or metafictional plays of humor with listing all the scholarly footnotes on one back separate page (the actual numbers are the only things on the page, no notes at all), and a fun-filled appendix with a condensed version of the ridiculous masters of American pop culture.  Themes here consider the circus fashion of American culture, the dullness of much of the intuitions here if one examines them closely, and the sense of absurdity of various experts thrown at one from university presses.  In a larger sense, as mentioned in the Preface to Moments, this was a take-off on the occurrence of pre-renaissance poet, Francis Petrarch, writing sincere and significant letters to mentors from the past, even ancient Rome and Greece, as if the personages were living down the road.  So the satire sets a theme again for Renaissance Consciousness, with humor, insight, parody.

            My third book of short fiction, Shared Lives, is much different, in that all the stories were written during the same period, the same week to be exact, and deal with discrete and distinct romantic scenes between men and women, most rendered with minimalist prose and extensive dialogue.  The book’s master theme is love in its many forms, moving across young love and old, mature and immature characters, rowdy individuals and subtle, with much humor and some insistent sorrow.  The stories were meant to compliment each other, as a reading experience, so one very serious is arranged, next to something humorous, and the entire thing starting with “Togetherness,” a rowdy young couple living together and arguing about some people visiting that night (actually the readers of the book), and ends with a realized romance, “Courting,” where a young man finally gets to date a woman he has been excited about, and though each is serious and sincere, and interested for an erotic time and place, the romance by the end of the story falls apart with the simple, soulful awareness that each person in that embrace is meant for someone else (a sad goodbye to the readers).  So all the themes are involved around romantic couples, what can be or could be or won’t be, the joys and sorrows and troubles of such relationships, and the possibilities for extended understandings from each’s love for one another (“Journeys,” with a closer introspection upon death; with “New Regard,” a closer understanding of a relationship falling apart; with “Marc And Jody,” the trials of a younger couple trying to keep things fresh and real).  One tale in the collection is unique, “This Is A Story.”  The entire short piece describes only language, and the interaction of nouns and verbs—no characters at all—with “no meaning or insights here.  Not one, honest!”  The satire moves through a reference to totalitarianism, especially with concepts of “language as design,” to bring across finally, that when there are no characters or character themes we have only cute entertainments; and truly, we need to beware.  

             Though only thirteen tales are here, the volume was put together very self-consciously, as a modern form of a sort of Decameron presentation by Boccaccio, and with that, the meta-theme of love is necessary and more noble than any other theme, and larger too, not only for the perpetuation of our race (love of humanity), but for the reinvigoration of society and the blossoming of our own renaissance period.  The last story, “Courting,” again resonates with that exact reference, describing the woman’s billowy blond-streaked hair, and luminous charm as “some Florentine aura.”  From a Christian point of view, the only theme is love—though the stories of Boccaccio’s are not necessarily “Christian Stories.”

            Returning to drama and my collection of five short one-acts, Tauromenium, it’s best to discuss the possibilities for thematic seriousness and application with each of those.  Though applicable obviously to drama, authors of other writing quickly will see how that application will move through plays to novels to stories (just as it worked so much in reverse with Shakespeare, in his commandeering of Italian short stories as plots for his eloquent dramas).

            “The Catalyst” presents a play about a young male teacher returning to high school after a year’s sabbatical, and after only one season, being so creative, as to jeopardize his tenure, actually to lose his job.  This was discussed some in the Drama section of “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama” and the themes deal with society’s attack upon the creative or the exiling of the creative individual (no stranger to actual history, with the exile of Ovid from ancient Rome, to Dante and Petrarch from Florence, to Solzhenitsyn from modern USSR).  There are also sub-themes of what actually should secondary education in America be about; is it only a socializing process (institutional babysitting), a repressive process (making sure each citizen is an appropriate non-questioning cog in the technocracy), or something which allows for the growth of an individual?  Second, one comes to see that the constant attack or types of attack (which might be silent or censorship by avoidance) is a way to ensure an oligarchy and an homogenized view of society, actually a sort of non-questioning technocracy, and one that can insist there is no dissent—what is lost, is that most significant of anything else to middle class society, not freedom, creativity, fulfillment, but a paycheck.  Thus the mediocrity is enforced, controlled, distributed throughout even a larger national entity like the USA.  Third, of course, is a part and parcel of this, in that knowledge, or let’s say a type of knowledge, suddenly becomes quite dangerous.  Only certain things can be studied—no questioning of violence, no questioning of dishonesty, no questioning of repression or state censorship, no questioning of incarceration—that will be replaced by good, solid, subjects useful not to the student as a person, really, but to the society’s need to control the person properly:  civics, any tech courses instructing how to use the latest technology to ensure control, limited and twisted historical texts (mostly to propagate Anglo-Saxon heritage; that is, our history stops at England, without displaying any Latin or other roots for the entire influx of everything into the New World from the Renaissance), and on and on.  

             There is in “The Catalyst” a display, in humorous fashion, of what Nietzsche called “the transvaluation of values,” so that the teachers trying to convince our heroic “catalyst” to do otherwise mention that if he were an alcoholic or child abuser or rude or incompetent, there’d be some hope (for his tenure), but our protagonist is the worst of the lot, he’s “good.”  These are sorts of traditional themes in one sense, that by confronting the education of young people or we might say enculturation or acclimation to the establishment’s usual “spin” on things, we are confronting directly the propagation or continuation of lies and the need for changes at the base or foundation of our nation.  This is not unlike Tolstoy’s discussion and extensive private projects with educating the serfs in Nineteenth Century Russia, a revolutionary stance for an aristocrat like Count Tolstoy, and synonymous with much of the vehement abolitionist activity in our own country at the same time (1810-1865).  Again, the master theme (for the playwright) is the taking command of the great vessel of Contemporary Drama and bringing about a tack so as to issue broadside blasts at those on shore, who by this time have fallen asleep.

            “Mystery” is a metaphysical drama in three short acts (one-act length) that brings about a display of how the mystical or supernatural moves in and out of normal or accepted “realistic” existence.  This was a form of sacred festival drama, similar in scope, intensity, and intent to some of Wagner’s late operas (Parsifal), with a series of monks on stage at the beginning of a birth scene, resonances with them during the maturation sequence, and the appearance of an actual deathbed on stage, for the ending action, of a death scene.  All of it is meant to bring about the confrontation of the spiritual soul with its physical environment, perhaps in the intense and thoughtful way of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, but certainly projecting the themes of life, the origin and foundation of it, the cause of it, the meaning for each man and woman, and too our final apprehension and reflection of all that (“From days of darkness perhaps some light and from points of fog some clarity . . . and give this, this trial I know not how to become.”  Mystery, Act III, Scene 3).  Again, the master theme of “life & death” is here, but this time with a stronger mystical or metaphysical element and a deeper spiritual sense of what life is about, what it could be about on stage, and what all that will be about for each spectator in the audience, as he or she proceeds on home, for “life as usual.”  These sorts of dramas push the boundaries of what theater is exactly and what can or cannot be portrayed on stage, and also the boundaries for exactly what art is and how deep it may proceed or push the audience’s experience within the boundaries of ordinary life.  Certainly, not an “entertainment.”  The oblique theme is one which I intend, also, to return to; that is, what exactly is our current “reality” construct or dimension, how it might be constructed (as well as construed or accepted), and how art might extend itself to show ever more self-consciousness of Spirit within our life, of God becoming ever more present in our daily existence.  (I have been working with a similar metaphysical theme in my novella-in-progress, The Casting Out, and have other similar plans for future works.)

            “Rally!” has been discussed at some length in “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama”; it’s a triple rendition or translation of the same drama, one in urban script, one in rural script, then finally a more simplistic rendition, via a child’s puppet drama.  The intent here was to work with a community festival play for younger people, to show how youngsters can work together to re-do or assist each other in times of trouble, and with that, help to reinvigorate all of society.  It’s a true renaissance play, but intended for community action at all levels of society.  The themes on a personal level are about gangs and attacks at first, then the loss of goods through a burglary and the kids turning to help, and finally, by the adults accepting the young people’s efforts and assisting them, to make all the efforts successful.  Even the puppet drama ends with a ghost tale and the collecting of a quarter to help Puppet Town, a successful completion.  By showing the same script or story in three different renditions (two of changes in urban/rural patter, the third for much younger children) the theme of community growth and universality is brought across both for the youngsters involved, and the sincerity of effort for the actual communities staging “Rally!”  In a very direct way, this was a meta-theme about the renaissance, but maybe by using that term as a verb, “to renaissance,” and bringing it down to an ordinary community level.

            “Sunisa Suuqe” or “Ass Backwards, An Intellectual Burlesque,” is intended as a spoof and larger societal change sort of drama, actually presenting a play performed backwards, the last scene first, the middle in the middle, the first scene last, to portray in a never-to-be-forgotten way, again the concept by Nietzsche about the reversal of value cognition (or inversion), or “transvaluation of value.”  This is a theme about how society eventually will allow its core or foundation values to migrate or transform too often into the exact opposite, so that the upper part of society becomes in essence, a parody, or shambles of what it’s supposed to be.  Pop culture changing the meaning of “bad” from signifying evil to the sense of “cool,” is a display of this tendency.  Themes about society are portrayed and many spoofs of no-no’s in theatre too (blatant playwright’s messages, fake petitions during intermission, deus ex machina).  There are themes of criticism of current political administration (penned in 1988) with Reganite cowboys parading on stage, dragging TVs to plug in, and spoofs among the audience.  “Intellectual Burlesque” is the best description of something in the vein of “I can’t go on; I’ll go on,” as a fusion of comic absurdity like Beckett’s, with incisive political and spiritual portrayals also.  It brings back to comedy some of the ancient Aristophanes, and his many attempts in the Athens of his time, to parody tyranny and political control of those days.  The themes of refusal to cooperate with tyranny (conceptually) are evident, as well as lampooning some of the absurdity of conventional stagecraft (the “well-made play”), and pop storytelling (as portrayed on TV).  The meta-theme portrays the ability for culture to slowly collapse when its value base is reversed or denigrated, bringing about, as exactly is the fashion of this hilarious spoof, a society which is a farce.

            “Tauromenium” as the namesake of the collection, again, is dear to me personally, with the name taken from the Greek town first established in Sicily, now called Taormina (from which my surname comes).  Discussion appears in the chapter “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” especially how this was intended as a mythic play, intense yet objective (using some of the tenets worked out by Bertolt Brecht to “distance his audience” for epic drama) that shows the beaching of Trojan refugees, escaping from the burning of Troy by the ancient Greeks.  History states that Troy existed (archeologist have unearthed it in Turkey), and there are tales from Homer’s Odyssey of the Greek’s return that includes landing along the shores of eastern Sicily.  The scene of Ulysses fighting with the Cyclops is reputed to have been set within the caves nearby Taormina.  More to the point, is the epic by Virgil, The Aeneid, where Aeneas escapes from Troy, sails or stops in Sicily, then proceeds to sail north, to found the nation of the Romans.  History also corroborates such a legendry hero landing outside modern city of Rome and actually founding that nation.  I have visited Taormina, Sicily and besides the wonders of being an unlikely tourist (imagine the innkeeper checking my passport to see that I was a Taormina, visiting Taormina!), I felt amazed.  The beauty and history are astonishing; as is what remains of an ancient Greco-Roman theatre, set in Taormina, on a precipice overlooking the Ionian Sea, part of the blue Mediterranean.  The setting inspired my one-act play, and that I hope to have it premiere in Taormina, Sicily (as well as be able to rebuild that theatre some day); yet the themes prove more important.  As a playwright I wanted to connect directly with my own personal history; as an artist and playwright I wanted to highlight the refugee experience, the visionary emphasis (Troy was known for Cassandra’s prescient and failed warnings of disaster to the Trojans and the Virgilian prophecy of the coming of Christ, plus the mythic or factual founding of a great ancient nation, Rome), and the latter mythic or legendary aspect, which I felt would help establish an inspiration source for reinvigorating the arts, obliquely, and this epoch more directly (similar to Shakespearean resonance) for a time of global renaissance.

            Other internal themes for the play again included the theme of war, or the aftermath of war (and its trauma or effect upon the survivors, which I also chronicled in my novel, The Entropy Wars, with futuristic survivors labeled by me in that book, “entrovivors.”), heroism, the continuation of a family unit and progression into a new world, and the resonance of ancient voices within the modern world, via a connection or psychic lifeline of inspiration and heredity (my own effort), to set the play in Taormina, Sicily.

            Such considerations might seem pompous or grandiloquent by some, but that town and now its theatre, at Taormina, actually can serve as a signpost, a sort of “squaring of the circle” in an artistic or psychic sense for myself.  Also, the history of the place demands such emphasis.  Each year there is an international film festival held in Taormina, Sicily; there’s a yearly “literary prize” from Taormina, recognized all over Europe; and Taormina has served as inspiration, place of visit and refuge, for grand artistic names such as Goethe and Wagner (Wagner composed some of his later operas in Palermo, Sicily and was astonished at the beauty of Taormina), as well as mention in the work by Maupassant, the lengthy visits by D.H. Lawrence, Tennessee Williams, and passing mention in the work of Harold Pinter.  The meta-theme with the play and the diverse collection of one-acts, is like a triangular piece of puzzle (ancient name for the triangular isle of Sicily was “Trinacria”) placed into a world map and recognition of reinvigorating the arts, especially drama and fiction.

            Last with my own work, I want to consider the thematic concerns of my novellas.  Again, my book, Triad (containing the novellas Of Rifles & Butterflies, The Collected Letters of Sol. O. Sendin, and The Casting Out), is still in progress for the final novella, though two others have been published in partial forms.  Of Rifles & Butterflies was dissected in detail in my chapter “Experimentalism” for its musical and stylistic experimentalism.  It’s the story of a young male journalist arriving at an outdoor party (a “Toaster Shoot”) searching for his latest lover, a female blues singer.  Here a driving motif is appropriate even for that term, as in music, the importance of music to my generation, with blues music and rock & roll, and the actual use of a leitmotif, “What did I remember?” (natural nobility) recurring throughout the novella, and further structural designs harking back to Beethoven’s symphonies, and resonances visually with Michelangelo.  The primary or direct theme concerns the plot of Jungian self-fulfillment, with the protagonist actually “absorbing” his feminine side to become whole (the lover vanishes from the tale), and once integrated psychologically, the protagonist goes on symbolically to shoot an alarm clock, signaling his departure from conventional employment, to begin a creative life.  The larger theme, again connected with society of America during the 1980’s, was personal fulfillment and national reinvigoration, or renaissance.  Initial or early themes border more on the personal and romantic, with a love interest, work interest, locale interest (Virginia), and the binding again with a community of friends, to attend the off-beat outdoor festival, where the inspirational “epiphany” happens.

            The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin, in novella form (already completed), was discussed somewhat here, as the first part appears as a discrete short story in my collection, Moments.  The complete novella (additional letter supplements and plot extension) will appear in the full version, in Triad.  Again, this is a spoof of scholarly work, and a take-off, good naturedly about Francis Petrarch’s writing to ancients, but as the novella proceeds one is able to grasp more than short transparent letters to the famous and infamous of the version in Moments.  A story develops, whereby the scholar is hospitalized, victimized by the medical establishment, and more, a continual prophetic or psychic action unfolds, displaying a grander theme, more visionary and oracular.  There are poems, attempts at film scripts, lengthier letters, dialogue and a mixture of narrative forms, all to resonate more fully, with a progressive story, that moves all out of proportion to the mostly satirical and conventional or political repression themes of the first section or version.  Esperanto then, becomes, more than a symbol or euphemism for transparency or clarity of political recognition, and results in a metaphysical display of an entirely different “language reality.”

            The last novella, The Casting Out, has been discussed both under the “Experimentalism” and “Spirituality,” and is still in-progress.  The story narrates about someone who has traveled to Montana and suddenly finds himself near a large lake and is almost transported by the magnificent beauty of the surroundings, mountain ranges behind, grandeur of lake in front, high northern-latitude clouds in the “big sky.”  Interspersed with the events, is a sort of inner narration, expressed with compressed journal entries, whereby the protagonist notes details of his actual reality, of feeling almost within a different reality there, of this “being transported” sensation as a sort of living “dimension.”  He meets a young woman, and soon realizes she is not what she seems; that is, there is a metaphysical element to the appearance of this woman in his life, a religious component.  The remainder of the story describes the exorcising of this demon from his life, a manifestation from Hindu philosophy, and a sort of inner deconstruction of the reality elements to her appearance and what all that means.  The theme seems one again of romance or metaphysical betrayal via romance, then of extracting a villain from one’s life, then a confrontation in supernatural terms to an understanding for the character and a coming to a Christian “discernment” about the events, which lead to liberation (from the Hindu illusion) and salvation (within the Christian reality).  Again, a major theme becomes the total confrontation with understanding reality, as the protagonists does, and coming to a resolution about what is “real,” what “illusory,” what actually contains the other, and how all that impacts the true world.  There are themes of New Age orientation, Christian orientation, and elements of salvation conflict here, as well as a direct confrontation of the makeup of our accepted reality.

            About the spiritual, it might be best to consider incisive comments from French novelist, and Nobel-Prize-Winner, Francois Mauriac:

            “Faith in God was lost for many, but not the values this faith postulates.  The good was not bad, and the bad was not good.  The collapse of the novel is due to the destruction of this fundamental concept:  the awareness of good and evil. The language itself has been devalued and emptied of its meaning by this attack on conscience.

            “Observe that for the novelist who has remained Christian, like myself, man is someone creating himself or destroying himself.  He is not an immobile being, fixed, cast in a mold once and for all.  This is what makes the traditional psychological novel so different from what I did or thought I was doing.  The human being as I conceive him in the novel is a being caught up in the drama of salvation, even if he doesn’t know it.”  (Francois Mauraic, The Paris Review Interviews, 1953, by Jean Le Marchand)

            Enough detail of the use of themes in my own work should provide an example of how integrated the subject is with the creative act and the creative person, and his or her society—all of that is a fusion, within the actual art or writing.  Examples should provide inspiration or points of departure or points of controversy or points of extrapolation or points of critical comparisons (with other literary works).  It is my thought, however, that within my own active life span (as per working years), which include 1970-2020 or so, fifty years, that there were certain inevitable kinds of themes, upon a national and international level, for a writer living at this time and producing literary works within the United States.

            Such themes of this 50-year period might be listed:  actual lifestyle or cultural rendition within United States; the Cultural Revolution here and abroad in the 1970-90’s; student rebellion and Anti-War Revolt; Back-to-Land Movement; alternative or Countercultural Lifestyle; Civil Rights Movement; Feminism, Consumerism run amok; folly of space travel; selling-out to establishment by majority; quick shift to cowardly consolidation of political right under Reagan (mediocre film star who becomes president); continual rights violations by Americans of those overseas in a neocolonial fashion; the entropy of our culture and end of our empire; greed of multinational corporations; rise of oil and avoidance of environmental action; global warming (environmental entropy); repression of the presses; destruction of active literary culture; decline in the arts; rise of pop culture with TV, films, genre lit, pop music of ever-increasing vulgarity, violence, victimization, pornography; increase in crime, especially murder; rise of the computer; rise of technocracy; fall in importance of human life (voluntary abortion, in vitro fertilization, cloning, euthanasia); many positives with new forms of capitalism or entrepreneurship, leisure and generosity, family, electronic community, invention, architecture, medicine, digital art.  Also, there is the personal with more education and traveling, longevity of the populace, aging families, comfort or convenience society, greed and corruption, vulgarity, psychological integration, illumination or the opposite, total mental vacuity.  We should consider physiological fulfillment and universal personality maturation, Jung’s, as well as Maslow’s integration of values, or Jung’s individuation.  Finally, is our eternal meta-theme, salvation or religious perfection.

            Listing of those themes will allow one quickly to think through one’s current reading or perhaps reevaluate favorite literature to see if many or if any of those themes have been developed (and to maybe understand the repression, subterfuge, and propaganda element really inherent in those particular works).  Remember in America, avoidance is a prime method of censorship.  One needs to make some sort of decision right away, to shy away from popular writers, watch for new authors, consider works and writers of substance, and for aspiring writers to put those themes and concerns into new works for the future, so that America might have a more valuable, coherent, honest literature and one of depth and grandeur.

            In general, some of the wider themes one might consider include:  class reconstruction or the redefining of American society; terrorism from without, repression from within; greed of upper and middle classes (with general apathy for anything but accumulation of materialistic wealth); salvation concerns and rapid devaluation via pop culture of US (and what we export to the world via films, TV, pop music); taking over of national political culture with financial manipulation (rise of Obama); increasing idiocy of pop culture and celebrity antics; lack of substance everywhere (unless it deals with Technology to help increase power of those in control or Finances to increase the wealth of those in control); rise and implementation of technicians into society’s elite (the plumbers take over!); Outsiders; degradation of the arts; decline of the press and wider arts culture including theatre; forefront of minority interests as special or discrete permanent concerns (should be homogenized into American life as “the great melting pot” as are all ethnic entries to America); dominance and fragmentation of academic world (new technocracy vs. substance, rise of the “how vs. why”—Nietzsche once wrote, “If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how.” Twilight of the Idols); aging of generations; taking care of family members; shifting international power centers to Asia.  Probable themes of our future are discussed with detail in final chapter, “Advancement & Transcendence.”

            Perhaps, to come full circle, it is best not only to consider thematic concerns on a personal level, national for life span, general for national culture, but also to reconsider some of the previous discussion with concerns of grand or great themes, the true meta-themes already considered.  Those might include:  God, Salvation of Soul, Life & Death, Psychological Wholeness, Love (in all its human varieties and forms), Family, Consciousness, Renaissance, Grand Achievement, Story of A Life, Story of a Nation, Story of a Civilization, and some of the more negative aspects—Degratocarcy (as explained in “Autobiography” and here, oligarchy of the multi-credentialed, instead of the talented), Rise of Religion, Extreme Warfare, Tyranny and slow progression to despotism (internationally and domestically), Censorship, Loss of Freedom or independence, Pandemic Disease, Environmental Chaos, Planetary Solar Power (Energy Dependency), Demonology, Human Life or Humanity itself.

            An insight from Carl Jung’s psychology:  “The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.  As a human being he may have moods and a will and personal aims, but as an artist he is ‘man’ in a higher sense—he is ‘collective man,’ a vehicle and molder of the unconscious psychic life of mankind.”  (Carl Jung, Psychology and Literature)

            For the aspiring writer, some of the discussion here might seem overwhelming.  It is certainly not meant to suggest that we each pick one or a couple of the themes here, and run off to write our new novel.  What is suggested, however, is a good study and absorption of the concepts here with these themes and an honest examination of our world and daily lives, for how all that fits into our lives, or how more accurately our separate and individual lives (and by extension those of our characters) fit into the truer realm of the sub-themes, wider themes and meta-themes of the actual world.  What is recommended is not to begin necessarily with a theme first, but to consider and become educated with and to understand one’s world, so that the horror of the opposite doesn’t’ happen—that all our books and art works avoid substance.  Should that become fact for the future, it will turn out to be ever more like the current offering from the “elite” of our society, who somehow assume, that the independent creators of this world will ever, ever put up with the vapidity of current offerings.  I am sometimes reminded of a similar contrast or “resonance,” only with music appreciation.  Often when listening to favorite classical compositions, the piano sonatas by Beethoven (performed by Alfred Brendel), there is a sudden sensation, an overall release or mellowing of mental tension for me, and the best articulation I might offer, is that the piano somehow soothes having to put up with so much rampant mediocrity today.  It reminds me of the comment from American filmmaker Woody Allen:  “Life doesn’t imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

            Our literary expressions depend upon serious craftspersons interacting spiritually with the people and the society of their age, and reflecting on all that within their current and ongoing writings.  We demand that, we look forward to that, we search for it always; it’s part of the Human Spirit.  Michelangelo might agree, “True art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”

 

RESOURCES

1. Books to prompt thematic ideas:  20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias; 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt; How to Read Novels Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster; The Writer’s Idea Workshop by Jack Heffron, Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky; Censorship 2009; Three Genres by Stephen Minot; Tolstoy’s What Is Art?; The Outsider by Colin Wilson; The Paris Review Interviews; Literary Essays of Ezra Pound; The Inspirational Writings of C.S. Lewis; This Present Darkness by Frank E. Peretti, The Bible.
2. Online:  www.FreePress.net, cofounded by Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy; and www.ProjectCensored.org, with Peter Phillips, producer of Censored 2009; Writer’s Digest’s “101 Best Web Sites for Writers,” www.WritersDigest.com/101BestSites/.
3. Films:  Documentaries on many subjects for rent, Netflix, www.Netflix.com; 1984, TV production of Brave New World (a new film to come soon); Indie Films; Ken Burns’s many excellent documentaries; Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark (1969); How Art Made the World; Jesus of Nazareth.
4. Magazines:  (Especially pertinent given the topic of Themes—one needs a constant pulse-taking of the culture, also in-depth follow-up, plus review of current writers’ productions.  Finally, it might be wise to study periodicals of opposite interests:  if one loves art, read science; if one is passionate about science fiction, read lit mags; if one is strong with other genre fiction, try some review of the arts.)  Poets & Writers, The Writer’s Chronicle, American Poetry Review, Writer’s Digest, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Smithsonian, ARTnews Magazine, People Magazine, Time (tune in to what everyone in America is paying attention to each week), Scientific American, Audubon Magazine, American Photo, Utne Reader, Mother Jones, Catholic Digest, Christianity Today; and established literary print journals, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Zoetrope: All Story, Glimmer Train Stories, The New Renaissance.  There’s a list of “Top 50 Literary Magazines and Metazines” (eScene II) at www.webdelsol.com, and a more complete list at www.newpages.com.
5. Personal:  Join a writer’s or reader’s group, frequent cafes, read newspapers, start a local literary salon, argue with friends on a regular basis, search through blogs.   

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Tuesday, Feb 16 2010

ARCHIVE

“The Novel,” February 15, 2010

“Autobiography,” January 27, 2010

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

  

The following tenth article, “The Novel,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog in 2008.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources. All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina.

 

THE NOVEL

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina

 

             The novel as an art form deserves special treatment in any review of the writing arts (first purported as an art form for Americans by Henry James.  How To Read Novels Like A Professor, Thomas C. Foster).  These are auspicious times today, in that there has been a decisive fall in the popularity of serious novels among the general reading public, and with the decline, supposedly a similar fall in the amount of authors writing substantial, especially literary novels.  Many point out the heyday of Nineteenth Century novelists, with Dickens and Austen and Thackeray and Hardy and the Brontës in England, Zola and Flaubert and Balzac in France, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Turgenev in Russia, Henry James and Melville and Hawthorne and Twain in America, Galdos and Pereda in Spain, late Goethe and Fontane in Germany.  Social critics will point to the rise of middle class literacy and affluence, but also point out the simultaneous fall in supposed interest, with much of the same “entertainment and instruction/life wisdom” functions transferring today to nonfiction, modern film, TV, and these days the Internet.

             What perhaps has been ignored is the grand rise in the Twenty-first Century of the ambitions of many new forms and a considerable volume of new authors writing books now in America.  The minions are saying that we have thousands of new authors, but there’s no corresponding increase in the general book-buying public (of course, there’s a particular lack of review functions in traditional newspapers, though there are specialized cable stations on TV or online “book channels”: www.BookTV.org, www.thebookchannel.TV, www.Booktelevison.com, and even regional TV book clubs, plus separate web sites devoted to specialized readers).  “Finding the Audience is the big question,” adds book editor Richard Nash (Poets & Writers Magazine, “Agents & Editors,” March/April 2009).  What this really says today, at the end of the first decade of the Twenty-first Century, is that there is a great hunger for writing novels, especially in the West, and particularly in America, and it seems a matter of bringing about a corresponding increase in the study, practice, and general reading of serious fiction and poetry by the newly creative and general reading public.  (Similar sentiments echo through other writer’s publications, The Writer’s Chronicle and The American Poetry Review.)  Again, I might add, all that fits nicely, within my overall theme in these chapters, of this corresponding to our times of a Global Renaissance.

             (It might be pertinent as an aside, to speak of my decades of renaissance studies, and also of writing many times before, that the study of past golden ages on earth shows a regular pattern, not only of occurring about ever 350-500 years, but of showing a period of increased activity or clarification of renaissance subjects and themes, moving from pre-renaissance years, for us about 1990’s and lasting to a general fall of the entire renaissance climate, probably around the year 2040 or so, with a one-generation or fifty-year era of true productivity.  Everything will decline then, probably as we move to some Mannerist or Baroque phase—as did the Italian Renaissance—then vanish again into centuries which once more move through dark ages.  Part of the general apathy and lack of clarity with all this in America were the years 1895-1995—I’ve portrayed them not as a Dark Age exactly, but more with the phrase I coined, “The Dim Ages.”  This was mentioned in a speech delivered in 1993 in Washington, DC, for The World Future Society [Quintessence, Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance] and serves as background for our novelistic discussion.)

             Again, the history of the novelistic form dates back to the Roman Satyricon by Petronius (about 60 AD) and The Golden Ass by Apuleius (170 AD), and further to a host of ancient Greek novels (Collected Ancient Greek Novels, ed. by B. P. Reardon), with The Tale of The Ten Princes by Sanskrit author, Dandin (circa 500-600 AD), and then dies off almost till the traditional novel appears in Japan, Tale of Genji by Shikibu (1010), then a philosophical novel from Islamic Spain, Philosophus Autodidactus by Hayy ibn Yaqzan (1100’s), in China with the epic historical novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong (1300’s), and again with collected short fiction, The Decameron, and novels, il Filocolo (1335-36, considered the first prose novel of Italian literature) and Elegia di Modonna Fiammetta (1343-44, considered first psychological novel in western literature), all by the Italian, Giovanni Boccaccio (Wikipedia), and then the work of St. Thomas More’s Utopia in England (1516), Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais in France (1537), and many picaresque novels such as Lazarillo de Tormes (anonymous) in Spain (1554).  However, usually the beginning of the modern European novel is cited as Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, in Spain (1605-1604).  The origins are cited more than for historical veracity; it is important to understand and study the beginnings of the novelistic art form; that has been a grand tenet in any renaissance process, of understanding and being inspired by the past, so as to transform the present (and therefore all of our futures).

             Probably today, we should narrow our search a bit, and jump over the time already considered in previous chapters, to consider modern American novelists of merit within the past decade or so, that is within the Twenty-first Century.  Toni Morrison, the first Afro-American to win the Nobel Prize certainly is still writing (her novel, Beloved, is on many “best-of-the-decade” lists), as is Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, Gore Vidal, Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, E.L. Doctorow, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Robbins, Ann Beattie, Cormac McCarthy, Robert Coover, Jonathan Franzen, and upcoming authors, David Eggers, Jonathan Safran Foer, more mainstream such as T.C. Boyle and Jodi Picoult and what I consider off-beat authors whom critics are noticing, William T. Vollman, Denis Johnson, and the dark Chuck Palahniuk.  This does not include many novelists like myself, whose work has been underground in America for decades, only printed in small editions by independent presses or even samizdat versions.  Also, there are what might be called popular Christian novelists with Frank E. Peretti, Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins, and Marilynne Robinson.  (An excellent starting place for top 100 novels in general or as comprehensive historical reading is from Daniel S. Burt’s The Novel 100: A Ranking of Greatest Novels of All Time, www.adherents.com/people/100_novel.html.  Later, in this discussion appears my own personal list of significant novels.  Also at end of article see Resources.)

             For my own background, so readers will understand my sympathies and mentors, it should be understood that as an undergraduate studying in Valladolid, Spain, I went through Iberian literature courses and studied Cervantes (Cervantes lived for a time in Valladolid; that’s where he published Don Quixote), Miguel de Unamuno, Pio Baroja, Galdos and many Spanish playwrights, including Lope de Vega and Calderon.  Later, however, I developed as a novelist from studying Hermann Hesse and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky and Gogol and Turgenev, Zola and Flaubert, Dickens, Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway, Hawthorne, and other European authors such as Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, D.H. Lawrence, W. Somerset Maugham, Americans Faulkner, Kerouac, Henry Miller, and many moderns (Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Richard Brautigan, Ken Kesey, Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Doris Lessing, John Fowles, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and much Borges [though his works are all short fictions], Solzhenitsyn, Camus, Frank E. Peretti, Colin Wilson), plus a studious sampling of Joyce, Kafka, Beckett, Sartre, William S. Burroughs, Hamsun, Conrad, Proust, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe, G.K. Chesterton, and François Mauriac. 

             I’ve gone over a thorough list for my own influences, but I want to mention that I started writing because of Hermann Hesse’s novels, and intensively studied the Russians, the French, Dickens, and with reading the classic Americans, Sherwood Anderson and Hemingway and Faulkner.  The study of the others provided the experimentalism and variety of modern prose; but often, I want to note, that for a favorite or decisive author, I would read most everything I could find for that person.  For individual style considerations or understanding how an author composed some novelistic section, I would copy out by hand or on a manual typewriter several passages, scenes, or sections.  (One needs to slow down the perception process as an apprentice novelist, so as to feel the exact manner and process of an author’s achievement.)  I believe saturation with the work is essential for understanding those whom you feel transmit profound literature.  It should be mentioned also that after my first three novels, while residing and writing in Charlottesville, Virginia or later, I met and in some cases worked with (published interviews or new fiction from) many established authors, Ann Beattie, Mary Lee Settle, Ana Maria Matute (from Spain), corresponded with British author, Colin Wilson, also interacted with or met John Casey, Douglas Day, and Donald Barthelme (briefly), Christian authors Cecil Murphey and Dennis E. Hensley, and have attended live lectures by Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Carl Bernstein, Bill Moyers, poets Greg Orr and Robert Bly, filmmakers Al Maysles, Robert Altman, and Canadian Claude Jutra.  That included working with editors in the Independent Press Movement and university publishers, Richard Peabody, Jr. (Gargoyle Magazine), Merritt Clifton (Samisdat Magazine), Christopher White with Rager Media (The AkroCentric), Cary C. Holiday (William & Mary Review), and Staige D. Blackford (Virginia Quarterly Review).  These pages then are intended for enlightenment of aspiring novelists and readers versus literary critics or those searching more for a study of traditional background, techniques, contours, theoretical reviews (there are plenty of those tomes already).

             It is probably best to go about some definition of what exactly is a novel, and to see how that informs our current choices.  A novel is first a longer prose narrative, of diverse forms and styles, presented by one author usually, about a set time period  involving the lives, experiences, adventures of a particular and discrete set of characters, usually also with a locale set in one era, one nation, and through the language and culture of one country or geographical/national grouping.  Henry James offers the now famous definition from his essay, “Art of Fiction”:  “A novel is in its broadest definition a personal, a direct impression of life:  that, to begin with, constitutes its value, which is greater or less according to the intensity of impression.”  (Theory of Fiction: Henry James, James E. Miller, editor.)  Daniel S. Burt, provider of The Novel 100 list, refers to the common definition of “an extended prose narrative,” and Wikipedia “a long narrative in prose,” and the dictionary “a relatively long fictional prose narrative with a more or less complex plot or pattern of events, about actions, feelings, motives, etc. of a group of characters” (Merriam Webster New World College Dictionary).  Wikipedia’s long treatment of the novel adds a useful consideration from Gyorgy Lukacs’s The Theory of the Novel that “the new genre [novel] is the perfect form to reflect the modern individual’s experience of the world,” often with a “fragmentary nature of the world’s structure.”

             Length might or might not be part of the theoretical definition.  The modern author, however, often is looking for a more technical or professional definition, and that for wordsmiths is relayed best in length (word counts), with a novel starting at about 40,000 words and proceeding to whatever length necessary, especially in “epic considerations” (such as the multiple volumes of Proust’s The Remembrance of Things Past or Dos Passos’s U.S.A. or Tolkien’s Lord of The Rings Trilogy and C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia or comprising an interwoven collection of discrete novels as in Balzac’s “The Comedie Humane” and Zola’s “The Rougon-MacQuart Cycle,” Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel Cycle, or LaHaye & Jenkins’s “The Left Behind” series).  There is some argument these days even about starting at 40,000 words for a novel, but that has served authors in my time span best it seems, which for the typing enthusiast, works out to about 100 double-spaced typed pages or printer’s hard copy (400 wds/pg) for a minimum-sized novel manuscript (depending upon exact word count per page, of course).

             Henry James best summarized, “The main object of the novel is to represent life . . . the success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life—that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience.” (Theory of Fiction:  Henry James)

             Since these pages are for the aspiring novelist or author, versus a general study for the critic or student, it might be best to turn to the ways a novel project can germinate and ways for a budding novelist to take on and complete his or her project.  My own novels (six so far) have started in traditional fashion, with deciding for my first novel to write a lengthy story (thought at first to be a novella), at which point I sat down and brainstormed a series of ideas, plot, characters and scenes and settings for the work, in an intense ten-hour preliminary session.  Again, this was for Abbas & Merdan, set in Morocco and showing a tale of development (Bildungsroman) for a young student and his master teacher or sage.  My second novel, Endgames, began with a meditation at an empty baseball stadium near where my wife worked, waiting for her shift to be over, and imagining at great length a series of baseball games with young children and how each of them might grow up.  Part of that coincided also, with some internal ruminations of a personal kind, with the occurrence of my own tenth high school reunion and a wondering of how classmates might have turned out, ten years down the road.  Plus, of course, my own marital arrangement, which could or could not, have included children (not at that time, but as it turned out, later).  Too, were my own studies about style, consciousness and age layers, and possibilities for literary experimentalism.  My third novel, with a title in progress (and completed manuscript still in ongoing revisions) was self-consciously put together to document a group of hip or countercultural people in Florida and to add the legacy or tradition of same from an earlier generation with the Beats, especially with Jack Kerouac.  In this case, there were background researches into ecological themes for the state of Florida, conventional history of the student movement, reading of Beat material (again I was living in St. Petersburg, Florida, only three years after the death of Jack Kerouac there in St. Petersburg).  At that point I did some preliminary run-throughs on different styles and presentations, and then did many lists of the types of characters, and especially the types of scenes that I wanted to include.  Some of it was meant as a picaresque sort of adventure for the characters, some as a sociological following (from Beat to Student Activist to Hip Dropout to Back-to-land Movement), some meant as a cross between Emile Zola’s sociological documentary, that of Kerouac’s for his own group within the Beats, and some harking back to my original mentor, Hermann Hesse.  (The novel is lengthy, some 200,000 words and needs revisions, still to resolve the exact style presentation.) 

             With my fourth novel, Gratuity, as detailed in “Creativity” and “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” I had been mulling over a restaurant novel about the writing scene in Charlottesville, VA along with the influence of Thomas Jefferson there for many years, but it wasn’t until ten years after moving there and waking from a dream one morning and hearing the first words, “Yes, love,” in a British or Canadian accent by a matronly woman in a restaurant did I sit down to write.  After a few chapters I sketched out the plot, some of the internal mechanisms, the characters, settings, necessary scenes; then I set about to write, longhand, the complete draft, in a few months part-time.  Legacy, my fifth novel as delineated in forty chapters, was set in western Pennsylvania and confronted the themes of literacy, creativity and invention, and renewal in the Rust Belt area of PA.  The novel was started in Uniontown, PA with several aims, one of which was a concern about literacy, which I had been writing about already in essays, and concerns with censorship, especially through public apathy in America, and lack of attention to the significance, I felt, for what reading can mean and become for an active populace (in my paper “Psychology & Economics” in Quintessence I coined an acronym for serious reading, ANDAR, Alpha Numerical Dimensional Acceleration Response).  Also, that novel was a very self-conscious writing project for me; I was working full-time at a corporate management job and felt if I didn’t continue with an artistic project, I might lose momentum for my writing career.  I set about to show myself what might result from regularly writing each and every day, especially following many European writers’ advice of finishing 10 pages/day (250 wds/pg), allowing one in 30 days or a month to have a completed book, a novel.  I followed that course and it took me a few less days than thirty (actually 27 days); I finished the rough draft of Legacy within the month period.  Revisions are necessary.

             My next novel, my sixth, The Entropy Wars, was started eight years later after much difficulty in my personal life with an apartment burglary, years of lacking a salary with a day job, moving living quarters to New Stanton, PA, and spiritual chaos.  By the time of that last novel, I had experienced a renewal in my spiritual life with Roman Catholicism, many intense mystical insights and studies of “Spiritual Warfare,” and set about to display that knowledge and warning, also my private scientific studies, through a genre-styled Christian adventure novel, or Spiritual Warfare novel.  It expressed the apocalyptic feelings in America before the change of the century.  I did much background study of conventional warfare, through books, films, and library research (in addition to having attended two U.S. military officer training programs), went through my own notebooks and master tablets of set entropy and cosmological studies, then set down to write many notes, characters, and scenes necessary, with a general plot framework.  Mostly, at that point, because I wanted a fluid story line throughout, I wrote and made continuous notes as I continued through the book, writing short chapter after short chapter in two months full-time, till my first draft (and with it a daily revision) was totally completed.

             For the record, I also had taken many notes for a shorter novel, mostly about the unethical publishing business in America and the amount of plagiarism going on in New York City—but the initial notes and early chapters are still waiting for further gestation and some background research, as I intended it to have a very special plot, one that could never be copied by the thievery machine in America, without my proving in court beyond a doubt, exactly whose novel this was (that has been an ongoing occurrence I feel with my work in America, where my longer ventures have been co-opted or revamped over the years, especially for film adaptations—with two novels now and again with a nonfiction venture, plus the many times my query letters to professional editors of US national magazines were rejected, while my same story ideas were fleshed-out and published within months by staff writers).  After going about a film treatment of my first novel, set in Morocco, and then seeing another studio take a different Arabic theme and produce a film, I became so angered (attending a West Virginia writer’s conference and discussing this issue) that I edited and published my own renaissance newsletter, Virtù, finally from this stance:  instead of waiting for me to send in my book, nonfiction queries, or film treatment or other original suggestions to the New York demons and have them copy my material outright, I might as well tell them ahead of time what my plans were, have that in print and documented and copyrighted, so that everyone afterwards could actually see where all those “fresh, creative ideas” within the mainstream actually originated.

             I do have a seventh novel of sorts in the works, which originally I had sketched out as a serious drama or play, about the sources and processes of actually starting a renaissance period, using a working title, The Renaissance Men.  This project, especially after my going through a serious and intensive spiritual renewal for Catholicism, will also entail or work with Christian spiritual themes again, just as it did so completely during Italy’s Renaissance.  In this case, I had the plot line arranged, the types of characters and themes and controversies throughout, and have been waiting to get at that, though all my other projects became more active.  With newer or more intense spiritual themes the book is evolving into a novel titled, Christus Rex.  Most of this is still in the incubation stage, dealing with notes, cross references, themes, etc.  As one might see, usually the incubation of a novel has its seed in the goings on of our current culture, backed by personal interests and special intensities which I’ve focused on (renewal of Christianity), till all that brings about a critical mass or density, so that the novel will then be sketched out, written, prepared for publication.  Two things portend for me at this point in my life, career, and our age.  One, is the need to go deeper, more profoundly, and more intensely in each new work, so after six novels, something special is wanted and must be planned for.  Two, I felt with our passing over into the Twenty-first Century, and this from my notebooks of the year 2000, that this was now an age of larger-than-life themes, execution, books, works of art.  So there is double the pressure that I feel, as a literary artist, to bring about a significant work in writing within the novelistic form these days.  An enormous challenge!  Of course, for a practicing novelist, each book or next work brings about some of the competitive edge or achieving instinct (at least with one’s previous works), so even the plotting or incubation period becomes more all encompassing.

             Though I’ve treated parts of my own experience with fiction and some novels in particular in other sections (“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” “Creativity,” “Experimentalism,” and “Self-Editing Part I & II”) over these pages it seems fitting to go into enough detail for aspiring novelists, students especially of American and International Fiction, primarily to assure the health and continuation of this grand and frightening written form.

             I guess, first of all, I want to say a bit from the writer’s point of view of what I feel about the novel, why I’m so committed to it, and what the potential is for the form.  From the creative standpoint, a novel allows one an extended story, with enough space and few time constraints to develop complex characters and bring them through an emotional setting and to give authority or credibility to a series of also complex themes.  On the one side is the character development, time spent with or lived with, that sense of “authorial familiarity” (which cannot be faked for the reader), development of setting with its importance to character and theme, and too, the working out of symbolic plots or actions through the characters, to make some larger statement, at least in an oblique sense with the work of art.  Part of the challenge entails the complexity of the elements (that is in a longer writing project over time), the potential to learn and grow as an author and a person (living with new characters, researching background and themes, and the actual “lived through” experience each author feels as he or she dramatizes, actually acts out the drama of the novel), and the sheer challenge as an adult artist of working with longer materials and larger obstacles and the achievement of the sheer physical size or requirements of writing a complete book (the actual typing, the lengthy and in-depth research hours, the rewrites and redesigning of the story or characters as might be necessary with an intense rewrite, and any other associated marketing tasks and challenges).

             Finally, I think, for the creative writer, a true author, there is a sense of working with this immortal story, a set or longer unit of story or fictional life, which becomes satisfying in itself, in a metaphysical sense of having lived fully within one’s time span and having been gifted by God with verbal expression and discipline and energy to reflect upon one’s life (and the lives of one’s characters), and churn all that back upon itself, creatively, to respond with a full art work that others can share and understand and draw into themselves, to accelerate their own lives and sense of living and wisdom, and too, for the base entertainment or joy of reading.  But to be able again to take part in that sort of developed, lengthy, and complex unit of creativity is a wonder and a great blessing and joy.  In the true sense of creativity all else vanishes, even in the hard work of it, something is objective and outside one’s self, because the sense of it is creating not for oneself but for others always, for a projection of story into a long future of readership.  It is different from painting, I feel, or even film creation, partly because of the sense of solitude and individual creativity (different at least from film) and the lengthy process necessary (especially if involved with publishing) as distinct from the painting of canvases.  A novel might be equivalent to the painting of a dozen canvases or a series or cycle of pictorial studies, maybe frescoes.  The same goes for the other arts, such as photography; because though there is preparation, execution, and surely intricate care and time involved with the preparation of one’s photographs (or even an exhibition or book’s worth of photographs to keep the same motif), it doesn’t seem to involve all of the artist to the same obsessive and continual degree.  I don’t know if painters or other artists keep having dreams about a series or particular project, take notes or studies for years, or have to come back to one canvas or one photograph hundreds and hundreds of times over the course perhaps of a decade before completion as does a professional or career novelist (for photography, Ansel Adams might prove an exception, as might Leonardo with painting for his particularly lengthy, subtle or involved creativity, or Michelangelo’s tomb sculptures and masterful architecture). 

             If one adds all the other publishing and promotional considerations, it might be akin in the other performing arts to first creating the dance music, then choreographing it, then producing the music and dancing to it, and then perhaps afterwards designing the actual stage for its implementation and also all the promotion to attract some kind of audience.  If the photographer had to completely design each visual element for a long series of scenes and shots, and then go back over, continually for years, those same shots to refine them, and finally instead of handing all the images to an editor or curator for a magazine or show, actually have to become that curator too and put on the exhibition, maybe several times, then one might reach the same effort as does an active novelist in contemporary America.  None of these other artists would have the patience to work at the same project for years or decades, and constantly within each year even, as does a devoted writer.  (Wagner in German opera proves an exception.)  The tedium alone would kill the creativity of the others, I’m sure (I say all this with having professional experience in photography [including studio work and the old, elaborate darkroom processes], acrylic painting and sketching, and in my public readings and theatrical acting on stage).  So, for the author, writing a novel is an entirely different and thoroughly life-engrossing commitment. 

             This does bring up a difference with Henry James’s analogy to a novel being similar to a painting in his essay, “The Art of Fiction.”  I disagree in that a novel is human action in words (or consciousness as James also understood it); it shows character in action and thought, so that a novel is quite different from either a painted still life (or portrait or fresco of action portraits) or a sculpture or even a series of sculptures (perhaps an extended series of frescoes on a grand scale, such as the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo, would bring the analogy closer, a group of characters or spiritual images, which transform or become changed through the cycle or arc of pictorial storytelling, that is plot, as would a verbal story, or novel).  Hence, contrary to the early James in “Art of Fiction,” morality in the grand frescoes is quite evident and has to be also, with every single novel.  I will add, however, that especially in The Twenty-first Century one aspect of computer-assisted creative writing has brought written art closer to the actual techniques of painting, at least with traditional oil painting.  With computer composition, especially with multiple verbal revisions, there is a similar layering process that goes on, and one that is quite similar to the applications of layers of base painting or ground, then shadowing and blocking out of primary forms with color, and finally multiple layers of painted pigment, especially of translucent glazes toward the end of a painting, which is exactly what goes on with the “final polish and revisions” in current computer novels.  Highlights show through the finished prose, with depth and sparkle, just as surely as if a paintbrush had been used. 

             But the larger elements, again, as to ethics or morality or lack of morality or perhaps the “meaning base” and thematic quality or slant are very definitely a part of any storytelling (regardless of an author’s actual stated aims) by the very nature of its process.  “Will you not define your terms and explain how (a novel being a picture) a picture can be either moral or immoral?” writes James in his “Art of Fiction.”  One might be hard pressed today, as Henry James so naively suggested, even to attempt such an analogy with fine painting; one needs only compare Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks with Titan’s Venus of Urbino.  Is not the blatant and subtle meaning of each portrayed to the viewer instantly, and in this example to opposites in morality?  We can credit James a lack of the thorough research afforded us moderns (to compare such analogies online), but his example could only hold sway, it seems to me, with shorter and more ambiguous fiction, certainly not the novel, perhaps only with a brief “sketch” in the mode of Chekhov.

             From the reader’s point of view, as an active author, one is able surely to enjoy another work of fiction to a greater extent, of course, by understanding the details of the creation, of the generosity of talent and special gifts different for each creator and temperament.  The author as reader also shares in an emotional or spiritual plane of existence, almost Platonic, of interacting within an invisible yet viable and eternal intellectual plane, with the characters and their world, but also with the original author in the background, though perhaps long dead, yet still alive through the story and expert transmission of consciousness across language and borders and time, that immortal plane or sense of connection with the eternal, human intellectual realm.  (See previous chapter “Autobiography.”)  The reading of one’s own work, with that separate or fresh sense of “first reader” or “general reader” allows one that same connection, to enjoy a book that at first seems utterly strange and yet familiar, but too finally reaches the content and thematic connection that only the author can complete (the reason for writing the novel in the first place), and too a sense of wonder at the results of creativity, and the recognition of a grand sense of achievement in bringing all the disparate elements of the chaos of creativity together into a finished, polished, professionally coherent whole, a finished literary creation, a book, a novel.

             With each of my novels, I wanted to create a unique writing and reading experience, but too, about subject matter that was important to anyone alive in America during my same life span, and valuable for the future therefore, and to express in some new fashion themes that we were all experiencing at the time but as of yet had failed to be expressed or articulated within the American literary climate.  Being able to do that requires a certain depth of living or intensity of understanding the times you are going through, as well as the resources and talent and drive, to put all of that together into a viable novel form.  Most of those themes and sets of characters of my books have historical importance; a case in point, is Gratuity set in Charlottesville, Virginia and documenting a national arts movement, documenting the reinvigoration or renaissance time of the small yet distinct community of Charlottesville as a national creative center, and too documenting and showing the link ups with the historical foundations of our nation with the completion of several Jeffersonian dreams (European viniculture stateside for fine wine production, native or American production of art and culture, and too, the necessary safeguard of our American Freedoms, to be able to express that)—all of which were part and parcel of my small novel, Gratuity.  Without being able to look at one’s work, and sense its inner themes and outer resonances, one might as well be penning cheap romances or thriller tales or doing TV scripts for the masses.  Triviality, as Wikipedia refers to such pop writing.  Too, for the author, the sheer weight of the book, in complexity of characterization and themes and drama, makes all the other work worthwhile and can only provide that sense of ongoing satisfaction if it in fact holds up to those intellectual and emotional and artistic considerations for the length of a longer production, and of course, for the length of a longer reading life span, that is as the book is recommended and proffered to others into the future and across many other cultures and languages.  Otherwise, why write, why create, why breathe of such heady inspiration?

             (These ruminations may fly in the face of academic critics, caught up in the theory of post-structuralism or more cynical trends, considering the text objectively, and in essence, deconstructing the work, divorcing it from the author, the time period, the themes, to bring about a sort of quirky, slanted critical evaluation.  Again, it is time in the Twenty-first Century to understand that those sentiments, along with the corresponding movements in graphic art, film, and architecture are passé and should be set aside.  These are the days of a more integrated, classical, whole view of art, including again God and Humanism, a meta-conception with the artists and art and time period and characters and themes all considered together, unified, and yet also transcendent of the epoch or era.  This is an Age of Global Renaissance.  Meta-Renascent Art Criticism.)

             Moving back to more mechanical considerations for the new novelist, again as mentioned in my chapter on “Creativity,” the putting aside the time to write a novel, or setting up some plan and keeping to that plan is absolutely essential.  I think most new authors have to test the creative waters at first, to find out how he or she feels as a writer (the actual activity of it, the introspection or introversion of all those social skills and observations and emotions and expression, all of it, now quiet and subdued, and put down on paper, so others might sense the same expression or more magnified through creative art), how the themes and characters and style are proceeding (is this novel working or is it going to work as a literary tale?), and then figure out how to continue long enough and with enough absorbed, detailed, patient intensity over perhaps several years, to bring the work to conclusion.  My first novel was written part-time, while working a full-time day job; yet as I have described, it entailed all of my free time, all of my weekends, all of my holidays; so that after the first year’s completion of the novel, I estimated that I had devoted over 2,000 hours in one year to the book alone (that would in itself make up a full year of 52 weeks x 40 hours at a regular job).  The book then went through months of additional rewrites, research, and revision.  And still, I think, it will take more, to bring it into its final form (some later corrections).

             For my second novel, I arranged a two-month period when I could write the novel full-time, this by working and saving every penny I earned to tide me over (and had a loving and understanding wife also at the time).  After that was completed, again, I spent another month full-time doing a complete revision of that and it still needs a rewrite before seeing final publication.  My third novel took many months of original composition (physical length was twice or three times the other novels), and again that was arranged full-time, with extensive rewrites and research still needed.  Novel number four was written in several months, part-time (while working a full-time managerial job), then rewritten completely and rewritten again within a month full-time, then another complete revision with several rewrites before actual publication.  Several years were entailed in the total composition and preparation of that novel.  Novel number five was the one I just described, taking less than a month part-time, but revisions are still necessary.  Novel number six I spent several months doing research full-time, then several months writing the first draft, after which it took another several months full-time to complete the revisions.  One needs to be prepared, both internally and externally, for such extensive and time-consuming and energy-demanding projects, if one is to continue.  Needless to say, whenever I’m not actively writing, especially a longer book project, all the other time is spent keeping skills proficient, background renewed, energy inspired, and in touch with the book world and author’s life, so as to be prepared, as in keeping an active day journal and others specialized notebooks, for when the active writing period becomes necessary again, to complete a new novel.

             I mentioned in “Creativity,” under sections about time management, that doing a bit everyday helps, at least doing research, some writing, some furthering of the creative project, the novel under production, and then arranging for whatever blocks of time can be extracted from one’s schedule:  an hour in the morning before regular work (as did British novelist Trollope for his entire career, writing 1,000 wds/hour before a job with the postal service. Trollope’s An Autobiography), or an hour in the evening, weekends, four or five or ten hours on one day, only for the book project, the eking out of lengthier periods as one progresses, perhaps a “vacation” or sabbatical time of one week or a month if possible, to complete or polish one’s project.  Finally, is the ideal, of course, to set aside a long block of time, many months or half a year or an entire year, especially if one has several book projects to complete (as I do now) and one has progressed in a part-time way as best as possible, to bring each book projection within completion range (as I have), and especially if what you’ve dumped into the projects still excites you in the original fashion when you first started (which mine do).  That signals that a series of months full-time is necessary, a summer if one is a teacher, a month vacation or six-weeks if that can be arranged, or again a longer “year of creativity” as I arranged once in Montana with my “Van Gogh Year” (see Chapter on “Creativity”), or as I have once again arranged for myself, to complete this blog book now and two other book projects (before proceeding to other books planned in detail).

             Next, or at least in the beginning phases of whatever work time is arranged, are the mechanical and conceptual necessities that most new authors think about some, at least unconsciously about the new book:  plot, point of view, narrative style or technique, characters, themes (see next chapter, “Great Themes”), length, genre, locale; and all the necessities of research and inspiration or imagination which might be entailed in bringing all of those facets into view.  Often, I work up a few pages in several different styles or with several different points of view, when I’m starting to see what works most effectively.  This is akin, I suppose, to a painter doing a series of composite or preliminary graphic studies and maybe some sort of overview composition tryout (“cartoon”) for the entire whole.  But one must understand that the “what works the best” is not necessarily what feels easiest or least hassling of the efforts for the author; it has to be what works best for the precise story told to bring across the full emotional and spiritual resonance for the reader.  A direct narrative may seem best to you, the author, when in fact as you move through the story, you find that there should have been some sort of frame to the story, perhaps to hold the entire emotional scheme together more profoundly; or if it were told with a different narrator, one not so “reliable,” that it might increase the poetical and emotional thrust immensely, or the use of several different characters and several different styles (as I did in my novel, Endgames) will bring across as in no other fashion the difficulty and the complexity of human aging and psychological and spiritual maturation, that no direct telling or description is capable of—again, the experimental techniques must enhance the entire story and be part of its actual theme, obliquely, rather than appear as only foolish or adolescent tricks and gimmicks to titillate shallow readers (Nabokov for the academics).  Sterne’s Tristram Shandy for all of its fun and seeming gimmicks and diversions and experimentation does exactly what the author intended for his theme and for his concepts of human “associative thinking” (studied from John Locke) and too, for his sense of providing readers with a sense of the comic and farcical within a humane consideration.  Other contemporary novel experiments of radical form, such as House of Leaves and Only Revolutions by Danielewski, would need to be considered in the same fashion; personally I have made only a quick perusal and have not read or absorbed the books to see if we are being entertained by essentially a graphically minded adolescent author, or have been provided with an extremely complex version of reality in book form, to convey in no other way possible, a similarly complex human drama.

             Plot should be a major concern for each author, for each novel he or she takes on; but I think, too, this takes on more complicated considerations.  For me, plot is character, that is the unraveling of character and the development or revelation of character through story is plot (my taste for biographical stories); and too, as interwoven with the major themes, the plot should be part and parcel of the combination.  An example of this with my novella, Of Rifles and Butterflies, shows an external plot of guy-meets-girl, or a romantic quest, when in fact, as the character learns more about himself, he discovers that he, himself, is the quest, the recognition and acclimation of his feminine side, so that he can become more creative, to signify wholeness as a psychological or spiritual being is the plot (again following Jungian dynamics).  This is radically different from imposing some sort of maudlin or conventional plot upon the story, then developing subplots, then working through additional twists and turns, like some kind of mediocre mystery tale, to bring about a “surprise ending.”  The plot unfolds with the character, is a part of the character unfolding (and with the countercultural and renaissances themes of creativity within the culture), and could never prove otherwise.  All this, however, proceeds counter to traditional plot mechanics, which to be fair, have been classified and detailed since very ancient times by Aristotle (in his Poetics).  I think things have changed in the world just an itsy bit since 300 BC (not with the profundity of Aristotle, nor his insights generally into humankind), at least with the thousands of years of artistic expression and the varieties of written art we might explore.  Also, one must note that the original Poetics considered Drama (and Poetry), which has very different requirements with a strong or necessary pull-through for continuous dramatic or theatrical stage performance (for the group on stage to the group in the audience), versus plot necessities or opportunities available for an individual and more introspective modern reader of a lengthy prose novel (singular book experience, author to reader).

             We must again consider the plot dynamics too, of moving from the very basics, from those suggesting that there is only one story ever (How to Read Literature Like A Professor by Thomas C. Foster) to those suggesting every tale, no matter how complex, is only a variation on perhaps two essential or basic plots, “plots of the body, plots of the mind” (20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias), from which is developed a set of central or master plots:  Quest, Adventure, Pursuit, Rescue, Escape, Revenge, The Riddle, Rivalry, Underdog, Temptation, Metamorphosis, Transformation, Maturation, Love, Forbidden Love, Sacrifice, Discovery, Wretched Excess, Ascension and Descension.  If we were considering renaissance drama, particularly in English, this might bring about some grand laughter, as it was almost the habit then, at least in English and particularly Shakespearean drama, to steal the entire plot (with little outward variation) from existing short stories, often Italian, and set them to verse (one only needs to peruse a collection like Great Italian Short Stories to see exquisite examples: the story, “The Novel of Juliet,” by Luigi da Porto or “The Moor of Venice,” by G.B. Giraldi Cintio and others, whose plots Shakespeare pilfered).  To be fair, everyone followed that example or practice then, and to be truly just, even given the original short story, for instance “The Novel of Juliet,” how many of us could be handed such a brief narrative in prose and then pen a verifiable “Shakespearean play”?  (“Plot” for them was closer to someone supplying a libretto for an opera, in other words the basics upon which a composer of poetry and drama might create his art.)

             What should be more to the point, is to look at the plot in hand with the characters and themes, and see if the way you’ve conceptualized the action does justice to that original and exciting combination.  Maybe your original idea was off, maybe it was the best ever; maybe moving along to complete things might ruin the power, the eloquence through simplicity; and too, the opposite might be the case, perhaps the plot is too basic, and the characters and the themes and locale really might require something more dislocated (at the beginning), something involving more minor challenges and resolutions (subplots), or too, it might require a different treatment altogether.

             Two instances from my own work demonstrate some of these dynamics, one from a short story, “The Message” (Early Tales) where a professional photojournalist is writing or trying to write a lover about their failing relationship and nothing is working.  Here, sometimes the example of a short piece of fiction can display condensed tactics for use in any work of fiction.  The story is set as a conceptual frame where the letter didn’t work, moves as a flashback through the entire narrative of their love affair and photographic interaction (the woman was an aspiring art photographer), and ends with a resolution, of the photojournalist deciding to send a photograph of himself to his lover, in the pose of a published image she had admired, to demonstrate how devastated he truly was without her.  The main character has to go through the entire story to realize how best to send a message that really works (not a letter, but a picture), and also to be sure that he truly has matured enough in his love for this woman, to even want that and it’s probable result (matrimony).  The reader experiences the entire drama of discovery as the character does, the drama and the entire extrapolation of the love affair is spread over the course of the long short story, verses a story which would be flat, if the photographer started out to send a photo.  Plot is explicatively interwoven with the motif of the tale, with both characters’ needs and development, and with the artistic necessity of stretching or spreading the tension of the story from the first to the very last sentence of the story.  (There is the irony in that 5,000 words are necessary to dramatize how a picture would be more effective for the protagonist; however this complete story could not be told with one still photo; that is, a picture is not worth a thousand or even five thousand words.)

             The second instance is from my novel, Endgames, where the plot has to unfold in an “experimental” and fragmented manner (with diary entries, scenes of sparse dialogue, dialogue and omniscient description, inner awareness of a character, inner awareness of the wife, then to a “present of the reunion’s pre-party” per each long character sequence [eight chapters with many age layers present]).  The plot has to unfold in that manner so that the protagonists (young couple) are able to meditate upon the aging or psychological maturation process for all of their friends, and themselves as well, but self-consciously, so as to arrive at some decision about the couple having children (to be responsible for bringing into life new human beings for the same growing-up process).  Without the convoluted plot (or style for the maturation and unfolding plot, again a psychological resolution), there could’ve been no novel at all.  And certainly, once more, conventional plot formulas would’ve failed dismally with such psychological material and artistic or humanistic ambitions for the novel.

             The plot for the longer countercultural novel written in Florida was episodic or picaresque, more documentary or “slice-of-life” treatment; yet as the dynamics of the action and scenes and characters moved together, many of the characters went through changes, and were ready for lifestyle decisions (back-to-land) by the end of the story, so that the character development and knowledge gained from the time period each spent within the community were all important to their resolution (as to a plot of being outsiders from society and resolving some way to proceed).  The fifth novel, Legacy, showed the development of a sort of quest, with a love story, and challenges again mirroring the Daedalus myth for secondary characters, all to bring about a final plot denouement of ways to work through the Rust Belt challenges of western Pennsylvania at the time, to reach a greater awareness for others (true literacy) and entrepreneurial challenges and creativity for financial goals at all cost (for one character).  My last novel, The Entropy Wars, again was more genre-styled and thus plotted in a more conventional fashion, the outside of it as an adventure (quest to save America from entropy enemies) and evolved more, to unveil certain protagonists as spiritual entities, to show a complete challenge and resolution of an apocalyptic war, and to resolve minor character flaws or problems encountered in the early part of the text (marriage difficulty, exile of a professor, cop standing up to corrupted authority, leadership, challenge against an oppressive government and some mysterious “external” enemy).  The simpler the basic action or pull-through of the story (with its repetition of challenge and resolution, challenge and resolution as per an adventure story), the simpler the actual plot of the novel (however convoluted or interlocking all the plot variables might seem, it’s all the same basic plan, versus a purely literary design with psychological/spiritual plotting).  The overall plot, however, or theme of The Entropy Wars is Christian and involves fighting through prayer against evil, to bring about The Kingdom of God.

             Some of this I had written about before (“Psychology & Economics,” collected in Quintessence), whereby after absorbing the work of the German Romanticists with Hermann Hesse and Goethe, and then moving back through to understand general American fiction, it seemed like night and day.  Plots for the Europeans were complex, spiritual or transcendental, and circular; plots for the Americans were linear.  It’s almost like the reading public (and the general public educated by decades of cheap pulp plots from daily TV) in America were “illiterate” with sophisticated fiction, in that, the European or more complex literary plots or stories would almost “make no sense.”  (There is a certain “vocabulary” or language of symbolism and effects to literary works, to understanding the reading of them, as well as the writing of them.)  If you’re always waiting for the hero to solve the next challenge, fight the next fight, drive the next car chase, bash the next enemy, seduce the next lover, there will be very little interest in reading a tale of a hero learning that all those challenges are childish, not worth the effort, and that he or she should be wondering why he or she is not learning to grow up, mature, become more involved with life, learning to make this part of society grander to accept mature individuals, and dealing with all of those spiritual challenges, which may in fact, show very little “external action” at all.  It’s the real difference between the stories of Hermann Hesse and Ring Lardner.  Hesse’s characters are worried about illusion and spiritual salvation and self-fulfillment; Lardner’s about humor, the outcome of a baseball game or race track.  (Those thinking transcendentalism or deep spiritual themes are foreign to our shores should reread Emerson or Hawthorne or the mythic in Melville or psychological depths in Henry James.)  Again, for the mainstream TV viewer, those used to the sit-coms with their gauche laugh tracks and celebrities and multitudes of continuous cop shows, it’s like dumping active adult art work on top of a pile of pacified children.  (Part of the original discussion is developed from Noam Chomsky’s writing about American Propaganda, how a socially conscious novel probably never would get published.  My extrapolation is that by encouraging more complex art and books and TV and films, the establishment or academia or media conglomerates and the government all stand to lose CONTROL.  Citizens might start to think!  Should everyone suddenly awake in America, who would put up with the continual nonsense here, ever, for nine seconds?  Who would buy the twenty-five varieties of every possible consumer folly—all of which is unnecessary?  Or suffer dull leaders?  Who would watch the shallow melodramas on TV, the brutal and repetitious cop shows, the violent sports, vulgar pop music, who would continue this child’s game of our supposedly national “culture,” who?)

             Half of the author’s challenge, it seems to me, with understanding what the plot should be, or how the characters should develop, and the many themes involved, comes through the technical side, with consideration of style.  Again, I have written elsewhere (introduction to short stories, Moments) that part of the style considerations should be chosen for and must fit the characters, the plot, the themes.  This means, for instance, that I would never write five novels in the same style ever; part of the artistic consideration of serious fiction, I feel, is for the author to develop and understand the entire “palette of colors” and sizes or textures of canvas he or she is using for a particular book, that is, just which styles work best for the exact set of characters and theme portrayed.  (Much of this I worked out in three collections of short stories and three novellas.)  One will show a more biographical yet traditional development over many years (Abbas & Merdan); another a combination of intricate and fractured stylistic structures for a maturation theme (Endgames); another will be a naturalistic presentation in realistic fashion (Gratuity), another yet in seemingly traditional manner, will display a depth of mythological resonance and other themes, to make the plot meld (Legacy); and finally one with a more traditional or conventional narration uses a more linear adventure plot (The Entropy Wars).  It is the kind of writer’s arsenal or toolbox, resources that I probably share with Faulkner, especially in shorter fiction, and his use of  many varied, effective, and emotionally profound stylistic innovations for the novel (vs. Joyce’s ironic and cold objective and aurally based “modernism”).

             A new author should understand narrative technique and decisive narration (omniscient, first person, third person, multiple presentations with diverse points of view) including the current use of indirect discourse for presenting a character’s thoughts (as well as direct rendering either all in italics or as stream of consciousness) and a good practice and use of traditional dialogue.  Many a writer’s text has presented solid dialogue advice, to make the dialogue sound natural, but neither too smooth to appear contrived, nor too naturalistic so as to appear chaotic, scattered, away from the plot and character rendition targets, with not too much quoted dialect (unless for a special case) yet enough differentiation between characters to show how each speaks, thinks, reasons, expresses him or herself.  I learned dialogue from reading and writing and attending plays, much practice writing fiction and listening in my personal environment, transcriptions of live interviews (for journalism) and study of other masters, including Ernest Hemingway.  I like a shorter, stark dialogue, one that ranges between direct involvement or confrontation, or the opposite symbolic or portrayal of parable, and one that in more sophisticated settings often involves metaphysical concerns (without sounding intellectual, obtuse, or unrealistic—a challenge to present difficult concepts in everyday language.  Those saying we don’t discuss such concerns are either shallow or working in some pop genre or of an academic bent taught through too many classrooms of past ways of expressing dull dialogue in America).  Human dialogue should be a give and take, should present several sides of a discussion (to the best of the author’s ability, so a reader can’t tell which side is the author’s favorite, Tolstoy), should show a “snap and crackle” of excellent presentation and be intriguing enough (without being too obvious) so as to keep a reader entertained.

             The following is from Chapter 7 of my novel, Gratuity; early in the story there’s a scene after an art exhibition, with an on-again off-again affair between a restaurant manager, Jeremy, and a female artist, Beth.

            “Look,” he said finally, after picking up her sketchbook and handing it to her.  “Isn’t it enough that you’re cute?  Just cut the histrionics, you don’t give two hoots about whether I even saw the show.”

            “I knew you’d eventually see it.”

            “Your humility overwhelms me.”

            “So does your ego.”

            “Thanks, save the abuse; I can get that all day from my staff.”

            “Listen, I really want to know what you thought of the show; you’re the only person whose judgment I trust anymore.”

            Jeremy looked her up and down, then at his watch.  “The ‘Medley’ portrait was of me, wasn’t it?”

            “Yes.”

            “It’s interesting.”

            “It’s the best there,” she said.  “And it was the most difficult for me to do, the most meaningful.”

            “It’s not the best, it’s your favorite.”  He frowned a bit.

             In Chapter 10 from Gratuity, Jeremy and his roommate, Marty, go through dialogue in a more comic vein.

             Jeremy watched him for a moment.  “What are you doing?”

             “I’m writing to the alumni committee to give them a piece of my mind.  Man, these computers are taking over the world and all the manual labor in this county is being done by displaced, college grads.  It ticks me off.”

             “Let me see that a minute,” Jeremy took the leaflet from Marty, looked over the text, the envelope, then handed it back, showing him the reverse side where the mailing label was gummed.  “Marty?”

            “Yeah?”  Marty scribbled a bit at the paper and looked up from time to time.

            “Marty, you’re still half-asleep.  This alumni bulletin was not addressed to you, it came here to me.  There are two J.H.U. grads here, remember?”

            Marty grabbed the mailer and looked over the address.  “Well, can you believe that?  Can you believe it?  They didn’t even think enough of me to keep in touch.  Typical bureaucratic inefficiency.  Bureaucrats are taking over the world, you know it?  I still have a mind to tell them what I think.  Can I sign your name, Jeremy?”

            “No.”

            “Spineless sycophant.”

            “Hypocrite.”  Jeremy laughed.  “Why don’t you sign your own name?”

            “I will, but there’s power in numbers.  We could have a petition of two.”

             To give an idea of a tight run of dialogue, here’s a selection from a short story, composed in dramatic yet minimalist style, “Journeys,” from my collection, Shared Lives.  The scene shows a young married couple, Glen and Selina, getting ready for a grandfather’s funeral, with Selina following up on her family’s call list.

             “Only three more,” she said.

             “You look bushed.”

             “That’s one of the strangest chores.”

             “Did you call Matt?”

             “Yeah, bawling like a baby.”

             “What about Helaine?”

             “Busy.”

            “Ilario?”

            “The jerk.”

            “What?”

            “He’ll only drive in if Nicola stays out of town.”

            “I guess there’ll be plenty more.”

            “I guess,” she touched her forehead.

            “Sit down.”

            “It’s just all the arrangements.”

            “Sit down here, I’ll rub your shoulders.”

            “That feels good.”

            “Are you over the worst of them?”

            “I think so; I, I hadn’t talked to most of those people for eleven or twelve—”

            “They must have been thankful, at any rate.”

            “Some; some took it out on me, you know, like it’s my fault.”

            “Are many traveling in?”

            “I guess.  You know, Glen, I spent a long time talking with Morgan.”

            “Is that your cousin?”

            “No, he’s the older nephew, the one like an uncle or close friend at one time.”

            “He’s fine?”

            “I really miss him.  You don’t visit with those people for a while, and you know, he still talks about my high school graduation, I don’t—”

            “He was there?”

            “He always kind of brothered me, you know?  I never had a brother, and he was always the type who was really sharp and never let on, you know?  No grades, and no books, and—”

            “All the answers?”

            “And a lot of bad breaks too; but he always called me ‘Skinny,’ because I was so small then, wish—”

            “Want your neck massaged here?”

            “That’s fine.”

            “My graduation,” she said with a smile.  “I really wanted to go on, to college, and for a Master’s—”

            “And you did.”

            “But it was because of Morgan.  He never quit talking to me about it, you know?”

            “He never went on?”

            “He drives a truck or something.  He really, he really—”

            “Go ahead, Lina.”

            “I—”

            “Just cry, I—”

            “It’s the mentors, sometimes, Glen . . . they never even know; a word, some little push, helping a little girl when it, you know, nobody did that for women then, I—”

            (One should be able to open a novel or short story to a page of dialogue and look down over the full page and be drawn in immediately, should not have to go back to the narrative or prose description, should never have to be pulled along with only the narrative and a few words of dialogue; and it should be clear, pointed, with many interruptions and many miscues and mistakes of meaning by the character [Tolstoy] and should present again, to the eye of the reader what I call a “good dialogue run” down the page, to accelerate the action, to move almost into theatrical drama, to release unknown character revelations [not bio information or plot information which is too obvious] and dramatic difficulties on the page, to the other characters, to the reader, and if the composition is free enough for the actual novelist, to him or herself [as a surprise almost] so that a spontaneity, realism, and verve is displayed by the give-and-take dialogue.)  Once some command over timing and characterization and necessary dramatic movement is mastered, there is great room for wit, diversity, profound insight, and other negative or tragic extremes, as well.  It takes some practice, but often a bit of wit and humor that works every time the author rereads or revises the page upon a new reading will ensure it’s true freshness for the first-time general reader and offer some comic relief, especially for more serious works.

              These are my honest reactions for sound advice to aspiring prose novelists.   Again, as mentioned in “Self Editing Part II,” there is much discussion emanating out of Hollywood and screenwriters, discussing the necessity of obtuse dialogue, especially about dialogue that is not too “on the mark,” on point or on target and vague sorts of repartee.  This, I feel, should be taken with a very large grain of salt, especially from the field of screenwriting, where again, dialogue is quite secondary to the definition of such writing “for moving pictures.”   More is delivered on a movie screen in a close-up glance, held look of surprise or anger or desire, than ever could be employed via the greatest novelistic dialogue ever [witness only the failures of prose experts such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Norman Mailer and others, when they tried their hands at Hollywood scripts—some were laughed off the lot].  This, too, is a part of the film writer’s bane, of working within a medium so “community oriented,” where most everything will be changed by whomever is in charge at the moment, with the usual result of the lowest common denominator of taste and talent and artistic expertise reigning supreme.  We must be careful of ever categorizing film as part of “literature,” however high an accomplishment each particular film might be—that is a separate visual art in itself, and at its best not to be denigrated in any way.  (I often imagine the great Renaissance muralist or fresco artists back among us, now directing historical period movies, to very great effect; see only the many works of Zefferelli, especially his Jesus of Nazareth and Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and the extravagant filming of many operas.  We must wonder if Masaccio is not back among us, working with celluloid or digital paint!).

             Every writing class discusses the “Show, don’t tell” adage, wisely, of course; and its classical usage even in general narrative description is quite powerful, if difficult to master always—my example, again, is how Hemingway needs to describe how cold it is outside, with a brief scenic description, and however any number of lesser artists might have conveyed the autumn weather in Spain, with chill air or citing actual temperatures or even someone mentioning it in dialogue, Hemingway simply mentions that the pools of water in the rutted roadway where “freezing around the edges.”  That’s true showing even in description narration, as is my example of his needing to present the “Death-of-God” theme, prevalent during his days in Europe and the new wave of European Existentialism issued especially by the French (with many tomes by Sartre and Camus).  In a brief short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” Hemingway has a nearly deaf old man, somewhat melancholy in a Spanish café, repeat to himself part of the Our Father prayer, only the man says “Our nada, who art in nada . . .” substituting the Spanish word for “nothing” (nada) for the actual words of Father and Heaven.  Nothing else is necessary for a complete emotional transfer of that entire theme of European Existentialism, nada.  That is showing.

             Part of the command with “Show, don’t tell” I believe is a plea for vivid narration, so as never to lose the reader and keep one’s novel ongoing, with the forward movement.  New authors should pay attention to this point of vividness, especially; and it’s of interest to suggest directly that the author make sure the information delivered in the narration, about setting, background, description is done in such a way that the narrative is showing exactly what the main character or characters are seeing or sensing, going through, or experiencing internally.  The difference here is startling, especially for writers with a nonfiction background coming to fiction; presenting sentences with the year date given, then an information dump in analytical fashion, the background of the town, as if from a tour guide is disheartening.  It slows or stops the forward movement and too much of it ruins the narrative entirely, branding the work as that of an amateur.  Recently, I checked some book sections from a well-respected person nationally, who is writing novels, and was surprised to see sections of that person’s fiction, a novel, showing this exact fault.  It’s also important when one does research for a setting or background or time period that you, the author, are able to convey not almanac-style facts and figures about the time period, but able to convey to your reader what the clothes looked like and felt like when worn, how characters behaved in that specific time, slang for the dialogue with no anachronisms, and again, if you were conveying information or description about a particular place the information you the writer need is what did it look like, how tall were the buildings (if small town), when were streets paved (if period piece), maybe the kind of weather for the time period (if heavy snows for winter in that decade), and many other visual cues that you can provide the reader, so the reader can see exactly what your character sees, not what you the author want to convey.  Rather than saying “it rained,” convey enough that the reader “feels wet,” to paraphrase a comment by E.L. Doctorow (“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader.  Not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” Gina Sares “Description—The Element of Every Great Story,” www.ezinearticles.com).   Or from Anton  Chekhov:  “Don’t tell me the moon is shinning; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”  (www.Cherylrainfield.com)  Make sure that the drift or intent or viewpoint of your narrative is in the “vividness mode,” so things don’t bog down.

             On the other side, however, especially with the many diversions and experiments and developments of the modern novel, showing is not always possible, and in fact, if carried out too much may slow one’s narrative too much, may actually prove boring to an alert reader.  Who wants to be shown ever little bit of every daily sort of encounter for a character, bringing the plot action actually to a complete halt (see Joyce’s Ulysses for this exact narcissistic fault, “aesthetic arrest”).  Also, one needs to edit, to pick and choose which parts of the drama will be entirely scenic (showing dialogue and action with dialogue or interior thoughts and feeling) and which narrated or told for narrative brevity, scope, and eventually, for the long-term shaping and dramatic pacing of a longer work of writing, as most novels are.  It was Francine Prose in her Reading Like a Writer who honestly mentions how, “There are many occasions in literature in which telling is far more effective than showing.”  In fact, many of the best authors tell tell tell for passage after passage and have to; it’s important if he or she is ever to get through a volume of material, the amount of background, description, time ellipses, character foreground and background and back story (if necessary) which a bigger novel always entails. (I am reminded of the practice of Hemingway’s legendary editor at Scribner’s, Max Perkins, who kept dozens of copies of War & Peace in his office, handing out the novel to new writers and old, telling them to read it, a couple of times.  Hemingway’s masters for his classical form were Tolstoy, Turgenev, Flaubert, Stephen Crane, Pio Baroja, and he was a fan of Faulkner’s [with live assists from the likes of Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Fitzgerald and Perkins].) Then there is room for showing, scenic development, dramatic pauses or emphasis.  If we listened all the time to everything preferred by the writing teachers we would become not writers, but what the instructors are, teachers passing along stilted information learned from stilted classrooms by teachers who only learned from previous teachers.  Again, though G.B. Shaw was a dramatist (who also wrote five early novels) he once quipped, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

             Part of this telling, especially in novels of a previous century and for some in this, is the ability to go out of one’s way to include nonfiction sections within the novel.  Two famous examples are Melville’s Moby Dick, with his extensive sections about whales and whaling, and also Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace, with many sections involving outright discussions about historical events, theories of history, and different aspects of Russian and global politics at the time.  As an intellectual I enjoy these extraneous materials, and often think an author shows more of his soul and the real depth of the novel through such asides or meditative tangents.  Literary critics, however, raise the cudgels; so beware.  A more modern instance, though perhaps different (in that the extraneous material is kept in special appendix or afterword, where it probably should be kept) is that of J.R.R. Tolkien, with his Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Tolkien is a special and exceptional case, in that by including so much background, he’s able to convey with great loving detail the researched maps, histories, genealogies, and even philologist’s notes about the languages Tolkien created for his original world of Middle-Earth.  Those unfamiliar with Tolkien or maybe not having read the volumes since the popular days with brief paperbacks should peruse the latest collector’s editions, to see just how devoted, inspired, obsessed was Tolkien with this creative project.  It’s a real lesson in author’s total immersion and dedication to see the additional materials brought into play.  Much modern criticism about the integrity and greatness of Tolkien has been elucidated by the critic and author, Joseph Pearce. (Literary Giants, Literary Catholics and Tolkien:  Man and Myth).  So, it’s interesting to note the exceptions, and keep that option for yourself, should you become involved with some grand and extensive novel project.

             Of interest for new or struggling authors might be the concern of “writer’s block,” or more to the point, places where one might get slowed down in a narrative.  Myself, I have never gone through writer’s block, and will refer new authors to my varied discussions in “Creativity.”  My usual problem is being overwhelmed with self-inspired projects, and getting all of those efforts completed in a professional and excellent manner.  But difficulties are normal, I think.  One comes to writing, and a volume of writing only because on a regular basis one has something to say, probably too much to say all the time, and must learn to channel the expression into concentrated artistic products (books or other arts).  But getting stuck is part of the territory and part of the challenge and fun of the artistic enterprise.  One grows as one continues, not just maturing or coming into one’s own with learned and seasoned skills, but also, I believe, in actually growing and becoming or having larger brain mass, intensified cerebral functions, and more complicated sensate faculties (sensitivities) as one continues along a creative path.  (Modern science today has confirmed that the adult brain grows more brain cells or can, if enough stimulation is provided as one ages, not loses cells.  This is the story, I believe, for the creative individual straight from birth, in that mental activity and reading and creating conceptually all proceed to increase brain mass and more importantly brain and spiritual functions to a grand or genius level, the more one continues with one’s art.)

            Often in tight spots, I will usually revert to pen and paper, blank typing paper set on my long stainless steel clipboard or even day journal and will fill a page not necessarily with pointed comments, but any comments in a free association manner, until I have lists and lists of possibilities, or many ways to solve some creative challenge, or views of a scene I hadn’t imagined or new characters or some twist to the plot, if necessary.  In the more conventional novel, The Entropy Wars, where I forced myself to write a “page turner,” I finished every chapter with some sort of cliff-hanging device in actuality or in tone, to move the reader on.  The chapters were short, there was lots of action, lots of dialogue (written mostly in scenic fashion) and lots and lots of explosive kinds of maneuvers—often, when stuck, I would consider what was the most outlandish thing that might happen, or the least expected, the biggest surprise, the most foolish, the true thing that should happen, the thing I might rather writhe about, and lists and lists.  Usually, after a bit of that, I not only got through the trouble spot, but kicked up several very good ideas for future chapters.  Many writers will also do graphic sketches of characters, settings, buildings within a fictional locale or even graphic maps (see how some of these developed for Tolkien’s Middle-Earth with Lord of The Rings and Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in northwestern Mississippi, map at end of Absalom, Absalom).  For more necessary technical innovations, one needs to continue on somehow; if an illness interrupts maybe do research instead of creative writing for a time; if time is not available, maybe jot notes or do supplementary work for the book (write an introduction, compose marketing letters, a preface, work on the cover design).  I remember watching a video interview with filmmaker George Lucas, after doing many of his Star War films, where he was discussing that certain scenes in later films, showing Yoda fighting and somersaulting with light swords in the air, were impossible for the CGI animation equipment available at the time.  Lucas and his team not only went on to invent the equipment he needed (and it worked well) but also released it to the film industry without having to profit from it, so other animators might have the same technical advantage for a new age of computer animation effects he pioneered.  When asked about it, Lucas replied quickly that it didn’t bother him at all, he felt that “Art is technology.”

             (During a different interview at the World Business Forum in NYC, Lucas said, “Art is about communicating emotion via technology . . . . To achieve stunning effects, an artist often needs to push the boundaries of current technologies, and then discover a new way of doing things.”  Reena Jana, www.BusinessWeek.com, “George Lucas Says Art Drives Innovation”)

             When I heard that I had to laugh, because it had to be exactly the same for every renaissance polymath from Italy, especially with Leonardo and Michelangelo, where they not only had to complete paintings or architecture, but also had to design as actual mechanical engineers special scaffolding (as did Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel) and direct scores of workman for architectural sites and building designs in Rome for St. Peter’s, and of course, all of Leonardo’s constant inventions and innovations (even including such disasters as his special and wrongly concocted paint foundation for his ruined fresco, The Battle of Anghiari, in the Florentine Curia building in Florence).  So remember George Lucas, the next time some major challenge is in front of you; maybe God wants you to solve the problem for everyone else.  It was Emerson who wrote, “When Nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.”

             For character detail, and for kinds of devices necessary with names, I often do as many authors with names.  I’ll assign something quickly within the first draft or first pages of the first draft, but as soon as the writing process develops will go about making sure the names seem to fit for me, with the character types, the story, the setting, the drama of which I’m composing.  Early on I used to go through phone books, the residential section for odd or curious or appropriate names; now I sometimes go online to baby naming sites and use writer’s tomes or resources such as Character Naming Sourcebook as well as 45 Master Characters, Writer’s Guide to Character Traits, and Careers For Your Characters to round things out.  I think it’s important that names are different enough from each other, so there’s no confusion (John, Jon, Jonathan, Jake, Jack in one story), that as you’re changing names if necessary (for whatever draft or revision you’re working on) that the sound and visual sense fits within the narrative prose contexts for alliteration and onomatopoeia and other effects one might want or not want, making sure there’re no whimsical puns or unintentional rhymes or off-color associations with certain names and slang terms in certain areas, and again, that the name actually seems to fit the character involved with your story.  Watch the obvious, of making wisecracks and Tom Swifty sorts of errors through a name or nickname, if not intended; for certain satires, especially of intellectual concerns I will use just such a name for humor’s sake, especially in a briefer work for a sarcastic effect, such as my short story, later developed into a novella, The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin, where the name (“Offtin Sendin”) was an allusion to myself sending off so many manuscripts, and a character or associate’s name of Mai Otra Weltanschauung and later Gillette Weltschmertz, all of them trans-national language puns (Spanish and German), the first for “My Other Worldview” and the second, “Gillette (like the razor blade) World-Sorrow.”  But such forays into satire should be used sparingly and with enough repeated checking of the manuscript in revisions, to make sure the humor holds up to several alert rereadings.  Such shenanigans might not work for longer fiction, though Dickens got away with a great deal of fun with characters’ names in his novels.

             Also, for each novel, I usually keep separate notes or file folders for the characters for development notes, backgrounds, new twists produced through the dramatic action of the novel, or other ideas.  (An interesting post-modern creative insert appeared in my short fiction, “Before This Story Gets Rolling,” from Moments, where in the metafictional style I as author provide the reader with a complete “background sheet” for Karl Ottoman, the male protagonist, so the reader has all the backstory or author’s knowledge of the character immediately.  It was meant in a serious fashion to show the work, if even unconsciously, an author goes through with one character’s creation, and from the humorous metafictional standpoint of thrusting this, undigested, at the reader within the goings-on of the story.)  Plus, for longer books especially, a working outline of chapters with a brief listing of all the events and character developments per chapter is best.  That allows me a good or solid and growing reference/resource, as one moves through a longer manuscript.  A wall chart with the rise and fall of the plot line or action sequence will help immensely.  Many authors use a storyboard technique, even beforehand, to completely plot out a novel scenically, before any writing even of a traditional outline takes place.  That’s a practical clue from filmmakers, originating from animators at Walt Disney Studio in 1929 (though online some credit Leonardo da Vinci with storyboarding or even Ancient Egyptians); such a basic process of consecutive visual sequencing can prove quite valuable.

             Also, I have mentioned in “Creativity” that I believe these days for the professional or regularly working writing, especially the novelist, that one should work directly at a keyboard with a desktop or laptop computer, if not that, with a computer compatible electronic typewriter, and if that fails with a manual typewriter, and only then, with pen and ink.  I’ve mentioned before, the weeks and months I’ve had to spend physically adapting one typed manuscript into keyed-in versions of computer print (so that I could do final rewrites), but the time saved and time and effort that might be applied much more creatively to active writing or revising or editing of produced manuscripts behooves the new novelist to work directly at a computer.  Those forgoing the usual route of submitting to traditional mainstream publishers or agents also can follow Dan Poynter’s professional “Book Model” plan, that is create the text directly on screen within exact boundaries of a finished page of a printed book, so that once all the “manuscript” is created and revised, the novel can become a book immediately by uploading files to a POD printer, eBook site, or specialized instant print book publisher.  Instant publication! (www.ParaPublishing.com)

              As odd as that might sound today, for instant publishing of one’s fiction, especially for a novel, consider that such a process was de rigueur in the Nineteenth Century, when many authors composed original chapters and published each chapter (or pair of chapters, depending upon length) of a novel as the chapters were finished—this all printed in a popular and widely read newspaper, serialized.  The author had to complete each section of the novel then, in time for the next publication.  Dickens was famous for such composition, and there are tales of him even changing planned plot events on recommendations of his readers.  The reactions of readers from already published chapters held weight (he even completely changed the ending of his novel, Great Expectations, to provide a happy ending, when friend, the novelist and playwright, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, suggested that a happy ending would be best!  Pip and Estella apparently live happily ever after.)  (Wikipedia)  One can imagine how the writing process is accelerated and perhaps haphazardly with such high-pressure publishing deadlines for fiction.  (Zola often did the same as to serialization, once his novels were completed; having Germinal serialized in several outlying newspapers to spread the influence and insights of his latest, revolutionary novel; sometimes, at a newspaper’s owner’s request, he would allow the book to be serialized free, with no royalty payment at all.  Also, this was an excellent way to build a literary reputation abroad, when newspapers in other countries would make arrangements for translations to be published in serial fashion, with royalties, soon after book publication in the native country, again done with several of Zola’s novels in Russia.  Zola, A Life by Frederick Brown)

             There’s an excellent discussion of this publishing process by Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Novels Like a Professor, whereby he elucidates how many authors in the Nineteenth Century first serialized their novels in periodicals, then the books would appear in a three-volume “triple-decker” (to take advantage of three separate books published for the reading public, and to be fair, allow for commercial circulating libraries to loan out three volumes of one particularly popular novel, so that three readers could take advantage of the book loan, versus tying up the title with one reader).  Then, if the public reaction was positive to the book, and the critical reaction was appreciative, only then the novel would be published in a deluxe, leather one-volume tome, as we might expect today.  In a sense, it’s almost the opposite of Twentieth Century American publishing tactics, whereby the New York publishers milk the first or preliminary hardback sales, then maybe a year later bring out a cheaper, paperback version.  And today, of course, there’s all the brouhaha about when to publish the eBook edition, with many publishers following the same practice of milking the initial hardback sales and delaying the eBook publication for at least a few months (or increasing eBook prices across the board), until finally issuing the electronic edition.  In a sense, the Nineteenth Century practice seems much wiser in being able to create a sizable wave of popularity for an author and a new novel, within the daily or weekly newspaper press, all before any actual “book publishing” takes place, insuring in its way, a wider and I think a more permanent readership.  Of course, what author would not like to take advantage of publishing royalties from many different formats, however they might first approach the public?  These days, there are many savvy marketers (Steve Weber with his Plug Your Book Online and Seth Godin with Idea Virus) who suggest to do exactly that—except not only bring out the eBook right away (or maybe the only first publication of a book) but to build sales for a body of work and consulting arrangements, by giving away the first eBook free. 

             This is not the place to consider many book marketing strategies (there’s an expert volume of such with Self Publishing Manual by Poynter, Jump Start Your Book Sales by Tom & Marilyn Ross, 1001 Ways to Promote Your book with John Kremer, Guerrilla Marketing for Writers by Levinson, Frishman & Larsen).  It is pertinent that something needs done for authors today to connect with their readers on a regular basis, and for books, especially new books by new authors, to get out in front of readers in a timely and regular fashion.  I have discussed the decline of book reviews in this chapter and earlier chapters (“Our Rebirth of Writing”) in conjunction with an apparent unconscious censorship of books in the USA, especially with what I call, not Freedom of Press, but Freedom of Communication, the ability for an author to communicate his or her works to a free pubic.  “The whole of great art is a struggle for communication.” (Ezra Pound, Literary Essays)  Some discussion from an independent and thoughtful editor of Twelve publisher about this subject (more book reviews or ways to reach the public, not censorship) appeared in a recent interview with Jonathan Karp in Poets & Writer’s Magazine (Nov/Dec 2009).  Karp stated, “The most intriguing to me right now [getting the word out about books] would be working with independent booksellers and book specific media in major cities to create new forums for local discussion of books and authors. . . . Maybe that needs to come through investment, either through the American Booksellers Association or through some kind of new consortium of publishers who create a fund to spread the seed of book coverage.”

             Probably an astringent and necessary note in completing a discussion about the novel is about that exactly, knowing when your novel is truly complete.  In two previous sections (“Self-Editing for Authors Part I & II”) I’ve covered much detail of the revision process.  One should realize that the novel must be completed, and yet, once it is done, that it is still a long way from being completed in a final draft, ready for publication.  It’s especially important for an author like myself, where I try to get down the first draft as efficiently and thoroughly as possible right away, knowing that many revisions are in store.  Other writers may work in a different fashion.  Personally, I don’t know how the style of authors can be effective, when they agonize over every line and paragraph, during the first draft, how the work ever gets completed.  It seems to me, especially having to piece together creative time periods for novel writing, that it’s too easy to lose the drift, creative joy, and continuity and momentum of a first draft, when all the editing and rewriting processes are also employed immediately (revising the polished prose tediously can affect the reader in a negative way, as in John Updike, where the reader pays more momentary attention to a line’s language than to larger meaning, often because the themes are slight).  Some authors combine the two, within a disciplined daily scheduled; that is, an author will get down the rough draft in the morning of a certain chapter or discrete section, then work over the same pages in the evening, finally to have pages ready to publish—each and every day, before starting the next day’s work.  Each author will have to work out the best process for him or herself, and that may even change, per book or novel project. 

             Two things should be understood after the first draft:  there will be a period of depression or ill mood for most authors, once the project is done (expect it, start a new book to avoid the worst); and you, the current author, may not be entirely ready, as a fully creative writer, actually to finish the rough draft right away.  Some of the book has to set or season within oneself, I think, have it stewed over, brewed or matured and gone over a bit in one’s unconscious, so that without returning to the manuscript, one might be still taking notes . . . “I forgot the scene with so-and-so, where this happens,” or “that character never would’ve moved in, she would have run off,” or whatever.  Sometimes, additional research is necessary, perhaps in the heat of composition a new or different geographical location proves necessary; perhaps you’ve done a bit of preliminary research, went ahead to write the dramatic sequences in that locale, then only after completing, returned to fully research the area and flesh out the details in a revised format.  Again, for my published interview with National Book Award winner, Mary Lee Settle, (“With Mary Lee Settle” Along The Journalist Path) she cited a quotation from Paul Goodman, “You never write your key scene until the last draft.”  So, it is easy to miss writing some central scene.  This should be understood or thought over carefully, for you may miss in the heat of composition the necessity for the reader, of experiencing some key scene, especially toward the end of the novel draft, and that should be remedied.

             The remaining rewrites, after a good cooling off period, should be approached in a professional yet layered fashion, reading first to see how the book came out, if it achieved the dramatic impact and full realization that you intended at the beginning.  That reading is done as a “fresh or first time reader” with some notes, but more fully to feel how the work seems, now that it’s completed.  Make notes on the side, or after a quick reading, then start back through, page by page, as a writer and preliminary editor, to catch typos, obvious mistakes, places that aren’t as smooth or awkward writing areas, also scenic problems or challenges of reforming the structure of the book into a more professional format (is one area very detailed, another too sketchy, then detailed, then falling off in the end?).  Make notes about the characters.  Is the plot complete, are all the themes developed and the characters developed in a mature fashion; do the characters change through the working of the plot; is each chapter necessary, absolutely necessary, for the next one that follows (or can it be eliminated); is all the dialogue consistent with the characters; has something been learned (or decided upon for the characters) later in the book that now needs corrected, or perhaps more importantly foreshadowed, so that the plot denouement is natural and a development emotionally or in tone or symbolically from what is presented on the beginning pages (without giving away the plot)?  Are there additional sections that need to be written?  (This is what happened for me, in the revising of my novella, which became a full novel, Abbas & Merdan).  Do the names fit the characters (on occasion I’ve had to change an entire set of names, after the first draft was completed, thank the Lord for Ms Word’s Search & Replace function). 

             Have you come up with a different, final title, from your working title when you began the novel?  (For me this is difficult; usually, with many books I’ll start with the title and work into the narrative some obscure or subtle reference to that title, which shows why it was used, as do many authors; other times I come up with an entirely different title).  My first novel started out with a working title, “The Unwoven Center,” but upon rewrites and a deeper understanding of the novel’s true form (Bildungsroman or biographical novel of development) I went ahead to change the title to the two main characters’ names, Abbas & Merdan; also that fit with the mentor and inspiration for writing all in my early days, with Hermann Hesse and his novels such as Peter Camenzind, Narcissus & Goldmund, Siddhartha, Magister Ludi.   My second novel in rough draft was called “Reunion,” but again with the gaming theme and chess motif and also the theme of learning to stop playing games and mature, I finally used the chess maneuver as a title, Endgames.  As I mentioned in earlier sections, often a title in itself will suggest an entire book or inspire one to write some fiction, short or long, so the title is important.  I like shorter titles myself, yet many others get along fine with a line of poetry (For Whom The Bell Tolls) or some phrase from Shakespeare (Sound and the Fury) or an internal or creative approach (Remembrance of Things Past), or again something more direct, especially if done more biographically (Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov).

             Lest this discussion of titles seem too blatant, consider only the original working titles and those actually submitted by the authors for some famous, finished novels:  “Trimalchio on West Egg” for Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; “First Impressions” for Austen’s Pride and Prejudice; “All’s Well That Ends Well” for Tolstoy’s War and Peace; “Nobody’s Fault” for Dickens’s Little Dorrit; “Strangers From Within” for Golding’s Lord of the Flies; “Cancer” for Stephen King’s Dreamcatcher; and “Catch-18” for Heller’s Catch-22. (“Top 10 Trivia: Rejected Titles” by John Mullan, www.guadian.co.uk, author also of How Novels Work)

             So, work with the title you have in mind, and if other difficulties arise, do as I had to do, with my book of short stories, Shared Lives.  I completed that in one week, but still had to title each short story, do revisions, and also create a title for the entire collection.  I sat down and did a brainstorming session then, for the story titles first, then once deciding on that and having it completed, went through twenty or thirty book title ideas, until I decided upon one, that for me, with that particular volume of shared love stories, between many discrete couples, put the volume together for me.  Just as a book often “is told by its cover,” so too, does a title say much about the volume, and especially with a serious novel, will allow for the reader a kind of shorthand phrase or poetic or oblique touch, to summarize some of the deeper emotional themes, the true resonances, and perhaps, the spiritual inspiration or ambition of your novel.  Some even, such as my novel, Gratuity, have to be presented well with the book cover design, using the words “a novel” on the front and back covers, so as to differentiate a work of fiction from what might at first seem like some discussion of tipping or other business text (my title was meant to play on the cross resonance, to imply a naturalistic presentation and romantic as well, but also to suggest as mentioned within the novel, a larger freedom in America about issues that seemed to happen “gratuitously”).

             Knowing when the novel is completed, fully completed, is important.  There is, I feel, an intuitive sense for the writer, when after all the rewrites he or she will sense not that the book has to be finished (because of fatigue or impatience), but that the text is “set” or truly completed in its soon-to-be-published form.  All details from several different reading perspectives have been incorporated.   “The book is done!”  It’s an inner recognition of final polish, readability, and artistic completion.

            One thing I would suggest, upon completing one’s novel, is to take the time or make the creative space to work over some pages in your day journal about the actual writing of the novel.  Document while it is fresh the things you went through in creating the novel, challenges, eases, surprises, joys, frustrations with the novel so that is complete before you move on to do any rewrites.  It might be best to compare what you had in mind before setting one word to paper with what is now in front of you, and to suggest what might be the difference or needs of a rewrite, or perhaps, even of an entirely different treatment altogether.  Some authors might even be upset with their first draft or totally disappointed, and that should be felt as okay within the creative process; one enters into the creative mode of expression with a sense of joy and glory, and often, afterwards, one is left only with a dreary escape (lucky if even with one’s actual life, again the discussion of “before and after” portraits of Fyodor Dostoevsky upon completing The Brothers Karamazov, he was totally drained and died not long afterward).  If the draft upon subsequent rereading seems amiss, some authors have taken the drastic step of tossing the manuscript (or setting it aside, out of sight at least) and restarting the entire first-draft process, not so much from memory of exact previous rendition, but as a restart of what the author now knows he or she actually wants from the story. (Jane Austen did such a reworking of her early epistolary novel, Elinor and Marianne, and transformed it into Sense and Sensibility.)  Other authors have found their manuscripts lost or destroyed (Hemingway supposedly lost an entire suitcase of early short stories, via his wife, in midst of traveling in Europe); others go about sorts of extreme cerebral training, as with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who memorized thousands of new verse lines and kept them memorized for years of his political interment, then wrote them down and published them afterwards.  Even after prison, under the repressive USSR, Solzhenitsyn felt forced to write a chapter of a book, commit it to memory, and destroy that chapter, before completing the next.  This was before his exile from USSR and later his successful subsequent return (see my “Retrospective of Alexander Solzhenitsyn”).

            Finally, though, with journal entries about your novel writing experience, you’ll be able to look back in a few months, or whenever you choose to complete the revision of your novel and know exactly where you are with your original emotional impetus for the writing of the book.  Also, it will serve you well for any future ventures, especially should you wish to do a formal autobiography or even memoir of your writing days; and without the detailed notes, you’d find that future project difficult to verify with the same emotion and thoughts with which you entered the project.  Others can learn from your triumphs, tragedies, mistakes, and achievements; so being self-conscious and mining even the experience of your novel writing activity is valuable for you and your future readers.  (See past chapter, “Autobiography”)  Last with such documentation, and perhaps even of more importance to your future creative projects is documenting how and where the “sparks flew.”  With that I mean, that you’ve probably tossed up enough other ideas for a couple dozen short stories, a novel, play or other books.  Make sure you keep track of those and harvest those ideas with enough detail and original excitement, so that you’ll be able to use them for another creative project.  Part of the fun with all the background research and revisions (especially where a serious author is actually required to go more deeply into his or her material) is the turning up of many varied and diverse topics, character ideas, what if’s, etc. that will serve a professional or career novelist well for further subjects.

             Because reading is so essential to a writer, it might prove of interest to check the top 100 greatest novels, as arranged by Daniel S. Burt in his book, The Novel 100:  A Ranking of Greatest Novels of All Time.  While there is a subjective element, of course, with any such ranking this proves an interesting starting place.  Also, at the web site www.adherents.com/people/100_novel.html, for “The Most Influential Novels and Books,” are listed the entire 100 novels from Burt and a distinct list of 100 novels, as chosen by Time Magazine, “All-Time Best Novels,” plus “100 Books That Shaped World History” from the book of the same title by Miriam Raftery.  I might suggest one other excellent source by Robert B. Downs for truly influential tomes, Books That Changed The World. 

             Also of note are the array of eBook offerings these days; last fall in November 2009 Amazon made available for free its Kindle App for PCs (other device apps were released earlier), so that all of the Kindle Store’s offerings are now available for most everyone with a computer.  Check:  www.Amazon.com/gp/Kindle/pc.  After a brief test I was totally knocked over.  Besides the expected bestsellers, one can obtain complete or nearly complete collected works by master writers as one eBook collection (7-100’s of titles per author), ranging from $1.00-$4.79 (One example is the entire collection of Dickens’s works, some 50 titles, all for $1.00!  Purchasers should first check each edition for publishing quality.).  This means that the great novelists’ works are available to everyone with a computer—and more specifically for ease of readability, a laptop, for nominal prices.  Entire libraries of various authors can be downloaded for under five dollars!  Balzac, Zola, Henry James, Melville, Twain, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Flaubert, Austen, Hardy, George Eliot, G.K. Chesterton.  There’s no excuse now for any of us to miss these great works!  (And no book shelf problems for student living quarters.)  I’m sure as the eBook marketplace quickly evolves, that there will be even more offerings.  Things have come a long way since I published my first eBook in 1998, my Twentieth Anniversary Edition of short fiction, Moments (Still available at www.AuthorHouse.com/Bookstore).

             As mentioned, one can find several excellent “must read” lists of top world novels, from Burt and Raftery, Time Magazine, and there’s even one more:  Britain’s The Guardian, “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read: The Definitive list.” (www.Guardian.co.uk).  I thought, that while these sites will be detailed in the Resources here (and everyone should check them out), it might be best to reveal my own list.  This would be what I consider the important novels to read and study from my own private list of necessary novels or novels significant to my own novelistic development.  Many of these constitute exceptional and extraordinary creativity in one vein or as an example of the novelistic art, or with profound and necessary themes, and should be considered by every new novelist, if even briefly for that reason.  (The following would require about three years of disciplined yet casual reading, at two novels per month.)

1. War & Peace, Leo Tolstoy
2. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
3. The Death of Ivan Ilyich (novella) Leo Tolstoy
4. The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Crime & Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. Great Short Works by Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Gambler & Notes from the Underground), Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev
8. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
9. Cancer Ward, Alexander Solzhenitsyn
10. Beneath The Wheel, Hermann Hesse
11. Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse
12. Narcissus & Goldmund, Hermann Hesse
13. Magister Ludi, Hermann Hesse
14. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
15. Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
16. Pride & Prejudice, Jane Austen
17. The Rainbow, D.H. Lawrence
18. Sentimental Education, Gustav Flaubert
19. Germinal, Emile Zola
20. Nana, Emile Zola
21. Rome, Emile Zola
22. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
23. Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes
24. Abel Sanchez, Miguel de Unamuno
25. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
26. Poor White, Sherwood Anderson
27. Dark Laughter, Sherwood Anderson
28. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
29. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
30. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner
31. As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
32. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
33. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
34. Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
35. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
36. Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe
37. Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
38. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
39. Point Counter Point, Aldous Huxley
40. 1984, George Orwell
41. Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
42. The Razor’s Edge, W. Somerset Maugham
43. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
44. Briefing For A Descent Into Hell, Doris Lessing
45. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
46. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
47. The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac
48. Lonesome Traveler, Jack Kerouac
49. Nexus, Henry Miller
50. Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
51. Sometimes A Great Notion, Ken Kesey
52. Go Tell It On The Mountain, James Baldwin
53. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
54. The Magus, John Fowles
55. French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
56. Tristram Shandy, Laurence Stern
57. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
58. Humboldt’s Gift, Saul Bellow
59.  White Noise, Don Delillo
60. The Philosopher’s Stone, Colin Wilson
61. Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
62. Delta of Venus, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
63. The Stranger, Albert Camus
64. Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
65. If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, Italo Calvino
66. St. Francis, Nikos Kazantzakis
67. Zorba, The Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis
68. The Knot of Vipers, Francois Mauriac
69. The Field of Vision, Wright Morris
70. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand 

 

               Although discussing the novel, it might be best also to list a series of authors, whose shorter works are absolutely essential for the modern writer.  It should be mentioned, that because of the brief intensity, ability to telescope events, and condense character often one can learn more and more quickly about fiction writing by studying these grand masters of short fiction.  There are many anthologies and collections of short works or short stories.  My essential author list:  Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, Jorge Luis Borges, Faulkner, Pirandello, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, D.H. Lawrence, Boccaccio, Maupassant, Dickens, Poe, Conrad, Chekhov.  I feel so strongly about this that I don’t know how anyone serious about fiction today could miss studying in depth at least the short works by Hemingway, Anderson, Tolstoy, Faulkner, Chekhov, and Borges.  Little considered yet important experimental stylists include Gertrude Stein, William S. Burroughs, Italo Calvino, Ronald Sukenick.

             Also, it should be noted that there are a set of standard novelists, especially rallied by the academics, but considered by most serious students of the novel as being necessary to understand.  (I don’t care much for Modernism.)  My suggestion with this list is to make certain you as an aspiring novelist do not avoid these authors, but at least take some time and dip into their works at a bookstore or library, so as to become familiar with the books, the techniques or themes, and the idiosyncratic style of the authors:  Joyce, Proust, Balzac, Conrad, Henry James, Melville, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Kafka, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison.  It would be impossible even to hint at the constant and long-standing influence these authors have had on succeeding generations of serious writers.  And you don’t have to enjoy their writing to appreciate the dedication and achievement of their art.

             I would suggest also, for the aspiring novelist, once enough variety and diversity of the great novels have been studied and others sampled, to work with whichever author or authors become favorites:  study everything written by those certain authors, read biographies and autobiographies and a few critical volumes about the same.  Often a saturation approach provides an in-depth knowledge of a way an author works over the entire course of his or her professional career that won’t be available to someone reading many different authors always.  When I first started, with Hermann Hesse, I read every novel, every book of short stories, poetry, essays; also I studied critical works and biographies about Hesse, as well as photos and collections of his watercolors.  (Today you can even obtain documentaries about many authors.)  Also make sure you read a first volume by the greats, so you understand that each author starts at the same point—masterpieces usually arrive after a lifetime of dedicated and focused writing (a fun starting point is First Words:  Earliest Writing From Favorite Contemporary Authors by Paul Mandelbaum).

             My last advice:  start your novel today.  Scribe the notes, compose the story, and complete all the revisions.  Write your book now; don’t delay another moment.  Write!

             This discussion of “The Novel” ends with a few comments from the introduction to my brief writing tome, Keystone, Notes For Apprentice Authors:  “Where the personal is here interwoven, then, I feel that those cases should be considered more as specific example than as self-advertisement, that is, within a spiritual context of there being a Place where we each have no name.  In my grandest revelries with the creation of art, there has always been a very self-conscious knowledge, that what is of substance in the work, proceeds not from me, or others, or some one person—but is given to, illuminated for us.  To become prepared, with craft and insight and energy, for the molding of Inspiration into Art, is a grand, frightening, and necessary life project.

             “Creating is an act of faith, as is breathing.”

 

RESOURCES

1. Books About Writing:  Three Genres by Stephen Minot; How Fiction Works by James Wood; How Novels Work by John Mullan; How to Read Literature Like a Professor and How to read Novels Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster; The Career Novelist by Donald Maass; The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major; Books That Changed The World by Robert B. Downs; A Reader’s Guide to the Twentieth Century Novel by Parker and Kermode, editors; How to Write & Sell Your First Novel by Collier and Leighton; The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing by Leder and Hefron; 20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias; 45 Master Characters by Victoria L. Schmidt; What Is Art? by Leo Tolstoy; Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster; Art of Fiction, Prefaces to Novels by Henry James; Summing Up by W. Somerset Maugham; The Story of a Novel by Thomas Wolfe; On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner; The Paris Review Interviews (new 4-volume set), exceptional literary interviews, indispensible for serious writers
2. Tapes or University Course Discussions:  (The Great Courses, The Teaching Company, www.teach12.com) “Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenge of Great Literature,” “The English Novel,” “Twentieth Century American Fiction,” “Classics of British Literature,” “Classics of Russian Literature,” “Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition,” “Western Literary Canon in Context,” “Understanding Literature and Life:  Drama, Poetry, and Narrative,” “Art of Reading,” and others (if libraries do not stock these tape sets, can be purchased online, wait for special sale prices), excellent introduction or review of major lit knowledge from university perspective.
3. Marketing guides:  Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter; Jump Start Your Book Sales by Marilyn & Tom Ross; Self-Promotion for the Creative Person by Lee Silber; 1001 Ways To Market Your Books by John Kremer; Guerrilla Marketing for Writers by Levinson, Frishman & Larsen.
4. Videos:  Life of Emile Zola, Mark Twain, St Paul the Apostle, St. John In Exile, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, (also series of writer’s documentaries for rent at www.Netflix.com).  More mainstream films about authors:  Mishima:  A Life In Four Chapters, Celeste, Shakespeare In Love, Becoming Jane, Miss Potter, Sylvia, Henry & June, Barfly, Factotum, Naked Lunch, Prick Up Your Ears (suggested in article by Anne Billson, The Guardian, www.Guardian.co.uk); and The Hours, Shadowlands, Iris, Wilde, Hans Christian Andersen, Mrs. Parker & Vicious Circle, The Whole Wide World, Dreamchild, Gothic, Nora, Becoming Colette, Impromptu (thanks to www.Amazon.com).
5. Online: “The Most Influential Novels and Books” (lists of top 100), www.adherents.com/people/100_novel.html; also free eBooks and top 100 eBooks at www.Gutenberg.org; “1000 Novels Everyone Must Read:  The Definitive List” (from the UK), www.Guardian.co.uk; “50 Best Websites for Writers,” www.educhoices.org/articles/50_of_the_Best_Websites_for_Writers.html; “Writer’s Digest 101 Best Sites,” www.WritersDigest.com/101BestSites/; and writing sites,  www.FictionFactor.com; www.Writing.com.

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Thursday, Jan 28 2010

ARCHIVE

“Autobiography,” January 27, 2010

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

  

The following ninth article, “Autobiography,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources.  All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina.

  

AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

by 

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2010 by Charles A. Taormina

 

            I wanted to include Autobiography within its own chapter because of the importance of the subject.  It’s first of all, a project every writer should take on, maybe later in his or her career because of the personal insights, perspective, sense of scope and accomplishment such an achievement can provide upon a certain amount of living, but still one should accomplish it. (Renaissance autobiographer, Cellini, suggests not before age forty.)  Also, it adds to the small but substantial body of work; that is, biographical material about creative people can serve to aid others following along similar paths.  I’ve included here “Autobiography” in a direct sense, but will discuss briefly also Biography, and the many forms of other autobiographical presentations an author can develop, such as Memoir (focused or limited autobiography), Notebooks and Diaries or Journals, Letter Collections, discreet Collections of Autobiographical Essays, fictionalized autobiography, and books that might include a range of all that (sort of a Portable Taormina Reader, if you will).

            Autobiography as a form of writing about oneself goes back to ancient times, with the Greek of the word meaning “self-life-write”; the actual term of “autobiography,” however, was first coined in 1809 by British Poet Laureate, Robert Southey. (Wikipedia)         

             Early biographical material and perhaps some autobiographical abounds in the Old Testament (Moses with the Pentateuch, and Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, plus the Twelve Minor Prophets, www.Bible.org), and the biographical/autobiographical New Testament Gospels and Apostolic Letters, especially those of St. Paul; in between are the Dialogues of Plato for Socrates, memoirs like Commentaries on the Gallic War by Julius Caesar (and other works).  Later are Oration 1 by Libanius, Confessions of St. Augustine, Vita Caroli Magni, or Biography of Charlemagne by Einhard, Abelard’s Historia Calamitatum, Petrarch’s Secretum Meum, Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (Italian Renaissance), The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, John Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and on to the classic biography, Life of Samuel Johnson, by James Boswell, the autobiographies of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Rousseau’s Confessions, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, An Autobiography by Anthony Trollope, Up From Slavery: An Autobiography by Booker T. Washington, the modern Mauriac’s Journals and Memoirs, the autobiographical novels of Tolstoy’s (Childhood, Boyhood, Youth) and more current fare, including Thomas Wolfe’s epic autobiographical novels (Look Homeward Angel, Of Time and The River), the later fictionalized series of autobiography by Jack Kerouac (his “Duluoz Legend”) and the trilogy of Henry Miller’s “Rosy Crucifixion” (Sexus, Plexus, Nexus), and current books of contemporary letters, The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion.  Hermann Hesse uses “autobiographies” of a character’s past lives within an ending to his last masterpiece novel, Magister Ludi: The Glass Bead Game and there’s Hesse’s collection, Autobiographical Writings.  There were Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.  Albert Schweitzer’s Out of My Life And Thought: An Autobiography is also significant, as is Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain. (Wikipedia)

            In my own case, I was directly prompted or inspired to write my own biography in 1992, after reading My Life, the autobiography of Richard Wagner, the German Opera Composer.  I had made vague plans for years beforehand, but this reading focused my project.  My inspiration came from the way Wagner could sum up his life, show his influences early on and later influences, and for his own inspiration, leave an account for his direct descendents and immediate family.  There had been for many decades gossip in my family, on my mother’s German side, of possibly being related to Richard Wagner, so I took the inspiration quite seriously.  There are even quotations of Wagner’s when he visited Sicily (completing Parsifal in Palermo, 1882), even with his stay in Taormina, Sicily.  So the project was a way of getting back in touch with my German heritage (though autobiography was no stranger to the Italians, with Cellini’s Life and Enea Silvio Piccolomini’s Commentaries [Pope Pius II].)  Also, at that point in my life, in my mid-forties, I already had traveled widely over Europe (including Germany and Italy, even Taormina, Sicily), the Caribbean, Canada and east, west, north, and south in USA, written a great deal with some 18 or so books authored (20 by age 52), had quite a few experiences, and more, knew that I was involved with certain key or “master projects” in my life, which I felt transcended my own personal ambitions.  If those projects never got completed, I wanted to leave enough detailed notes behind so that others might be able to follow up and complete them.  Plus, especially with the creative life in America, so much is set against one, that it was necessary to elucidate some of the trials (lack of funding or conventional employment, diminished publishing/censorship for books or feeble theatrical opportunities, apartment burglary with all my computer equipment stolen) and controversies for an author’s life in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first Century America.  At that time then (1992, Uniontown, PA), I started to write my autobiography, and completed 4 chapters (of about 5,000 words each) basically only up until my early adulthood.

             Other things happened in my life, and I left the project go, uncompleted, until another 8 years, when I had moved from that location in Uniontown, PA back to Akron, OH, where I had lived some years earlier, and found myself with some creative time after completing the rewrites of my sixth novel, The Entropy Wars.  One of the other promptings was that my daughter, Angela, was growing into young womanhood, now finishing college, and she at one point asked me if I had written or would write my autobiography.  She said she would like to read it.  I went on then in Akron, the year 2000, to write for three months (4/20/2000-7/17/2000) and complete not a few more chapters, but an entire book or complete autobiography of some 185,000 words, with enough detail to go over my book projects, using quotations from past notebooks and journals, going through all my files to note dates, and to get everything accurate.  I was able to take the new early drafts of the first 4-5 chapters (revised) back to my original home in Johnstown, PA, for my mother to peruse, to make sure I had all the early family information correct.

              Primarily, however, as an autobiography, I broke a couple rules. I didn’t dramatize it so that it would read as a fictionalized or dramatic narrative of my life, and I decided very self-consciously to leave out probably most of what a general reader might be looking for—the “juicy parts,” or defects, tragedies, disasters, personal catastrophes.  I did this, because as I’ll delineate here, when one sets out to write an autobiography, you have to know what you want to tell, why, and how you should go about it, before you start.  There are many, many approaches; all are valid of course, but not all fit the individual author’s personal goals and necessary achievements.  For me, I wanted a detailed intellectual record of my life, from the early days, till about my midlife (I had just turned 52 the year of its completion); and I wanted enough so that writers and students of literature and family or anyone interested in achievement could follow the progress and ways and delays within my creative life.  I did not want a fully “personal” or “tell-all” sort of saga.

               Also, I decided as I progressed through my autobiography, that I consciously would leave out many of my overwhelming spiritual experiences, including visions, manifestations, parapsychological studies, theophanies, etc; because I felt all that was too specialized and also too important to leave inserted here and there among all the talk of my books and creative projects.  Thus, while writing my autobiography, I decided to leave those experiences out, and to include all that later, in a more detailed rendition in my own Spiritual Memoir (which I’ve also started, titled, Each Man Has A Journey, but am only maybe a quarter of the way through right now).  As a final autobiographical sequence, I decided also to record for posterity my Later Notebooks (The Intermediate Years, Notebooks of Charles A. Taormina in-progress), as important day journals, to add to the ongoing material and record in my later life, and the years after completing my autobiography.  I had thought, also, if there were additional material for the later years, there could be a different sort of autobiography, not necessarily Part II, but rather more of a generalized or personal summary, done in my elder years (as “Phase II” as I called these years in my notebooks, of a second act of creative time and dealing with the pain of family deaths and illness), more as a personal recollection, a traditional Memoir. 

             I’ve gone over this quickly here to show the focus necessary and also to show a few examples of how this material can be recorded and put across and developed as creative material for posterity so other authors might be able to follow.  One last inspiration, too; with my early 50’s in ageing, I wanted to get as much recorded or put down in detail of my early life and hard work and extensive years of writing, while my memory still served me well, and was afraid, that the next few years would tax me in those departments, which has proven correct.  While the 50’s does not indicate a senior in our own time span, we must remember that the average life span in the West for several millennia was 27-55 or so, and that many authors were already ill or dead by my age.  So the project proved important for me, very self-satisfying (as mastering another writing form, passing on a legacy of life information for my daughter and descendents, for other students of literature or the arts), and also, with all the insights provided with the scope, the examination of past events, the looking at people and circumstances with maturity it allowed a great deal of inner growth and profound self-analysis and maturation to happen.  Too, there was a great deal of shock, at certain points in my life, where things went wrong and the emotional memory was only “bad luck” or maybe colored with “I wish I had done more then,” and after detailing those events, all that was left was rage, that I had done superhuman efforts at the time of those events, and still, they turned out badly.  (It is difficult dredging up the pain from past efforts!) 

             At the first third of my writing, from 5/12/2000, my journal reads:  “This personal writing causing great deal of emotions, remembering past pain and hurts and joys and ambitions, trying to clarify certain feelings, decision points, and to present chronology—especially creative chronology of published writing—accurately.  Glad to be doing this finally; seems necessary and significant.”  That rage, of course, is where we must be philosophical, stoic, and mostly Christian, and say, well, it was God’s choice.  But without the detailed analysis, I might never have realized as I matured, the gigantic effort I had put forth to compile and create my art, and the importance all that might have for later descendents and generations of writers and readers.

            One of the projects after finishing my autobiography, because I felt it so important to have completed the book, was that I wanted to write something, an article or small volume, about composing an autobiography, so that, too, has come to fulfillment with writing this chapter (see list below).  I almost want to say, that it’s probably impossible for anyone to understand fully his or her own life, without actually taking the time to complete one’s autobiography.  It’s a wondrous analytical, intellectual, and spiritual project, for personal completion, for “squaring the circle,” as philosophers once chimed.

            My list of “Afterthoughts” from 7/29/2000:

1. Already completed autobiography is only a third of total, of 3 volumes of projected autobiography series, including notebooks and spiritual memoirs.
2. The author of his or her autobiography can use the activity as a learning tool for self, to improve, refine, become purified.
3. Can compare one’s autobiography to others such as Ben Franklin’s or writers, such as Hermann Hesse’s.
4. Remember that a Renaissance biography always is outrageous, primarily because it takes place during such a cataclysmic, exciting, and potentially positive epoch.
5. Writer’s notes and distribution, especially these days with POD printing or even instant eBook publishing; no excuse for a writer not to publish one’s autobiography and thus take part in the larger, creative community.
6. Having finished autobiography, feel I finally wrote what I’d like to read by another writer, artist, scientist or provide to a family member, or for future scholars.
7. Book shows persistence, truth for one’s heart, even with lack of external success as desired and constant challenges with publishing world.
8. Discussion of supernatural mentioned, but kept to a minimum, mostly to detail and record with more candor and insight in separate volume of spiritual memoirs.
9. Personal summation (not so obvious a mention directly in text, but will do for self and posterity later).
10. “Objective” characteristics of self listed, likes and dislikes.

  

            The time in my own life, the year 2000, was a difficult but creative period for me.  I had just moved back to Akron, Ohio (1999), was near my daughter then attending Akron University as an undergraduate, and set on starting anew in Ohio, because of so many difficulties in Pennsylvania.  The previous fall in Akron I had edited and revised or put together three complete books and published them all as eBooks with a new online site (www.MightyWords.com, now defunct), including a collection of short stories, Shared Lives, my early book about writing, Keystone, Notes for Apprentice Authors, and a new volume containing previous exceptional essays and new nonfiction, Quintessence: Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance.  It was the second venture of publishing my books as eBooks (first was my short story collection, “Twentieth Anniversary Collection,” Moments, published at www.AuthorHouse.com in 1998).  Next, I took my last large creative project, my lengthy novel about Spiritual Warfare, The Entropy Wars, which I had completed in a revised rough draft in New Stanton, PA in 1998, and started a complete rewrite and revision of that.  I had the novel completed and out to publishers in the late winter of 2000, so that by the time of my birthday in April of that year (age 52) and considering some of the past years and future projects, I thought it best to complete my autobiography.  From my journal, 4/20/2000:  “Autobiography would help me feel some ‘closure’ with early part of my life (just half or first third?) and allow me a sense of accomplishment about early life (also to have my relatives check family facts for any errors).  But too, I want to have an exciting and creative document ready for my daughter, Angela.  She’s already asked when I’d be putting together some of my life.” 

             I’ll get ahead of myself here; the autobiography took me twice as long as I expected (three months of full-time writing), was about twice the size that I expected too, and twice the learning experience, for my inner self.  After that, while continuing to market my new novel, I went on also to complete my first screenplay, an adaptation of my novel, The Entropy Wars.  I accomplished a host of other marketing projections at the time, including posting portions of the new novel online at a special site for new works (www.ecpa.org, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association), posting at a different site many creative projects to see about selling different literary rights to those books (www.RightsWorld.com, now defunct), and started up again, in earnest, writing more frequently in my journals, chronicling all this, as well as other goings-on at the time.  The upshot of that year, was that for most of it, I was living in artistic poverty, looking for conventional employment and finding little, using up all my physical and little financial resources, but able to put the “time off” from the conventional world of work and anti-creativity, to great advantage.  It was a stressful but exceptionally productive year. 

            To put this in perspective, even the marketing efforts that year were enormous; after finishing two full months (12 hrs. per day) of revisions on the novel, even once that was complete, I still had to write query letters, synopses, author backgrounds and then research the book market for potential publishers, then mail out queries, some sample chapters, and field all those as many were returned.  Also, I had to consider what else to do to market the book in a smart way (finally I decided that a package of “Novel + Screenplay” would be enticing), so I went on to study screenplay form (research many screenplays of actual movies, study of current texts about screenplay writing and adaptation, viewing recorded interviews with film directors, and watching certain films suggested by the study, complete with taking notes—all before writing the screenplay).  A roommate from IUP, Dane Konop, had contacted me in previous years in Pennsylvania, to mention that as an editor for NOAA, he had served as a consultant on the film, Twister (his name even is listed on the final credits).  He suggested that I should try my hand at a screenplay.  

             In that year 2000 also, by the grace of God, around my birthday, there was a notice at the professional publisher of POD books online, at Xlibris (then a partner with Random House), that the printer was accepting book manuscripts free, to set up a new POD venture, where each book could be published one at a time and the publishing book file kept handy (posted with the publisher) for readers and customers to order from, at the online site.  I was astonished!  This was the first time that I was aware of, that America’s Freedom of Press was actually FREE; it was a true access to a free press, without the author having to incur gigantic expenses to publish his own works.  Immediately, I thought of publishing a smaller, earlier finished novel, Gratuity, because most of the rewrites had been accomplished years before, during my creative period in Montana.  I marked that in my notebooks, finally to publish my novel, Gratuity, that year.  However, by the time I finished with my other projects, the longer effort with the autobiography, the study and then completion of the screenplay for The Entropy Wars, the year had run out.  So, too, had the offer at Xlibris.  (The exceptional opportunity first offered by Xlibris was mentioned in my second chapter, “Acceptance of the Individual,” and in fact, that company was gracious enough to reprint at their site last year, my entire essay, about publishing opportunities in America.  “Press Room,” www.Xlibris.com) Gratuity was not published until 2005, at www.LuLu.com (along with a republishing in printed book form of my published eBook story collection, Shared Lives).  I started then a rewrite and design of cover and inside for my previously published eBook, Keystone, Notes For Apprentice Authors, but it is still under production.

            I want to let others know that the autobiography was a large project for me, and I’m usually pretty organized, efficient, and hard-working at book projects.  I would suggest for others a couple things before writing your autobiography:  If no block of time is available to write, make sure all is organized beforehand; decide on two things first, what you want to say and for whom exactly (is it only for family, is it a sort of “tell-all” celebrity autobiography for the public, is it scholarly?) and in the same organizational frame, decide on the style you want to use (try out several different pages of various “chapters” for yourself, till you come across the draft method you prefer the most—those taking this on without much writing experience, with physical problems, or lack of motivation to actually scribe the entire account, should use a tape recorder to record one’s impressions from a list of notes, then have those recordings transcribed and maybe work with an editor or freelance writer to form the manuscript into a professional product.  I was hired in 2001 by a young woman, Cynthia K. Johnson, who did exactly that.  I was hired to copyedit her autobiographical manuscript, The White Room, and prepare it for publication.).

            Also, as with any other sort of writing, it’s best to study the form first, do some reading, preferably years in advance, of major autobiographies and memoirs and also biographies, so that one has a “feel” or sense of what’s the best way to proceed, what one likes and dislikes in one’s own reading of other lives, and to be able to take notes about effective techniques from published authors.  I was fortunate, in that reading such material has always been of great interest for me, the study of a man or woman’s life, and if possible, in that person’s own words, and if not then a well-documented biography always makes wonderful reading.  Before suggesting direct autobiographies, I might mention the classic Life of Johnson (unabridged) by biographer James Boswell (good for seeing how the inclusion of comments, dialogue, letters, documents, and causal observations builds an excellent biographical treatment).  This is considered one of the great classics of biography in literature. I’ve already mentioned the renaissance autobiography, The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, for Americans the early work of Autobiography of Ben Franklin and Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson.  I have read many works by authors, Summing Up by W. Somerset Maugham, Hermann Hesse’s Autobiographical Writings, Voyage to a Beginning by Colin Wilson, plus Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain, The Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton, biographies of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso, G.B. Shaw, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Tesla, Edison, Einstein, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Hamilton, Max Perkins, Beethoven, Mozart,  Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (for a complete list see Resources at end of chapter). 

             If one is constricted with time, set aside a few weeks to go through some tomes at the library, quickly even, to make notes about presentation, approach, scope and coverage of a man or woman’s life, then read a few autobiographies complete and study, at least, Boswell’s Life of Johnson.  It might help, even, to spend a few hours looking over the biographical entries of favorite authors or artists in an encyclopedia, just to see exactly how the short bios are presented, what’s important, what’s left out.  Then one can be prepared to consider one’s own life and the many events of importance, mundane details, and observations important for others. 

            Other suggestions to start one’s autobiography include the obvious:  arrange any notes, past manuscripts or portions of previous writing that are pertinent, letters, photos, notebooks and journals and diaries, of course (you’ll want to actually cite quotations from those), and some kind of comprehensive calendar (over the course of your life), with maybe an almanac listing (to key certain newsy events if your memory slips); and probably, arrange a large wall chart for your visual writing/working chronology, and any other pertinent notes and especially lists you might have available—books that were important, or films, or music (or all three), lists of friends and family and mentors, lists of your usual accomplishments but with accurate dates (college, grad school, employment if that’s significant, exact publication dates for all creative work), and probably a geographical map, if like most Americans, you’ve moved around a bit in your life.  It might be good to let a few friends and relatives know about your project; they might have good suggestions (or bad, “Please, don’t include me!”) and would be available for fact checking as your writing ensues.  Usually, with any book project, I will take a full day or two or weeks if necessary, to brainstorm on many sheets of paper everything the project might entail, especially in this case the important names of people in your life, the events, the scenes you want to include (or leave out), and maybe even a sort of “confessional” note taking, of why you want to do your autobiography, and how you hope it might illustrate your life and for whom.

            For me, early on I wanted a good detailed account of my creative life and works and other conceptual projects, so my writing quickly took on a “life & thought” subtitle for my autobiography, again, not including many powerful spiritual events that have happened and which I saved for my separate spiritual Memoir, Each Man Has A Journey.  Also, I did decide on a title for my autobiography, but because it is still in progress, I don’t want to divulge that, until the lengthy manuscript is ready for the printer.  With mine, I’ve written a preface already, and want to include at the end a list of my books, my articles, my projects, in cumulative order, so that others can follow, and probably a brief one-page chronology.  Also, I imagined that my own autobiography would have a good index for scholars or students of literature and the arts being able to access for more detailed perusal and study (an index can be a difficult project in itself, as well).  Plus, since I do some sketching and acrylic painting (I’ve already used a sketch of a self-portrait for previous book covers), I planned out a new, colorful self-portrait in acrylics that I want to complete for my autobiography’s front cover.  Photographs, of course, can also be enclosed (that may increase the cost substantially, if the project is to be self-published, even with POD printers).  

             An important consideration was that as I proceeded through my personal life, the effects of my life and work and thought, I could come to a summing up, as might be imagined, but too, I discovered that I most definitely had plans for some of my work and, should anything happen to me, for projects with those works.  This was a place for me to note (for my daughter and posterity) that I wanted my play, Tauromenium, to premier in the Greco-Roman Theatre in Taormina, Sicily, but more.  I, of course, wanted a literary executor to make certain all my works were published in edited editions, that my daughter would be taking care of that (which was my primary financial and intellectual legacy to my descendent), and also, I had plans then, or plans evolved from the writing of my autobiography, to set up a special conglomerate or “Writer’s Colony” or maybe a full “Artist’s Colony,” in the town with my surname, in Taormina, Sicily (I called it a full art/writing production unit).  I also have plans for rebuilding the theatre in Taormina (restoring its full ancient form, so that it can be used more often for drama, opera, cultural events; rather than it remaining in ruins.  I imagined, and wrote instructions within my book then, in the final chapters of the autobiography, for setting up some sort of endowment, establishing a Sicilian Writer’s colony in Taormina, Sicily, complete with instructional classes, hostel rooms for active writers, a library, a small drama workshop and interior theatre, plus full printing facilities for books from the products of the writer’s colony.  As I mentioned in a previous chapter, “Experimentalism,” there’s already an annual Film Festival held in Taormina, Sicily that is known all over Europe, as well as there being a small, yearly “literary prize” from Taormina).  One must consider long-term implications for my own family, in that perhaps my daughter might only be curious about all these events and projects for her father and nothing more; but perhaps her children, or maybe even my great-grandchildren, a granddaughter or grandson, might take up the herald, learn the techniques, write and create and do other arts, perhaps even take on some of the Master Projects.  Again, as I mentioned elsewhere (from my full-length drama, Freedom One), “Sometimes, fifty thousand books are printed and distributed and read all over the world, just for one man or woman’s thoughts to reach one other man or woman.” 

             These are some of the kinds of insights and further creative efforts that can develop from an autobiography project.  I think it goes without saying, that as you complete your autobiography your inner self is relieved that your work is catalogued, annotated, explained or detailed to a certain degree for posterity, and that larger projects do not go to waste; in general, there is a greater seriousness, inside one, now that one has written his or her autobiography.  I think too, that as mentioned elsewhere, often just the taking on of writing down a journal or diary on a regular basis, and especially the formal writing of one’s life story, brings the recognition that only certain types of people in history do that:  pay attention to themselves and objective projects with enough dedication to annotate them.  And that is a part of the success of their lives, their projects, and I suppose, the immortality in a secular sense that can be derived by taking an active part in the world culture of one’s time.

            A couple days after starting the completion of my autobiography, I penned this amusing journal note, 4/26/2000:  “Advice to others:  Make sure you live an interesting life, so that your autobiography is exciting!”

            Again, it was good to complete the writing at that time in my life, because as noted in my journal, my parents were both living at the time, and able to go over with me the early part of my life and make sure everything was accurate.  I’ve mentioned this a couple times, but there is a side note of interest here.  When I returned to my parents’ home to check on facts, I thought also to check the spelling of my Italian grandfather’s name, by contacting my uncle, Sam Denny.  The background is a bit dysfunctional; in that on my father’s side, we never knew our real grandfather, Joseph Taormina (who deserted my father’s mother early in my father’s infancy); but we always considered my father’s kindly step-father, Charles Denny, as our actual grandfather.  (I was named after Charles Denny.)  My father’s half-brother, Sam Denny, was able to set all the family tales straight.  Originally, my father always mentioned that his step-father, Charles Denny, was from northern Italy, that he had been part-blond in his youth (as was I), because he was from around the Po River Valley in northern Italy.  When I talked with his eldest son, Sam (my grandfather having died by this time), suddenly we learned that, no, Charles Denny was not from northern Italy, rather from Sicily (from where my grandmother was descended), and in inquiring about the spelling of his last name (my thinking was that it probably originated as “Denni,” or something spelled in a more Italian way), I was told that his actual surname wasn’t Denny, but originally Dindia, and that too, his first name was never really Charles, but Ignatio (Ignatius).  In full, my step-grandfather was Ignatio Dindia, born in Trabia, near Palermo, in Sicily.  My own father hadn’t known the full story of his beloved step-father for his entire life; and it was only by my fact-checking our family background that we all learned the truth.

            Other events would be clarified in a similar way, with the constant fact-checking, double-checking what I thought I remembered accurately, and making sure all was down in writing, so that there would be no further mistakes.  (It might be of note, that since that time, I’ve had many occasions when I needed the exact date for some event in my life, or the creation year and circumstances of one of my books, and it is only because I noted that all down in the autobiography, that I had all that handy.  Even checking some events for the many chapters of this book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective, has been made easier and more accurate, by simply returning to the compilation of my autobiography, and looking up the correct chapter.)  That brings up, also, the interesting topic of chronology, especially in the narrative mode, of exactly how to tell one’s life story.  I’ve used the conventional method, and one that I like best, that is moving from earliest years to later years, all arranged by geographical location in chronological order, without ever interrupting the narrative flow with other scenes (though interlinear notes are mentioned for something started in one year, finished another year, or commented on in greater depth during a later chapter).  This allowed me to have several chapters within one place of residence, arranged chronologically, as “an epoch or era of place.”  With so many other sorts of post-modern techniques bandied about it’s best to reconsider time, especially in fiction with the transposing of chronological order, to fracture a character’s experience and also the reader’s experience (A prime example is Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, where his character Billy Pilgrim gets “unstuck in time,” as Vonnegut describes it, moving forwards and backwards in the story).  With post-modern fiction (especially with a science fiction foundation), that’s fine; but it doesn’t seem to work as well, in traditional autobiography.  I recall reading the interesting first volume of autobiography by singer, Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, and liking the book quite a lot, until a major portion is transposed, then picked up later, and not really for any dramatic emphasis.  It seemed wrong-headed to me as a reader, and I think, at that point, though enjoying the autobiography of a favorite bard and balladeer of the 70’s and 80’s, I decided to avoid reading his remaining volumes.  

             Consider that with care.  Will the story of your life be told in exact chronological order, or will you jump about (and if you do so, why?), or maybe your own story will be told, say about certain topics or themes in your life, so that you might discuss in one section or chapter a novel you started in your teens, but finished in your forties, then the next chapter would be about your play which was done in between all of that, or maybe even one chapter about raising your family, then another about creative projects, and another about your own opinions and thoughts on current events?  Again, you should decide all of that for your own autobiography and with a narrative plan that fits your life and your ambitions with the telling of your life. 

             Some of the side considerations here might seem ponderous or even too out of the ordinary; but it is my belief, that there should be many motivations for taking on the project of a serious autobiography.  The first note is that you’ll quickly discover, how talking about yourself continuously gets boring; at least it did for me.  After several chapters, it seemed tedious to keep doing all the accurate chronology and my reactions to events, when, well, I already knew them!  I guess for me, unlike other genres or book projects, there seemed less of self-discovery and more of the constant recording of already known facts that seemed dry or maybe even tedious.  Again, if the idea is just to get that down for a few family members, the entire project might dissolve into a few chapters of interest as a brochure or pamphlet (still of importance to family and descendents), or stop altogether.  With a deeper motivation, it’s twofold:  One, in putting the book together for posterity, for the understanding of your family and the enthusiasts of your creative work and scholars; and Two, the progressive or cumulative learning process, internally, for the autobiography writer, whereby with the sheer task of re-experiencing all of the major events in one’s life and with some sense of mature perspective, one comes to terms with those, and hopefully, grows internally, becomes a larger person, more integrated, happier, more fulfilled.  In a way, it’s a giant metaphysical act; that is, looking over one’s entire life, which almost in the popular mind, is saved as a diversion for some “after-death” compensatory look back upon one’s life span; that’ll help one understand one’s life fully, to learn and laugh, to learn and cry, maybe for both, before proceeding on to Paradise, we pray.

             (The other side ventures, which I’m sure many creative writers already have put together, is that one can see from one’s own life, or the putting together of an accurate chronology of one’s life, all sorts of creative possibilities, for fictionalizing parts of that life, or writing a fictionalized autobiography—the actual plan Dickens used in David Copperfield and to a lesser degree by Defoe in Moll Flanders and Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre, or again other types of fictionalized autobiography—or autobiographical fiction—in the vein of Thomas Wolfe, Kerouac’s “Duluoz Legend,” or Henry Miller’s many tomes.  Of a similar documentary use of letters, articles, anecdotes, direct quotations or even publications for inclusion within a fictional text, see only the excellent results by John Dos Passos in his trilogy of novels, U.S.A., and the historical veracity of Solzhenitsyn’s The Red Wheel cycle of novels, especially November 1916.  A diverse note for me, was the thinking through of a story, for instance, of one of my own Master Projects, a futuristic science/invention with a “healing machine” and imagining say a great-great-great grandson coming across my writings in the distant future and jumping up and developing that exact invention.  Of course, the possibilities are unlimited!)

             There is even the discussion of how Charles Dickens was so upset with writing his own autobiography, that he left it only as an “Autobiographical Fragment,” and went on to compose a fictionalized autobiography, the novel, David Copperfield, plus later another fiction told as autobiography, Great Expectations (see Dreams of Authority, by Ronald R. Thomas).  So, the dredging up of past events, especially if traumatic, sorrowful, or painful in any manner can be distressing.  Towards the end, my journal notes, 7/3/2000:  “But in the midst of much negative energy, churned up by all the dark events suffered and recorded finally in Autobiography (and suffered anew), I felt terrible.”  The key, I believe, is to use all of that pain and transmute it (as Jung might suggest) or transform it into creative projects, knowledge or wisdom for others, and finally some learning or interior acceptance event for one’s inner self. (It might prove ironic that while completing the last half of my autobiography, I started rereading Great Expectations by Dickens, to cheer me with his humor.)  Again, from my journal earlier in the work, 6/16/2000:  “The autobiography allows one to crack open the nut almost, to peer inside, dissect an event or set of life circumstances, and witness or meditate upon, or discern the real value . . . . And recording, ordering, refining of one’s life, making for a solid personal center, as many artists and achievers form at last is valuable (also the writing proves a great promo of other works, if interesting, profound, significant enough). . . . So difficult was the reliving of all the pain, the tensions, the blocking attempts to disrupt my career, my life!” 

            My second paragraph from the introduction to my autobiography (and this penned in first week of the project, 4/21/2000):  “Most of the autobiography deals with conceptual/mental and spiritual life, and my continuous creative achievements, that is, versus a more conventional or dramatic approach, which might detail societal interaction, university appointments, other or outside professionals style acclaim—all of which I am still awaiting.  Mostly, my adult experience in USA has been one of intense work against the majority, those foolish mediocrities and demonized ‘leaders,’ as an ‘Outsider,’ in the best of that term of those great men and women who work on the outside of convention, and thereby completely revolutionize the society or history they inhabit and thereby the future world.”

            From journal, 7/7/2000:  “Continued to write Autobiography, closing chapters now, next to last, Chapter 36 (1997-98) [total ended up being 39 chapters], wrote some 4 pages of text yesterday, then some 3-4 pages of notes. . . This day, too, started screenplay for my novel, The Entropy Wars.”

            From journal, 7/15/2000:  “Notes about autobiography, first must record data from journals and notebooks, letters and work artifacts, then actual process of self-understanding and process of acknowledging or learning insight into what God is directing . . . summarizing ‘plotlines,’ revelation.  Very long autobiography (3 months to complete in rough draft this year) and upset it took so long . . . yet must see in my notebook (Leonardo style) that in 1999 I was already mulling over Y2K, but change of century . . . I was recognized for Twentieth Century (‘Outstanding People of Twentieth Century’ by England’s International Biographical Centre); now what is for the Twenty-first Century?  And, High Renaissance now?  I wrote in notebook that next works in writing must become world-class and eternal, what I called ‘colossal masterpieces.’”

            From journal, 7/17/2000:  “End of writing today, page 13 of Chapter 39 (year 2000) of Autobiography.  See note on Columbus . . . New World, was supposed to be a new plateau of existence???

            “But what I had to find out, with obsession for Autobiography.  Map for others, detail of work for daughter, detail for the future, Lord God’s Humanity!” 

             From journal, 7/19/2000:  “Note for ‘self-awareness’ that was to record for posterity (and legacy for my daughter) all my thoughts and records of special projects, so others could follow . . . also need the 1992 (tie-in) with starting in Uniontown, but the portion of Hero Story, end of ‘return with elixir’ in the sense of return with baton (as a spiritual runner in futuristic timeline for humanity) from visionary journey via Spiritual Quest of The Lord’s, there in Charlottesville . . .walking the Timeline . . .”

             Looking back over the productivity, I was upset at the project taking me 3 months, but it turned out that I had written, with the rewrites of the first chapters, about 60,000 words per month (2,000 wds/day) and that included much research, going through my filing cabinets, boxes of documents, older manuscripts, boxes of files for separate projects, folders and many notebooks, journals, day dairies that I had kept off and on for decades.  Also I did a preliminary rewrite as I progressed through each chapter.  In one sense the autobiography is easy to organize, in that you are not finished until all the years or significant creative periods are documented, you don’t have to think so far as to “where does this end?” as in a different sort of book; the other sense is that the scope must be there for an entire lifetime, and the density or focus or depth of detail for each important period should be continuous and consistent—you don’t want 50 pages about one period and geographical locale or one book project, and 5 about another, because you’ve lost interest in it; each year or period or creative epoch as it were has its own interest and necessity for narrative examination and soulful pursuit. 

             For many years, I kept the saying on my wall that French novelist Emile Zola kept over his desk, “Nulla dies sine linea” (“Not a day without a line,” originally from the Greek painter, Apelles, 332 BC), as inspiration (Balzac had the same motto, as did Anthony Trollope, mentioned in Trollope’s An Autobiography).  I have suggested in previous chapters (“Creativity”) the importance of keeping both a Manager’s Log book by your computer to organize projects as you work through them, but also the keeping of day journals on a regular basis.  If you aspire to ever writing a coherent and accurate autobiography, then some sort of harvesting of events and your personal reactions to those events as they happen is essential.  Also, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, journals will help define ongoing projects, delineate long-term goals and short-term accomplishments, and allow one a truly professional harvesting method for your own thoughts and working out of projects, a good source of material then for any future autobiographical projects.

             It is essential to get at the task, that is the actual writing, and to do that on a regular basis, especially as you proceed and warm to the task, and probably as the project grows beneath your fingers (and probably extends itself) to not become too bogged down, but to continue forward and make sure you are accomplishing the writing of each chapter (chronologically or geographically if that’s the way it’s organized, or out of usual chronology, or by topic or theme if that’s how you prefer) so that the work grows beneath you, and with a quality of veracity and recording the essential parts of your life and experience, till you have each component of your life organized, revealed, recorded for posterity, and put together in a manner that is clear, concise, and of course, interesting for your readers.  Several times my working Manager’s Log notes:  “Make concise, but interesting; also avoid the frequent use of phrase, ‘I remember.’”  You’ll notice, that coming upon the discussion of some earlier, as yet uncompleted project, will only interest you again, in completing that.  So, it’s not only a good reminder of unfinished creative work, but it’s a way for you to once more feel the experiential context of why you envisioned the work, which should bolster your motivation and plans actually to finalize the accomplishment, in a fully professional manner, and out for the public to enjoy.  Again, as you proceed through the details of the work, or in my case of actually creating a book or art project, provide enough of the details and manner of completion, so that those who follow can access your working methods and benefit from your experience, in my case for my daughter’s edification, maybe future grandchildren and great-grandchildren, as well as other authors and editors or scholars, who also might benefit.

             I often found, probably as a characteristic of memory (or my own memory perhaps, as I wrote the maxim, “Memory is not its own device, it proceeds from the heart,” Keystone, Notes for Apprentice Authors) that most of the events I remembered well, even with the names of many individuals I hadn’t been in touch with for twenty or more years, as long as the writing was clustered about the actual time period and could be associated with the many events, locations, geographic parameters, emotions of the time period—however, figuring out the exact dates for me was more difficult.  Memory being of the heart, however, indicates that we each remember things in our life categorically or colored usually by emotion, by our own personal filter or “screen”; yet that can be the exact way it should be remembered; that is, if the item, person, locale, event was important, then it’s there, if not, it’s forgotten permanently, in a way shading before we even have access to “all the facts and information” the kind of personalized story that only each one of us can relate about our own personal lives.  I tend not to remember year dates with any exactness, and rather like my driving memory (all visual cues with buildings and intersections vs. analytical with street names and route numbers), but I do remember the visualizing or re-experiencing of the events with the locales and personalities involved in a vivid fashion.  If a name came up missing, I’d leave a blank line _________ in the original manuscript, place a note in my Manager’s Log, and usually the next day the name would resurface.  For some facts, it did help to contact a friend or relative about a particular event, in one case a good friend visited me while I was living in Charlottesville, but it was only by writing him long afterwards and asking him, that we figured out the exact year.  More factual things like exact place names or intellectual information, book titles, publishers, social events, of course, usually can be researched online today, and sometimes, if that’s not enough, the help of a professional librarian often will solve any particulars quickly.  Usually, on any writing project, I always keep a list of research questions or a sheet set up that way, and it’s a continuous process of filling in necessary research questions, then solving and answering those challenges, entering them back into the text, and of course continuing to note the next question for research. 

             One will notice, with the inner importance of completing the autobiography that I mentioned, the problem of using so many “I” constructions in your writing (my early first chapters have the note “I-I-I”).  This is unavoidable, probably, due to the subject of the writing, and also, with the construction “I thought this” or “I noticed that” being more dynamic than many sentence constructions where the subject “I” is dropped, and a more passive sentence substituted (“The event was caused by . . .”), though in many instances one will go ahead with “The thought occurred that …” instead of “I thought” or “The brightness made me recall . . .” instead of “I noticed . . . .”  Moving ahead with the description at hand will avoid too much use of a personal pronoun or circumlocutions such as “it seemed to me” or “it reminded me” (obviously whom else would be reminded?), yet it is a thing to consider.  After some trials different means of narration will evolve for your natural storytelling capacities, so that should not prove difficult.  Two things arise here, though, about the apparent “narcissism” of the task:  One, there’s a large interest these days for many families to complete family “backgrounds” with individuals doing years and years of genealogical research and building or completing with accuracy full family trees for many preceding generations; and Two, the artist is always curious about everything and everybody, including him or herself.  Some recent creative talents strike me that way:  Andy Warhol, the pop painter and conceptual artist, who documented much of his daily life in video and audio diaries (one really needs to visit the inspiring Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA to glimpse the full range of Warhol’s output and interests over decades); and R. Buckminster Fuller, the modern “renaissance engineer” who popularized the geodesic dome and his Dymaxion maps, cars, houses (Fuller kept regular chronicles as a lifelong scrapbook, “The Chronofile,” which not only included his own daily artifacts, but even events and inventions or ideas promoted at that period of his life, then he documented how long an invention might take to actually manifest, Fuller was thus able to discover “gestation rates” for certain innovations for humanity, a profound use of his Chronofile!  Bucky Works by J. Baldwin).  Fuller later chronicled his life every 15 minutes, resulting in letters, publications, video and audio tapes, 50,000 slides and photographs, over 64,000 feet of movie film for his autobiographical Chronofile. 

             Many painters, of course, refuse to write anything at all, but will do many series of painted “self-portraits” or graphic autobiographies as their own testimony to self-reflection (the self-portraits by Vincent Van Gogh, Albrecht Dürer, Leonardo, Titian come to mind, and less of Michelangelo, with an occasional inclusion of his self-portrait somewhere in a painting [Last Judgment] or sculpture [late unfinished Deposition], Norman Rockwell, and our contemporary photo-realist painter of self-portraits, Chuck Close; one should not ignore the insightful autobiography in letters left by Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh.).  Picasso even mentioned, “Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.”  It is, in fact, a characteristic of renaissance thought to concentrate on the person, especially with so much early emphasis on Humanism, and of course with portraiture in paint (Leonardo, Titian, Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger) or words (Petrarch’s autobiographical Secretum meum in 1358 and Illustrious Men, Boccaccio’s Concerning Famous Women in 1374 and On The Fate of Famous Men, Cellini with his autobiography, Life, during the Italian Renaissance and Vasari’s Lives of Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, two biographies of Michelangelo published while he was alive—one by Vasari and another by Condivi, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,  Einhard’s biography, Life of Charlemagne, in 803 AD during the Carolingian Renaissance, Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, about 100 AD, but translated for the European Renaissance in 1572 AD).  One might even give the example of the splendid use of soliloquy in Shakespeare’s drama (certainly a “biographical component” or expressed inner or verbalized portrait, though not necessarily autobiographical) and his many historical dramas, titled with the name of a king, or some principal character/subjects (Romeo & Juliet, Othello, Hamlet).  Many later writers who never scribed their own autobiography certainly went far out of their way, to ensure that someone would pen an accurate biography of their lives, Samuel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw being cases in point (selections from Shaw also collected into:  Shaw:  An Autobiography, 1898-1950: the Playwright Years). 

             With the writing of my own autobiography two insights struck me continuously:  One, it was fascinating seeing in print names of past friends and mentors and family and all that recorded for posterity (it gave all that experience a “life of its own” or at least a more formal significance or authenticity than simply resting in my memory); and Two, the ability now, twenty, thirty, forty or more years later to watch the actual creation of “plot lines” as it were (and “themes”) in one’s own actual life, and of course, to examine those with less intense emotion, understand some past events, disbelieve others had actually happened, and to meditate upon where certain personalities were important, where changes happened, how powerful was “fate” or God’s hand, and what major events or happenings or personal decisions meant in the long run or course of the rest of one’s life.  I suppose, this might prove of more interest to a novelist or fiction writer, in the sense that after writing six major novels, several novellas, and three dozen short stories, that here, finally, I was looking at my own life, and unfortunately, there was no way to make “alterations,” plot changes, or creative suggestions, now, of course, that the events were in the past.  One has to appreciate the facts.  From journal, 5/24/2000:  “Difficulty of working on Autobiography . . . can’t create or make up facts, plus all the emotions involved, blocking, or to deal with as the material evolves . . .” Again, through, is the feeling deep inside, of the metaphysics of being able to do this at all, the Divine Grace of it, to examine one’s actual life in detail (while still alive, if we might revert to previous after-death analogy), and of course, the powerful motivation of being able to turn all of that, the life lived, the mistakes made, the achievements accomplished, the loves and hates, turn all of that back upon itself, so as to make oneself larger or perhaps wiser, and to show others, perhaps, a way or different way of going about the creative life, or maybe certain book or creative projects.  Again, is the third-hand usage then, with the productivity of this formulation of an inspirational text or notes on a methodology for someone else to complete his or her autobiography. 

              Still, that doesn’t stop one from coming up with some essential “druthers,” or thoughts about what I would’ve changed.  My list (“Things I Should’ve Done”) from 5/7/2000 (two months before completion of autobiography) includes:

1. Embraced stronger Christianity earlier in life (or returned to Catholic Church sooner) and stayed with it.
2. Continued with revolutionary politics after college or worked more pointedly for societal change in my young adult years (I chose instead to change people’s “consciousness.”—which ended up being nearly impossible for the time period.  I didn’t take into account the ability for America in the 1970’s and 1980’s to stonewall, avoid, and thereby censor anyone’s writing whom the established controllers didn’t agree with.  If people couldn’t read my works, there’d be no change at all).
3. Upon my second trip to Spain in 1977 I had thought to visit in person a favorite painter, Salvador Dali (still alive then), but although I visited his area in Barcelona, I decided not to contact him, feeling I was only one of his “aficionados.”
4. I missed attending a live lecture in the 1970’s at Kent State University in Kent, OH by R. Buckminster Fuller (still alive then)—and since have had to study his work secondhand, off and on for many years.
5. I should’ve done ANYTHING to self-publish my works sooner, in my mid-twenties.  Today, as in my autobiography, the advice I give to new authors:  Publish, publish, publish.
6. I interviewed with and had a chance for a second conventional journalist position in New Jersey in 1989, with a creative and serious weekly newspaper, but the salary was so low and living costs so high, I turned it down.
7. I considered self-publishing my first book of essays, Ardour, Words of Speculations & Esteem in Akron in 1987 and again in Uniontown in 1990 or so; but decided against it because of the high cost of small-scale conventional publishing then (at least $1000).  In both instances I was barely able to survive at conventional day jobs.
8. My original plan after completing my first novel, Abbas & Merdan, in the 1970’s was to move to Spain to live and continue writing because I loved Europe, disliked American culture, and at the time was fluent in Spanish.  The novel was never accepted by mainstream publishers.  Later, I wanted to emigrate to Spain, Italy, or Canada (actually anywhere there was a truly free press); now I feel I should’ve emigrated to Canada at least by my forties.  (Such has been the action of other American émigrés.)

 

             There is a different case with Samuel Johnson, where some critics already have mentioned that while much of his actual writing is long forgotten, his life and ideas as presented by biographer James Boswell are still classic reading (one has to admit, though, that Johnson’s literary achievements are profound for his day and created untold blessings for later generations, especially his gigantic effort at A Dictionary of the English Language, an annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and his own biographical effort, The Lives of the English Poets, all that in England of the 1700’s, especially with Johnson’s suffering from Tourette syndrome).  Johnson liked biography also, thought that “the writer of an autobiography would be the least likely to distort his own life.” (Wikipedia)  Boswell’s Life of Johnson offers a quotation from “Plutarch, the prince of ancient biographers”:  “Nor is it always in the most distinguished achievements that men’s virtues or vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person’s real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles.”  People coming to even the off-hand accounts of one’s inner life, as in the numerous (and wonderfully written) letters over decades by Vincent Van Gogh (to his mentor and patron, his brother, Theo), notice the extraordinary empathy and professionalism by Vincent Van Gogh (too often presented through his terrible neurotic episodes), and his absolute dedication as a painter, his sensitivity, compassion, and his more rounded personality (he liked contemporary literature and is a good writer as well as a gifted artist).  So, one should not think the graphic portion of the “self-life” within autobiography goes for naught. (See also Salvador Dali’s books, The Secret Life of Salvador Dali and Diary of a Genius.)

             In my autobiography, several themes predominate, and I write this now as a reader of the book, too, without so much of a self-conscious “acceptance” in my usual life of feeling this way:  The Outsider Theme, The Artist Against Society, and The Individualist (not necessarily an eccentric).  I suppose parts of all of those blend into each other, but The Outsider is considerable.  I wish I had put this together for myself; but I was already an Individualist and an Artist Against Society, when at the age of about thirty in Charlottesville, Virginia, I came across the books of British Author, Colin Wilson.  The first was an intellectual novel, The Philosopher’s Stone, recommended by a friend, a professional Virginia sculptor, David Breeden, and from that I discovered Wilson’s first earlier nonfiction book, The Outsiders.  Wilson’s insight was that it’s often the people outside of society, who work in dedicated fashion in the arts, in writing, in science, or with religion even, who are the actual achievers or changers of society, and go through a depth of alienation, a need for self-expression, and some way to live life more intensely.  “The visionary is inevitably an Outsider,” writes Wilson (The Outsider).  I was later taken so much by the work of Colin Wilson, including his book about psychology (authored with active participation of Abraham Maslow), which matched my own interests, New Pathways in Psychology:  Maslow & The Post-Freudian Revolution, that I corresponded with Wilson several times, even penning a causal dedication to him and sending him my fourth novel, Gratuity, because I’d used his Outsider Theme and mentioned him in the novel.  I guess I’m trying to say that all along I had been an Outsider, but never put it together in quite the same way, nor did I understand the ramifications of all the further trauma and tribulations that I would have to go through as I continued my writing career and watched with horror and despair, as the fight against mediocrity in America became a daily battle.

             We of the 1970’s and 1980’s in America came to our outsider status in a different way, or a distinct process, which was more with the “dropping out” of society, to form our own countercultural groups or communities (not so much as an idealized live-in community, but a tight group of associates and friends, with friendship ties lasting over many decades).  I was part of the student activists so enraged during the Student Movement that I could never “sell out” as most of the generation did, could never put up with conventional employment, could never participate or want to participate in the establishment or conventional culture of America.  In my younger days, when I looked around, after the youthful politics seemed only to lead to more hatred and violence, it was only in the arts, particularly writing (and for a time with photography, pursing a partial apprenticeship in commercial photography, running my own small family portraiture business, and finally publishing photography in community newspapers as well as The Washington Post, and still pursuing photography with a fine art distinction, photos held in Akron by a Museum, and plans for exhibitions as well as several photo books), but it was in writing that I felt I could find some vocation, for true nobility and achievement.  I didn’t know, nor could I have ever imagined in my worst nightmares, the struggle that would ensue . . . and it is often, even with many small-scale publications of my writing, credits as editors of newspapers, magazines, newsletters, with independent book publishing, some stage productions in Pittsburgh of my plays, that I’ve continued primarily as a dedicated artist, actually as an undiscovered painter might pursue his or her true vocation:  producing works, cataloging the achievements, revising early productions, planning future productions, doing public promotions and marketing, accomplishing present writing projects—all without any solid financial, critical, or professional support or stability. 

             So, when I mention the sometimes immense, profound reaction, a life in letters and viewing the art of Vincent Van Gogh might have (besides my reading his letters, his biography, and watching many film productions, I’ve also spent extensive time inside the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Holland), I am putting across a similar understanding of knowing, of fully comprehending that same pain and frustration and inability, just yet, for instance of climbing the wall separating the future (acceptance) from the current present or tomorrow’s  present (rejection), the past manifesting it’s ugly face each day for me. (This might be considered as a “Validation Gap” or “Credibility Chasm” between present and future.)  We can have no mercy, truly, for the society of Van Gogh’s Europe, when he could only survive in utter poverty and despair from the loving charity and psychic support of his brother, Theo; today Vincent’s paintings sell in the neighborhood of millions of dollars each (Van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait With Bandaged Ear” fetched $82 million in the 1990’s).  Is there not some kind of cosmic loan one can make, on a “future commodity purchase” or “painting as a property holding next century” or “future hedge against inflation” one might contrive, to survive in the present and be able to do that with enough wherewithal to buy paint (or in my case computer printer ink and paper and other supplies), but more significantly, to put together the actual work time to achieve in a professional fashion and distribute or exhibit to the public, all that one is capable of in the arts (and this not for some “dreamer,” but a professional painter or an author like myself with already some 21 completed books)?  The Validation Gap!  What that answer is, I have yet to discover; but again, it’s been a recurring theme, figures predominately in the story of my life, and even today, is a cause for concern and something intellectually and spiritually and in a commonsensical fashion, that I must learn to master! 

             For the individualist part, it’s best to mention the line from Emerson’s “Self- Reliance”:  “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.” 

             The problem today, and this written in 2010 in USA, is that all western societies have become such gigantic mass machines, not necessarily good or evil, but overwhelming in their control, demands, and framework of allowed activity, that it is becoming ever more increasingly difficult to lead one’s own life.  Nothing, as of this date in America, follows one (as to health benefits, pension, or most retirement plans) if one is moving from state to state, or even job to job; the situation of money in the economy, even without considering these years of “The Great Recession,” is so inflationary compared to 20 or 30 or 40 years ago (where automobiles alone are some 1000% more than in 1970 or ten times the dollar cost, while wages in the lower work force are essentially stagnant), and where if one is single, one suddenly finds your lower income having to compete for living space and essential services against two-income professional couples (“DINKs” Double Income No Kids), so the entire necessity of earning even a basic living now demands all of one’s time (where before 1980 there could be periods of part-time work at a job, to achieve one’s art).  It goes on and on.  

             In the universities, one’s required to read one’s work to others in a group setting (“writer’s workshops” or MFA classrooms) and as mentioned in an earlier chapter (“Acceptance of the Individual Author”), never would that be done for a musician, a painter, a sculptor, a photographer—which of them ever, ever in their wildest imagination would consider changing one portion of their art because some stranger, a disinterested spectator, thought corrections should be made?  Groupthink now predominates; Don’t you watch ballgames on TV, We’ve got to use “teamwork,” but why?  Usually a team reduces the output or production quality to the lowest common denominator and magnifies the inefficiency; study only the latest computer software upgrade, which never works, goes through unparalleled glitches in beta test versions, or the Hollywood practice of using focus groups for choosing goofy endings for films.  It makes one want to gag!  What society really wants today is a cog, a small tedious drudge, who will never raise any questions, and who will perform minor technological tasks at the lowest minimum pay scale.  We don’t need leaders in this country; we need only more subservience coaches.  How, exactly, should we grovel?  

             The problem is, of course, that the arts are a singular or solitary profession (with some industrial production lines, of course, for mass effectiveness from individual workshops or “art factories”) and one will never get the highs or lows of aiming at greatness from a structured university setting or a rigid, corporate methodology anywhere else, or even from a couple of regularly successful “media producers” putting together cheap mass entertainment packages of “TV show-book or movie novelization-film” combos with the cry, “We’ll hire a couple more writers!”   The results, naturally, are junk; the problem is, why even in the popular media, do we put up with the trash, why don’t we walk out of the ridiculous adolescent movies and demand our ticket price returned, why don’t we ever simply turn off the TV?  (Who exactly answers all of these supposed rating surveys?  Have you ever answered one, do you know of anyone who has, or even know anyone else who has even heard of someone they know answering one?)  How much of this fake, fat, fragmented pop culture do we have to support?  And for how long?  

             In industrial terms we watched this past year in America with the near gutting of our entire car manufacturing system—after years of bizarre, unbelievably stupid (for its own survival) auto mismanagement that continued and continued and continued . . . until it finally fell apart by its own vulgarity, almost completely.  It’s a nation with fat cats (those of low visionary capabilities, low intellects, low leadership potential—yet ripping down big salaries) in charge for the almost total destruction through greed and corruption and pure ignorance of its own sustainability.  This is no diatribe today, it’s only the repetitious echo of what major newsmagazines and newspapers print every day (Why did ALL of them wait until a change in presidents, to voice such observations, why?  Because the media is part and parcel of the same bloated ignorance and mass conformity or propaganda machine as all the rest.  Now the newspapers are dying!).  Finally we must face it, as I wrote decades ago, that America has never been and still is not a “meritocracy.”  Now with the bloated university industry, we are a society which is what I call a “degratocracy” (“degraded elite of credentialed automatons” or an oligarchy of similarly educated, unthinking holders of college degrees, as distinct from actual talented individuals).  The best credentialed are employed today in modern America, rather than the best qualified, naturally capable, or smart individuals.  It’s come full circle; it’s not going to change till those in charge are forced by their own conformist failures in every industry in ever part of the culture to face it:  the failure of the group, the herd mentality, the consumer mass assumptions (versus the individuals, the innovators, the creators). 

             Those thinking I’m on a temporary tirade or rant because in this past year we almost experienced another Great Depression need to read my essay, “Psychology & Economics” (reprinted in my collection, Quintessence:  Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance), where these issues were discussed in 1989, about how America too often confuses “money with quality” and throws dollars at problems to solve them, instead of bringing in an influx of true problem solvers.  I had even mentioned how the news media rarely speaks about quality at all, especially with films or TV or books or anything, rather the rating terms are volume financial considerations, mostly with dollars brought in or popularity percentages, as if any film which rakes in the top millions must be excellent.  (In the same writing, there also was a critique of Marx.)  That essay was circulated in 1989 all over the world, including Eastern Europe and the USSR (before it’s fall) as well as the USA.  The paper helped set the stage for the disintegration of the USSR and (with other materials sent to Germany) the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Today, that same essay is still sound and it’s 21 years old—2 decades of continuous, obvious American nonsense.  Maybe the country will change for the better; my point here, however, is to show again how some of the larger themes with my autobiography, with my insights and writing and my creative life, coincide with the wider and more ubiquitous events and characteristics of the time period we currently inhabit. 

             Along with the individualist theme, there are other indications which can point to the working of fate, and lead others, I think to an understanding of ways to bring creative effort into the open and functioning in an effective manner within society.  Several times in my life there have been creative periods where small “communities” have developed, of like-minded souls, and as the first of these manifested, afterwards it was something I came to appreciate, participate in, and even attempt to organize.  The first for me was a group of like-minded “hip drop-outs,” all mostly recent college graduates in the early 1970’s, when we lived among a loose group of friends in St. Petersburg, Florida.  Many of my friends picked up skills in working trades (and myself too, with carpentry), others worked in traditional fields as teachers, some went on to become entrepreneurs and artists, others, like myself, continued further with a creative writing career.  It was a time when we had much fun with weekend trips, weekday gatherings or talk fests and dinners or shared literature, and exchanges of different trips from the area (Brenda, my wife then, and I flew to Montego Bay in Jamaica, traveled around Florida, and took part in the Mardi Gras in New Orleans).  It was a creative period for me with the production of novels, stories, nonfiction, poetry, painting, and much reading and research.  A kind of bohemian existence for three or four years; again it was within a close group of like-minded friends (many from the same hometown in Pennsylvania, Johnstown). 

             The second creative community developed in Charlottesville, Virginia, around the late 1970’s, where my wife, Brenda, and I hired on to help out with a newly burgeoning French Gourmet restaurant, The C&O Restaurant (afterwards with much national acclaim).  We helped to found a community newspaper (The Times of Charlottesville), and I started and edited a literary journal (The Blue Ridge Review).  For about ten years, we interacted with many other like-minded souls, many grad students from UVA, and a host of creative writers, filmmakers, architects, painters, photographers, sculptors, entrepreneurs (restaurants, wine cellars, night clubs, magazine ventures, bookstores, boutique malls), and others in the small community.  It was a creative period, where I wrote many journalism pieces, book reviews, published interviews and photography, met national filmmakers and authors, wrote and published many short stories, authored a novel (Gratuity), and developed plans for many other projects (a book about psychology, advanced cosmology, notes on religious experiences, preliminary architecture designs for a small cathedral, inventions), plus traveling to Europe (for the second time, since my year as an undergraduate in Valladolid, Spain and an early visit to Morocco, from which developed my first novel, Abbas & Merdan). 

             By the time I arrived in Uniontown, Pennsylvania in the early 1990’s (after my Virginia divorce and creative solitary year in Montana) and started meeting others involved with diverse community theatre ventures, I was able to recognize and plan for the “creative community effort,” actually a part of a larger Renaissance Happening, or “renaissance creation or building pattern” that I was a part of—this became the third time.  Once recognizing such events (again penning the autobiography allows for patterns to emerge, if not recognized beforehand, as this one was), one can plan on the community and instigate it or inspire or precipitate creative activities and build small groups of creative people to help magnify one’s efforts.  (I was a playwright-in-residence and actor with Theatrix Unlimited there; also I wrote about our creative activities in my newsletter, Virtù.)  While this was significant in my earlier days, and was truly a part of a larger renaissance pattern in Uniontown, PA, it was one that I failed to manifest again while living in Akron, Ohio during 2000 (though it started for a time in working with Chris White, editor of local literary press RagerMedia, and with his press’s blog venture sponsored by Akron Beacon Journal, “The AkroCentric” literary blog—where these first chapters were printed by invitation).  The Great Recession intervened.  

             It may take as little as a small classified newspaper or online ad to begin a community; maybe start meetings in a local café or coffee shop, have a full-blown artistic salon in the European sense, then organize more ventures as one recognizes which arts are prevalent among the members or new or old friends within each small “family” or gathering.  (Having access to media helps promote the vision.)  Others might work exclusively on the Internet.  The magnification comes about as Buckminster Fuller so formulated, with “synergy”; that is, the active group is able to provide more focused productions than any one person or the rational sum of each person separately involved could do.  More so, it allows for a developed individualist, like myself, to avoid becoming too much of a loner, to socialize with like-minded souls, share inspiration and creative projects, provide public vehicles for one’s art, and interact within the locale or specific time/geographic location where the community resides for that period.  Again, however, versus the large GroupThink style of other “groups” especially in an institutional sense with universities or corporations, these small discrete artistic communities are collections of self-developed individuals, many already productive and developed with their artistic or creative skills, who can assert creative or proactive efforts to bring about more achievement within the arts and real or profound change in the outside community.  (That’s quite different from students vying for degrees and professors collecting paychecks.)  It’s actually a part or working “secret” or puzzle of the great periods in history, the creative eras, the “Golden Ages” or Renaissance Periods, when highly talented individuals band together into small communities, for a time, in a city or locale (Florence, Milan, Rome), and achieve great accomplishments (by groups of usually less than a dozen people, sometimes only a handful of “key creators”).  It’s the way a society (or even the world) truly functions for acceleration, the necessity of needing only the right individuals (great achievers) to bring about world-renowned changes, developments, progress, great world-class art (or government as in the founding of America) in certain historical periods.  That may suddenly prove to be a startling insight, simply from chronicling your own activities throughout different locales and periods in your creative life.  If it’s an insight now in your own life, creative readers can start to incorporate that same effort with their regular creative patterns and learn to magnify your efforts as well as boosting or developing the society.  All change is first internal, it flows then out into the society, then into the larger world, and if grand and profound and positive enough, into history. 

             I think other patterns emerge, too, with my case showing how the act of writing and being dedicated to the creative arts opened certain doors when moving from one geographic community to another (especially in the case of moving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where before in rural Virginia I was publishing small pieces in Harper’s Weekly and writing short stories, then I came across an early meeting for the start-up of a “community newspaper” in Charlottesville [The Times of Charlottesville, where I became a regular contributing editor] and that led to other survival jobs and creative opportunities and connections).  The continuity of life projects slowly emerges, where one picks up the pieces after dramatic events in one’s life, moves on if necessary; yet the projects continue and eventually are completed in a professional manner.  That is the type of thread or constant pattern which would be impossible to recognize, track, or even maybe accept (as well as accomplish over a broad swatch of time in one’s life) without being active with keeping autobiographical journals or diaries, larger note files, and eventually completing the autobiography itself.  It is a note, thusly, as inspirational warning, for others following in similar paths to do the same; ensure one’s longevity in the artistic career sense and one’s accomplishment or actual ability to complete one’s creative achievements and projects in the short-term.  

             Again, it was from studying biographies, paintings, and The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, that I was able to put together the necessity for completing or accomplishing my projects professionally (to finish my first drafts of book materials or earlier drafts, especially since I share a trait with Leonardo; it is the first fruits of a creative task or the early burst of creative energy on a specific project that proves the most exciting for me, as it must’ve been for him, as Leonardo left many unfinished works).  Also, it was by studying the biography and life works of the Italian poet, Petrarch, that I saw the early necessity of collating, collecting, annotating my earlier works (during my time in Montana) and by which I was able to achieve with persistence, great creativity, and focused work habits, the completion of many books.  Without all that study of earlier great achievers, though mostly through biographies vs. autobiographies, I would’ve been unable to recognize patterns in my life that needed addressed, used effectively (collecting early work, building communities, harvesting insights), and been defeated by potential dangers in lack of achievement (without the Montana year, for instance).  I think it was also from reading My Life, Wagner’s autobiography, that I started writing my own, with the understanding of his admission of times of weakness, fatigue, and bad health or luck; yet even with his early penury and the later artistic poverty forced upon him by society (and his own extravagant habits, too!) Richard Wagner transcended the troubled times to achieve very great art.  Without seeing part of his life from the inside, in his own words, it is easy to gloss over maybe some of his works, thinking that everything came about without gigantic, or even titanic efforts actually (appropriate for high dramatic opera), that is his life required operatic struggles. 

             Probably, it is time to address the larger issue here with an autobiography, one of the spiritual.  There are two facets to this, appropriate for our dualistic world, in that with the emphasis on the intellectual (an older or romantic notion of “spirit” but more with meaning today of “the mind”), and the other is with pure metaphysics, and in a more specific sense, the religious.  With the intellectual, it should come as no surprise to see me mentioning, for instance, a definition of special reading skills and traditional almost meditative deep or serious reading as being a “transcendental function,” as in my redefinition of it with the acronym ANDAR (Alpha Numerical Dimensional Acceleration Response), or that the life of the mind connects to an actual mental plateau or plane if not of existence exactly, certainly a verifiable place of vivid and regular experience.  The scope or action for instance of Petrarch actually penning letters to Plato of early eras, as if the person were living nearby in the same time period, is that exact sensation because the mental plateau does exist in real time all the time!  There is that level of intellectual experience that one enters, within or upon or about the world, as a function of the thinking members of humanity, all humanity for all time, who in a certain sense are able to interact with one (not in the spiritualist sense of communicating with past souls) in the sense more of adding to the stored shared resources of thinking humanity, in accepting the great achievements of past thinkers, mentors, spiritual teachers, and in working upon that same plane now, feeling it as activity perfectly alive and active upon this same plane or transcendental plateau (perhaps “Platonic”?), and also knowing, with the eternality of the living plane of mental existence (“learned or achieved human/divine consciousnesses” perhaps) that others will follow in the same fashion, after we each move on from this material world into a greater glory with God (for me with Jesus Christ).             

             (Although, I’ve already described a discussion about Spirituality in a past chapter, it is pertinent to mention that I have an ability, documented by some, called Psychometry, whereby with solely reading a book, I often can envision an earlier time period, people and events, and other feelings, not rendered in a rational way through a text.  The pure term of Psychometry refers to even picking up an object, and receiving sensory impressions mystically, simply from touching it.  But this is different, I think, from the entire plane of existence that I am referring to, which is accessible by any serious or sincere student or intellectual worker or creator; perhaps an easier image might be to think of the plane as you might call it today, almost as a “world-wide spiritual web”—but no need to ever boot up a physical computer, it’s all via one’s mind and spirit!) 

             The second sense, about the religious, is perhaps understood and even accepted more widely.  There’s an ancient Latin maxim, Memento mori (“remember, you will die”) and a phrase from the New Testament, “You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.” (James, 4:14)  We are each admonished to take life seriously, to live it in a moral fashion, so that when life passes quickly, we will be prepared for the hereafter.  There are those Christians who keep a regular Prayer Journal, but going back to our original premise, it is by confronting your life in some detail, the people and events, the achievements and failures, the joys and sorrows, and pain and grief and despair—and too, sin—that we are able to make some evaluation of our days here, brief though they be, and hopefully, to take some account of them, right wrongs, perfect irregularities, reflect upon what is truly right or correct in an eternal fashion, make adjustments too, as in a boat navigating the sea, to make sure our direction is in the proper or exact direction for achieving our destination.  Destination is the biggest concept there, because with Christian concepts, there are specific destinations for the eternal fate of the soul, after our material days cease (those who still pooh-pooh the traditionalist suggestion of Hell, should understand how concepts of a grim Hades go back through many ancient cultures, and perhaps the most vivid would be first-person testimonials in the autobiographies of Christian Saints, such as St. Teresa of Avila [1515-1582], The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, where she has an horrific vision of souls in Hell, as did St. John Bosco, St. Faustina, and the children of Fatima). 

             My own autobiography makes mention of my religious orientation (Roman Catholic), how I was born and raised a Catholic, but fell away from practicing any religious rites during my early adult life, investigating just about every religion and philosophy and study of psychic and spiritual practices I could find.  The intense studies and my own ongoing, consistent, and vivid spiritual experiences eventually brought me back to traditional worship, within Roman Catholicism.  By that point in my life (late 40’s) I could prove “scientifically” or in a rational fashion from my own experiences and studies almost all of the miracles, sacraments, and assorted rites of Roman Catholicism, and felt, that many of the awful events in my life could’ve been avoided, if I had been more devout.  Also, I came to a full understanding of my own talents (now I would say “gifts of The Holy Spirit”), in that I felt my varied and powerful psychic talents could be used for more active prayer and especially for healings.  This has proven to be correct, I believe, and have spent further time, since my re-acceptance within the church investigating more of the history, roots, and various supportive works (saints, brotherhoods, Church Fathers and scholars, as well as purely Christian literary books), to enrich my understanding of the faith, and I pray, to allow me also, to reflect back that knowledge in a profound way, to my readers in later books and creative writing. 

             As I’ve mentioned in my chapter on “Spirituality,” all my studies and experiences led me to understand that Catholicism (with Christianity of course as its foundation and expression in our world) is the most profound understanding of our world, scientific and spiritual.  “Universality.”  In fact, it is impossible to understand the world or life itself, without knowing and following Jesus Christ.  (“No one comes to the Father, except through me.” John 14:6-7)  In the autobiography then, I mention some of this, mention often my times of prayer, of despair, of inner turmoil and outward grief, and too of the fully conscious understanding of how religious tinged or religiously explained events were taking place in my life.  (I believe that much in our reality manifests in obvious and obscure symbols, and often, as in studying one’s dreams, a detailed tracking and study of those manifestations will help one realize more completely or clearly exactly what God is trying to tell you or indicate in your life at the moment of those events).  There is a similar comment from British journalist and author Malcolm Muggeridge, “Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God Speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message.”

             The memento mori discussion brings with it more consequences, I believe.  With the remarks about an autobiography and the briefness of our lives one must come to a compliance or convergence with the values of one’s life, and how those values should be understood, and how those values fit within an eternal scheme.  It comes without saying, using both of my examples of spiritual understanding, both the intellectual or “of mind” approach, and the traditional religious or “of soul” approach, that we are looking or confronting what has been achieved, failed to be achieved, or could still be achieved in one’s life, and discovering if any of that is of any value, first to oneself, of course (that is the hard part of the self-reflection, consideration, and maturation), and second to the world at large, both to our family and also general readers, and third, or finally, to God Almighty.  I’ve gone on here at length, even with my own belief and sensations for instance of an “intellectual plane of existence,” because that is my legacy; it’s part of the meaning of all these words and the lifetime effort with words (as well as many other creative projects), because first of all I’ve never been a pure materialist (even in younger days when I only believed in God), and second, because truly when we consider everything, everything we do or say or have or buy or accumulate or achieve, what, what of any of that at all, is left when we die?  What?

             These are hard words, because it is so easy to say, of course I understand what you’re discussing, but another thing, as the rich man crying out to Jesus of how to enter the kingdom and is told to give away his possessions, whence the phrase, “It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle . . .” (Matthew 19:24), to follow that in one’s life.  The lives of many authors are filled sometimes with complete poverty and tragedy, yet still the writer has produced very great art (Dante, Cervantes, the Brontës, Dostoevsky, D.H. Lawrence), and others whose lives were grand mixtures of poverty and blessings (Jane Austen, Poe, Kerouac, Maya Angelou, Solzhenitsyn).  There’s the understanding that in the end, none of these authors could take the writings with them, but yes, they could leave them here, to transform each and every one of us, over continuing generations of men and women.  It is a proud and lasting and hearty legacy; a grand and worthy achievement, I believe, and it quickly shows how all the other possession gathering, the rushing after fame and glory or especially wealth (we think of the tragedy of F. Scott Fitzgerald) really shows shallowness, delusion, outright falsity.  If we truly believe any or even some of this discussion, then why the worry about having little, or having to risk one’s conventional career for instance (instead of completing one’s novel or even autobiography or other creative projects), or why worry about the possessions, when mostly they are either tools and conveniences for a pleasurable existence or outright adult toys.  Granted the risk today is greater with trashing a conventional job (with inflation and the high exorbitant cost of everything in America in the Twenty-first Century, if one is “unemployed”), but what is truly left?  Do we leave a box of the receipts for our new stereo, a taped discussion about how neat our new car is to drive, a few postcards or emails about how we enjoyed vacationing in Las Vegas; or do we leave a body of intellectual work or creative art works and maybe, an account of what all that brought or failed to bring into our lives, and henceforth, into the lives of our descendents, and more importantly, the greater world at large?

             We are back, then, with one of my original discussions (“Importance of the Individual Author”), where it is not so much, I feel, a suggestion that all life is vanity, rather it is a fundamental understanding of how each of our own inherent self-worths (as fully realized potential souls and bodies in God’s Grand Domain) might be put to the best possible use here, on earth, for ourselves for our fellow human beings, and for our God.  Those are stringent words in one sense, because it places that intense modern “existential burden” again right back upon our own shoulders, but with a full knowledge, a knowledge of the actual and real power of one individual, what one man or woman might accomplish in this world, and too, what that implies for the average among us, who fail to accomplish anything at all.  One human being changes the world; a changed world can be a blessing for the new men and women; one earth, transformed, can bring about a reasonable understanding of God’s true dominion and grace, and that allows us a place of moving toward complete fulfillment and completion within Life.

             One of the continual constants in my own autobiography, and in this discussion about writing about one’s life, and in my own writing of every sort of form of creative expression, is meaning.  Meaning brought me to the arts, is a process of discovery for me with every single writing project (or I’d become so bored I’d stop), is a foundation or principal for gauging great works of writing and separating them from those which are only fashionable or some academic trend (decorative or entertaining books), and is the freight or fuel or rudder as it were for the vessel of one’s autobiography, to deliver the events and characters and thoughts and actions that for the entire course of one’s life have provided, or failed to provide, meaning.  It is even the process, by which these pages are formed, what kind of meaning can be gained, garnered, or transformed from the process of expressing one’s life.  When that is followed, or used as one’s rudder or navigation instrument, then I believe all else becomes clear.

             Perhaps, some consideration of other forms would be best.  Earlier in this chapter I mentioned about breaking off part of my autobiography, into a Spiritual Memoir.  I recommend doing this, especially for special creative periods of one’s life, or maybe a block of time or even a series of events which turned out to be profound or traumatic for you, as it might need to be explained or experienced with greater detail, but above all, with a focus, which demonstrates, that you’re going to talk about nothing but the subject at hand, for me, the spiritual. 

             Again, I’ve titled my Spiritual Memoir, Each Man Has A Journey, and it accounts for the chronology from my earliest days up unto more recent times.  I wanted, with this, however, not only to relate certain spiritual events in detail and perhaps dramatize them a bit, but also, to have an area where I might offer my own explanations for what I think happened, or ways the spiritual or “psychic experience” might have happened scientifically, in some cases, what the event might mean in a larger way, for humanity too.  St. Teresa in her autobiography mentions, I think, with a bit of shyness, the manifestations of flat-out miracles in her life, not only the visions one might imagine the saint having, but things as odd as her repeated levitations, while at prayer, and with many others around to witness the supernatural events (she had to be attached by a tether to a church pew in one instance).  It is this sort of thing, then, that I wanted to confront in a separate volume, and to include enough detail so that people knew I wasn’t making anything up, and too, enough insight or estimates intellectually, of how or why, certain events might have happened or continue to happen to me, and of course, the larger issue, isn’t really that such supernatural events took place in my life at all, or to me, but rather that such things are possible, verifiable, and do happen. 

             The astonishing phrase for me, which has always summarized this best, is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” (Act I, Scene 5)  Certain events, like a mundane prescient dream I recorded, which became fact, are unimportant to me or anybody, except I feel that if we believe that even one prophetic dream is possible, then it demolishes traditional science, and suggests an entirely different makeup to “fate,” the timeline into the “future,” the ability of the present to reorganize into unexpected or bizarre configurations and then actually manifest, and maybe even the full scientific understanding of our “reality.” (Some of this discussion is included in my short essay, “I Traveled To The Future,” from collection, Along The Journalistic Path.)  Others, like many ESP sequences, some faith healing incidents, some episodes of clairvoyant vision, psychometry, thought transference or image transference, dream manifestations into other’s minds, psychokinesis, and other abilities all add up to a very different understanding of conventional human consciousness, the science underlying all that, and to a different framework to understanding human beings as body, mind, and soul and an entirely different universe, from what we are lead to believe, by Twenty-first Century science (to be fair, there are enough possibilities and incongruities in current understandings of quantum mechanics, to incorporate portions of these events).  I want such events to become known, recognized, understood, and finally incorporated into a fuller appreciation of God’s supernatural Kingdom in the present and the future.

             Other projects with autobiography entail the use of notebooks, and as earlier mentioned I’ve already started the transcription for publishing of my later day journals, to be titled, The Intermediate Years, Notebooks of Charles A. Taormina.  One thought I had for the production of these comes from my love of going over The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (again including not only books, but viewing his actual notebook pages, the “Codex Hammer” in exhibition from the British Royal Library some years ago in San Francisco).  What I wanted to do was convey the handwritten quality of the journals, which seem more romantic and creative when examined in the original longhand with drawings, as were Leonardo’s (of course, in Italian and with his reverse handwriting or “mirror script”).  Several decades ago, I remember there being a small piece of software that allowed one to incorporate an actual printed script (from computer) that modified a handwritten script into a computer/printer font with idiosyncratic elements from one’s own personal handwriting.  I thought that magnificent, the printed text in a published book would look similar to my own personal handwriting, with one giant exception, it would be perfectly legible! (It seems that the more I write, the less legible is my handwriting, like some physicians scribbling a script for a pharmacist.)  My problem, however, is that the last I searched online, I could find no current software that would design an actual font from characteristics of one’s true handwriting, or even, the machine alternative, to find some handwritten script which seemed somewhat similar and use that.  I’m sure there are alternatives (the last might be to hire an individual programmer to create something anew, but maybe there are applications already available somewhere?).  The idea behind the notebooks is to catch the random thoughts, just as I did, to harvest them from the record of life lived, and sustain them in some notable form for future use, but with a sense or touch of creativity, the humanness of handwriting, and the juxtaposition of different ideas, constant projects, and surprise notations as they appear.  Notebooks, of course, could be more formalized, revised, expanded, or I suppose even fictionalized, as one’s intentions and proclivities so dictate.  Again, the audience is to be kept in focus, so to me clarity and impact of transferring spontaneous creative thoughts seems best to preserve.

             Similar to notebooks, is the keeping and publishing of day journals (which for me are about the same) and diaries (these I consider as of three different kinds:  One, kept as a professional diary by an author, artist, politician, celebrity, scientist, inventor, voyager; Two, kept as a sort of family chronicle entailing much detail about self but also direct insights of family members over a period of time; and Three, mostly a private, maybe brief or highly intimate daily diary).  As mentioned before, some diaries have been published which are exceptional, those by Virginia Woolf, Anaïs Nin, and The Goncourt Brothers; other authors should think several times before making their private thoughts public.  Another category, collected letters, is one that I have not done much with, personally.  The form is viable, often proves exceptional (as the Van Gogh letters mentioned, and Petrarch’s, or those between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters), but though I have been an active letter writer at times in my life, it is not something that I have held onto much (I keep a file, but not so actively); and mostly, my letters have always been more personal or business-like, versus of interest, say in a more literary sense.  If I kept up with some literati in a regular way, then I would hold those and collect them and think about publishing, but it hasn’t proven viable for me in particular.  Others may find it profitable.  Also, these days are particularly difficult with the amount of brief, sometimes awful (in typography, spelling, slang, trendy abbreviations, acronyms) emails that everyone sends; I’m not sure if posterity would consider those in any serious fashion, unless perhaps in a comic or perhaps mischievous way (however, I think this a good topic for inclusion of emails into fiction, as that’s certainly a basic activity of most of our lives).  Some letters, of course, would be included in a traditional autobiography at appropriate points to demonstrate some drama or the inside of a process (I’ve included publisher query letters in mine, to show how books were presented to publishers, that it was a professional effort, and to add some variety to the regular text narrative).  Also, there is the use of the epistolary form for fiction, narrating it all in letters, as presented in Goethe’s novel, Sorrows of Young Werther, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, or my short story and novella, “The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin” (included in collection, Moments, and Triad).  

             Lastly, I would highly recommend the penning of autobiographical essays at certain points in one’s life.  I did this earlier, saved the small articles, included them in a collected book of nonfiction (Along the Journalistic Path), and that allows one to return to certain events for documentation, as well as to do certain try-outs in the autobiographical form, before taking on in later life, a full book-length presentation.  This can be done from a pure autobiographical point of view, though it might be easier to concentrate on some single topic of one’s life, maybe as I did, twice in answer to published queries (Topic, creative influence, “Notes To A Beginning”; Topic, painful incident, “Rocky Raccoon Revisited”; and finally for a brief article about prescient dreams, “I Traveled To The Future”; all collected in Along The Journalistic Path).  One might mention, that it was in such an extended form, not necessarily purely autobiographical but certainly containing elements of autobiography, that we even get the modern term, “essay,” from the Renaissance French author, Michel Montaigne (1533-1592); his Essays still make quite incisive reading.

             I have not discussed other forms of autobiographical recording, but these days many media are available at all levels of sophistication, cost, effectiveness.  These include the obvious with video recorders, taped audio recorders, traditional scrapbooks, photo files, Chronofile collections of larger materials, online or software tools available specifically just for autobiography (be sure to make backups), and probably all sorts of combinations of those tools, plus new ones yet to be experimented with or developed (cell phone autobiographies, or for digitally recording one’s life, see Total Recall by Bell and Gemmell).  Some of these might be considered in even more serious fashion, too, as ways to do special experimental films (about one’s life) or experimental radio shows (audio productions of various lives), or maybe something interactive or even a gaming software about one’s life or some project in one’s life (this was actually done by Buckminster Fuller, as a World Game activity and via his World Game Institute, to show his ideas about the logistics of global decisions being played out with many alternatives, see www.bfi.org) or as a fictional metaphor as in Hesse’s “Glass Bead Game,” or as some have done, to just include all of one’s work and life projects into a multi-storied facility/building (actually I’m thinking of the fascinating Andy Warhol museum in Pittsburgh, Pa, or even the more conventional Presidential Libraries throughout the country for many ex-presidents, Jimmy Carter’s being in the news in 2009 for new observer software added to his own).  This sort of thing takes us into architecture, and before we laugh at that being some sort of autobiography, we might consider the pyramids and all they convey individually, about one pharaohnic leader in one period of time in one place on our planet, as well as more modest ambitions, that is to leave for posterity some sort of monument in stone as a sort of final autobiographical testament (as did Walt Whitman), or in considering our own tomb.  As I have done many design works in a casual way, and have a great interest in architectural design, I’ve also left sketches of my own personal tomb, as I would want it constructed after my death.

             There doesn’t seem to be space to discuss much extra about traditional biography here, except the importance of reading that, and also the possibility with all this discussion of writing about one person’s life, of turning that into a good freelance project, if one’s interest lies in that.  Years ago, during my creative time in Virginia, I was approached by a friend, a creative professional sculptor, and asked if I would be interested in putting together a biography of that person’s father.  He had much material, had some inherited wealth, and had been thinking about honoring his paternal family with that sort of project.  I was too involved with my own fiction writing, magazine and community newspaper projects, and could not do it—but it’s a good example of the sorts of projects that are quite realistic, interesting, and available for the professional writer or author.  One might suggest interviewing people who actually knew the subject, finding out many personal characteristics and paraphernalia, including letters, photos, details of professional activities, interviews with many family members, any possible historical data (including research on the actual local and national history of the subject’s residence).  Other writers, too, have used the format of biography, as a sort of “in-depth research project for favorite individuals” to do published biographies of creative personalities.  Perhaps that started with Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Phaedo and other Dialogues, or with Boccaccio’s Life of Dante Alighieri.  Colin Wilson is a modern author who’s done this or kinds of reassessments for P.D. Ouspensky, C.G. Jung, Bernard Shaw, Hermann Hesse, Borges, Strindberg and others as well as the Catholic critic and author, Joseph Pearce, with his biographies of Tolkien, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Oscar Wilde, Hellaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton. 

             A final digression, about autobiography, or associated works, is to mention that if authors find themselves in a position, whereby many of their works are out of print, or maybe saw print only in samizdat editions or tiny small-press or independent press editions, or maybe overseas, or even for more recent promotion, the author might want to consider putting together an anthology, a concise yet text-packed edition or “Portable Reader” of one’s works.  I’ve been considering that for several years; one reason is that many of my earlier works were in samizdat here in USA or published in small reviews or in eBook productions or other independent productions, and it’s difficult reaching a larger audience.  Also, I happen to quite like the anthology form or Portable Taormina Reader sort of format (best know in the Viking Portable Library Editions), where there are parts of several novels, maybe a novella, some verse, a host of short stories, a couple one-act plays, a chapter of autobiography, collection of letters and nonfiction, all with a good bibliography, index, preface, introduction and author’s statement.  Ones I’ve particularly valued in reading have been the Portable Faulkner, Portable Whitman Reader, Portable Hawthorne Reader, Portable Jack Kerouac, Portable Beat Reader.  In earlier days, in a book review published in my Blue Ridge Review, about the then recently published professional bibliography about William S. Burroughs, I mentioned “the painful absence” of a Portable Burroughs, but that has since been rectified (Word Virus:  The William S. Burroughs Reader, 1998).  Lest this seem obtuse or out of the ordinary or even only the realm of scholars, one must remember that it was only with many of William Faulkner’s out-of-print works being anthologized in a mass market Portable Faulkner (1946) that a larger audience in America and the world became acquainted with William Faulkner, so that his career could continue; and afterwards, of course, he won the Nobel Prize (1949).  (One might consider this in a more casual way today, with compiling a faster Portable Anthology entirely as an eBook, thus doing all the collating and editing and presentation, without the more daunting or formal publishing design necessary for printed paper books.) 

             For any author interested in writing his or her autobiography, the best tack is to start now.  If the timing isn’t appropriate for your age or period of life, at least arrange some of the groundwork now.  Put “Autobiography” on your project list in your own notebooks, and if you’re not keeping notebooks or journals, at least start that.  Do an outline of significant events (to visualize the entire project), with people, eras, projects, achievements tracked.  Keep backup files of important events, photos, accessories, documents, etc. in a handy place—start to collect the material now.  Nothing will help in your future project like a box of materials from decades of your life; as well, as having detailed journals of the dates of important events, and more significantly, what your own reactions were to those events, your emotions at the time, and finally the long-term sensation or again, meaning, all that can have for a future public that will be able to read the chronicle of your days and nights on earth, lived in the best way you were able.  The ending then is a beginning; start now to chronicle your life; start now to write those journals and diaries; start now at least to pen some smaller essay about an autobiographical time of significance to you.  Try a first chapter. Write a memoir for a shorter or focused time in your life; but also, set aside work space in the future, for your full-length autobiography.  The world is waiting for your story.

RESOURCES

1. Significant autobiographies:  Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, My Life by Richard Wagner, Ben Franklin’s Autobiography, The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life, Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery, The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Nikolai Tesla’s My Inventions, Autobiography by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mahatma Gandhi’s The Story of My Experiment With Truth, Black Elk & John G. Neilhardt’s Black Elk Speaks,  Out of My Life and Thought:  An Autobiography by Albert Schweitzer and his biography of composer, J.S. Bach, Black Boy by Richard Wright, Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As told to Alex Haley, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Anaïs Nin’s The Diary of Anaïs Nin,  Report to Greco by Kazantzakis, The Goncourt Journals, 1851-1870, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The Letters of Van Gogh ed. By Mark Roskill, The Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila, The Autobiography of St. Ignatius, Confessions by St. Augustine.  General biographic books:  Plutarch’s The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Life of Charlemagne (Vita Caroli Magni) by Einhard, Vasari’s Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Brief Lives by James Aubrey (1696), Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell, and excellent modern reference, Brief Lives: A Biographical Guide To The Arts, by Kronenberger and Beck (1972).
2. Books about writing autobiography:  Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser, Thinking About Memoir by Abigail Thomas, Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach.
3. Films or biopics:  Castellani’s The Life of Leonardo da Vinci (VHS version only), Castellani’s The Life of Verdi (VHS version only), Life of Emile Zola, Lust for Life (about Vincent Van Gogh), The Agony & Ecstasy (about Michelangelo), Ken Burns’s Thomas Jefferson, Capitoni’s Saint Rita, Molina’s St. Teresa of Avila,  Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth.  
4. Web sites:  www.Biography.com, www.42explore2.com/biographies.htm (excellent reference, many biographical sites listed); www.amillionlives.com; www.DistinguishedWomen.com/subject/field.html.

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Thursday, Dec 31 2009

ARCHIVE

“Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” December 30, 2009

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

 

The following eighth article, “Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources. All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina.

 

NONFICTION/FICTION/DRAMA

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina

 

           Discussing three of the most popular forms of writing is probably best at this point.  Nonfiction/Fiction/Drama covers the broadest focus of creative effort these days, and while avoiding poetry, does put in the forefront some immediate suggestions for improving the efforts of most authors.  I’ve had enough experience also, with each of these categories to pass along insights, and though I’ve written some poetry, I don’t feel I have the sort of expertise to do justice to that highly creative art.  In my own past, I’ve consulted the excellent guide, Three Genres, The Writing of Fiction, Poetry, and Drama, by Stephen Minot, and might suggest other writer’s guides also for comparisons of those three genres. 

           I wanted to combine a discussion of these different writing genres together, to give the aspiring author a good overview with writing such mainstays, and also, a way in one article’s focus, of comparing and contrasting the forms with one another.  Under nonfiction here I am going to hold off from discussing overt autobiography—and its myriad of creative forms including direct autobiography, selective focus in a memoir, collections of letters, notebooks, or some anthology of the same—and continue with that topic in the next chapter, devoted exclusively to Autobiography.

          As it’s useful to first consider some of our historical references, it might be pertinent to note, that the development of the forms is different from our concentration here, in these more modern times.  Development started with poetry (exclusively an oral tradition at first), then nonfiction (history), drama, then fiction, and the portions of autobiography or biography scattered or blended among parts of earlier forms (Plato’s Socratic Dialogues, Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War, The Four Gospels of The New Testament, then St. Augustine’s Confessions, Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne, Vita Caroli Magni, and later Petrarch’s Secretum Meum).  The tradition of the essay began fairly late; the process was accelerated (and the term invented) by Montaigne in 1580 AD.  The earliest popularity of poetry is most likely because of the lack of books and printing and with all that the lack of widespread literacy (as pointed out by John M. Bowers, “The Western Literary Canon in Context,” Great Courses).  That might be contested, with the facts of writing and literacy in Ancient Egypt, and with it the recording (3200 BC) first of spiritual records (pyramid texts and funeral papyri, The Book of The Dead), of historical accounts (king’s conquests on monuments), poems, and some stories probably for aristocratic use (ancient literacy was widespread among the Egyptian priestly, noble, and clerical/scribe classes).  Early cuneiform recorded economic transactions (Wikipedia).  The earliest known written records of the Hebrew Torah, are from about 1400-800 BC.  Nonfiction then developed from spiritual writing, the recording of kingly conquests, economic accounting, and later from the formal recording of historical books (often accounts of warfare), commonly attributed in the West to Herodotus, about 425 BC, of Greece.

NONFICTION 

            For our use here, we might want to concentrate on the current forms of journalism, the wider forms of professionally written articles, and nonfiction books.  With the years of community journalism that I participated in, I did straight news articles (about local business having alcohol checks, the price of winter insulation, museum exhibitions), dozens of brief book reviews, topical freelance articles (“Surviving Unemployment,” “Fireplace Lore”), interviews with writing celebrities and local experts (“The Style Just Grows Out of Me,” interview with Ann Beattie; “With Mary Lee Settle” interview with National Book Award winner, Mary Lee Settle; “Four Handshakes from Mr. Jefferson,” interview with colorful local senior in path of knowing Thomas Jefferson), and longer feature articles, which I loved best (“Hackenberg’s Experimental Frames,”  “Johnstown Digs Out” “From Mercury to Metro” reported from Paris, France).  Many of these were published in Harper’s Weekly, The Times of Charlottesville, Charlottesville Observer, Albemarle Monthly, The Sun Magazine, and other regional publications.  Later, I collected the most significant of the nonfiction into book form, Along The Journalistic Path.  These were during the times of the 1970-80’s or so in America, and many of us were taking the lead from the popular New Journalists of the era (Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson) where the journalism was personalized (the reporter as a personality was a part of the story) and dramatized (often using fictional techniques but about documented events, personalities, facts). 

            For those thinking that it was after this stint of journalism that I proceeded to write fiction; it should be known, that it was the exact opposite.  My earliest writing was a short story, a gothic horror story about a haunted house, written for an eighth-grade advanced reading class.  And it was after writing in my twenties three full literary novels, ten or so short stories, and poetry that I went on to do journalism.  I think for those interested in doing shorter nonfiction (and I feel deeply for any significant writing), that you should choose subjects that interest you.  This may fly in the face of more pragmatic, “just paying the bills” sorts of freelancers (if any such creatures are able to exist today in USA’s diminished publishing markets), but I’ve always felt that passion about the topic was a primary concern for any author (this more so that the oft-said saw of “writing about what you know,” which makes no sense for many excellent books written either by amateurs about a topic or authors with no direct experience at all—Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane, a good example, or in current nonfiction, say, for award-winning historical author, David McCullough, with his John Adams, which obviously depended upon much personal research).  Passion, however, can’t be faked.  And much of writing in any form is too difficult for someone “just to go through the motions.”  Without some inner intensity about subjects, injustice, depth of passion about topics (history, the arts for myself or religion or humanity), and about distinct individuals (another passion of mine, which is why my favorite form in journalism was the “feature article”), without passion the work usually shows lack of depth, focus, insight and becomes only a passing report. 

           It was always my firm belief that the “real news” of any newspaper was found on inside pages, where local or national individuals were interviewed, featured, displayed, versus the more accepted “hard news” of front page fare.  For me, though, it is individuals, interesting personalities, that always always always are the persons who create or destroy human events, make history, so the only way really to know what’s going on, is to understand the human individuals involved and who is active in your own community, state, nation, and of course, globally.  (My views are in direct opposition to the “historical forces” view of Tolstoy.)  Would there, for instance, be a Global War of Terrorism without Osama bin Laden?  Would there even be an “al-Qaeda” without the science fiction tomes by Isaac Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy (about rise and fall of space empires), supposedly upon which the term al-Qaeda is translated or taken from, meaning “foundation” or “base?” 

           Nonfiction is usually more centered, I think, in rational or analytical aspects of the writing craft—usually commissioned “for hire” or with an availability for consistent or regular temporal publishing (such as a newspaper column or as in my case, as a Contributing Editor with regular space for weekly submissions), and usually focused around some topic or at least center (for the community journalism of my own experience, it was centered on events of interest to the inhabitants of Charlottesville, Virginia).  But subjects are often assigned or searched out, then researched, most individuals often tape recorded for rough draft material and notes; then all that, with some background research and verification of facts and sources, is put together into a usually straight-forward nonfiction article, using the best tenets of modern journalism. 

           Journalism depends upon clarity, and concise wording, and in smaller reports the traditional “pyramid” structure, with the most newsworthy aspect stated in the first line, with following details brought forth in succeeding lines, including direct quotations, cited information from several sources, other questions, and maybe some follow-up as per the importance, magnitude, or future resolution of said event, person, organization, or whatever the focus of the article was.

           I’ve mentioned in an earlier chapter here (“Our Rebirth of Writing”) that the importance of checking of facts and sources is paramount to the integrity of whatever journalism you’re involved with (even the acceptance of news, with reading).  I brought this up in response to the increase of online nonprofessional journalistic posts, because without checking several sources, it is easy to be misled or misinformed, or take part in what in the best sense maybe is unintentional gossip and in the worst, pure fabrication, fiction, or attempts at providing misinformation.  My earlier comment was in the context of what seems like the forefront of online journalism and especially with the end of so many traditional brick-and-mortar newspaper businesses, with the question of without professional staffs of editors and real paid journalists, how will the news continued to be reported with any integrity at all?  

           In my own case, I had finished an article (“Migrant Workers:  Mountains and Color TV”) covering migrant workers in Virginia, apple pickers, and to do that we had a photographer take pictures and I spoke with several people there, but mostly interviewed a supervisor for the fruit pickers, migrants who had traveled from Florida.  Their living quarters were humble, but not shacks or shanties (most had TVs), and the wages were fair and the work steady and everything seemed okay.  A real relief, I felt, from the days of The Great Depression and times chronicled by the Pulitzer-winning novel by John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath.  Before I turned in the writing, however, I spoke with my senior editor on The Times Of Charlottesville and had him check the background a bit more, before printing, so that we were not caught unawares (I was traveling out of town).  What I feared, was that my entire article was taken primarily from one interview, of an actual migrant worker and participant, but the interviewee was a supervisor, and perhaps her account had been colored by her role in misleading the media, or hiding abusive practices or other flagrant labor violations.  We checked, the story was verified, and was printed.  It only takes one more phone call to find out that the entire drift of a piece is askance, totally wrong; and again, my question with newer online forms of local volunteer journalists is:  Who will make that extra phone call?

           I think, too, that most nonfiction requires more open organization, than other forms of creative writing.  By that I mean, there has to be structured and detailed research, probably an outline before ever writing, and then, too, the article if longer, for instance, a regular piece in a magazine, might include various subheadings (as this chapter is broken up, under NONFICTION, then a few pages later, FICTION, and finally, DRAMA).  The idea is to organize the material in the most sensible, logical, and convenient fashion for a reader to move through and gather all the pertinent facts, quotations, developments in the easiest, quickest, and most importantly the clearest, efficient fashion possible.  Often, nonfiction books, will list under each and every chapter a 50-word summary of all the subheadings or individual topics covered, again for the first-time reader, and also for later researchers, academics, or other authors and journalists to be able to go back through the book for ongoing writing projects in the future, from the same source material.  That doesn’t mean that fiction and drama are unorganized, but let’s say that usually there’s less of the intuitive element used with nonfiction, and at the beginning, then again for the reader at the end, more of an organized, up-front logical or analytical element brought into play. 

           Also with the nonfiction article, one has to be clear about the publishing arrangements, before taking on the assignment.  There first has to be an okay and direct contact with the editor or maybe publisher (again usually a magazine, newspaper, periodical) and there has to be a clear set of “Writer’s Guidelines,” so that the article is formatted precisely the way the publication wants to offer the piece.  It’s not the case, therefore, of writing up an interesting idea first, then sending it to a magazine, to have their editors re-format the thing (if they even want to publish the piece), so that it actually fits into the publishing style and format guidelines of the publication (different for each publication).  So, right away, if freelancing, the usual way to go about this is first to submit a “query letter,” where the idea is proposed to a set magazine’s editor, including of course any qualifications for writing, for the topic, for the interest, and waiting to receive a written “okay,” so as to proceed.  Then one needs to obtain  a printed “Writer’s Guidelines” from the particular publisher, and whether those are received or not, to go ahead and study several recent issues of same magazine, to make sure that all format procedures are completely understood—again, all before any actual writing takes place.  I mentioned earlier that there’s no substitute for really studying the intended publication with a totally analytical eye; that is, study for usual word counts, ways of opening and closing articles, sentence and paragraph length, apparent taboos, favorite topics, etc.  Most people are shocked at how formulaic each publication turns out to be.  Others, more used to editing, will agree that there is a “professional consistency” with most nationwide publications.  

           Even doing all that, as a freelance writer, still will not guarantee seeing your finished piece published, as related again in an earlier chapter (“Self-Editing for Authors, Part I”), where one of my articles okayed by query to an assistant editor, was then rejected (even including personal photographs, captions, etc.) from a magazine (Mother Earth News) without any kill fee, partial payment, or much more than, “Sorry.”  Most authors, especially those concentrating on journalism these days, will first acquire some actual position with a newspaper or periodical, whereby their writing is valued in general, and there’s some sort of ongoing arrangement to accept most submitted nonfiction (if meets final approval, of course), so that such arbitrary standards (and so destructive to the freelancer) are never employed against the writer.  Again, if that sort of arrangement is difficult to find, then it means a need is discovered, and one should investigate the possibility of you, the author, starting just such a publication and ensuring your access within the chosen media field.  This has been done by many great authors in the past (Dickens, Dostoevsky, Pound, even artists like Andy Warhol and architect Le Corbusier) and myself, where I started or helped establish a community newspaper (The Times of Charlottesville), a literary journal (The Blue Ridge Review), and an intellectual global print newsletter, (Virtù).  These days, of course, there are many options open with the Internet and e-zines or various forms of online electronic periodicals, as well as numerous web log or blogging options. 

           I’ve mentioned some about the conciseness of popular nonfiction articles, especially journalism (where in traditional terms even, one sentence is a paragraph, with tighter, narrower column inches of printed articles).  But there are other language issues that the aspiring author might want to consider as well.  The case I’m making here, had to do with my print newsletter, Virtù, whereby after studying the newsletter field, it was easy to see that these were meant for a specialized audience, were meant to be a source of specialized information sent personally to an interested individual, and meant too, for a quick or terse perusal, so that the newsletter could be absorbed briefly within a usually busy day.  For my own production, I went ahead to use a new “stripped-down” language style, which I did for two primary reasons:  One, for speed of reading by the recipient of information enclosed; and Two, for the ability to pack a great deal of information coverage into basically a limited eight-page printed format.  As my newsletter was about renaissance themes, pertinent to current America, and included literary matters, business matters, small creative essays, topics about solar energy and electric cars and other inventions, and also about theatre ventures, even brief book reviews, it was necessary for me to develop this special language arrangement.  To be brief here, each newsletter contained about 30,000 words, so it wasn’t a minor thing to research, compose, write, then publish on a quarterly basis.  Usually, what I had to do, was complete all the earlier writing as I would usually compose it, then once completed per issue, I would go back through every single article, every single line, and abbreviate grammar, strip out every unnecessary word, and shorten every discussion.  The stripping down was considerable, but made the newsletter in its final edition, read more quickly, with I like to think an urgency to the information delivery.  It brought about a fast delivery of important topics to the readership I was building as a subscriber base at the time.

           I gave that as an example also, in the case of an aspiring writer who goes on to create a publication of his or her own, and finds a similar circumstance or the opportunity, for instance, say with a special avant-garde arts journal, where special language or formatting style considerations would be necessary.  Otherwise, I think, clarity and a plain style for most journalism is the accepted norm.  And where some more creative authors might find this a co-optation of more artistic intentions, one should never underestimate the value of such practice in composition, organizing one’s thoughts, inner processes, learning of the world (often about new instances or events, new characters, new professions). All are opened to one, and receiving some feedback for one’s printed journalism might be important; often one is able to forge other relationships that might prove significant for further publishing opportunities with more creative endeavors.  Many authors worked with journalism and publishing fiction (Dickens, Zola, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Mark Twain, Tom Wolfe), so that might prove an interesting avenue to pursue. 

           With nonfiction books, at least for me, I begin with a general idea, then take many notes for a volume, but right away I start to think in the completed form of the actual book.  By this I mean, I jot down the title, the intended ideas as main chapters, the notes for an introduction.  Often I’ll write the introduction first, or early on as the book continues, just to keep focused on the entire creative intent of the volume.  For instance, with this blog book here, I first created several chapters posted by invitation of a literary editor from Rager Media, for a previous literary blog, “The AkroCentric.”  I formulated the idea of creating enough blog entries as actual book chapters, then I composed in rough draft another three total chapters—five at that point—then once I progressed to my WordPress blog and republished the earlier two chapters, I completely wrote the Introduction or Preface of my book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  I did the rewrites after that for the remaining three chapters and posted them, and of course, continued with these next, additional and complimentary chapters.  With this project, it is something I had wanted to do for three or four years now, to summarize much knowledge and experience about my writing career, so that it might prove a valuable assistance to new or aspiring authors; and again, from all my renaissance studies, especially of Leonardo da Vinci, to avoid becoming so preoccupied with ever continuing artistic projects, as to let my creative notebooks founder and fail to organize, compose, and actually publish my own, “Treatise on Writing.”

           I have done one actual “work-for-hire” book, a commercial book that I titled, The Photo-Entrepreneur.  This was accepted and paid for by the publisher, for use as a small text or career manual or beginning business book.  The book was sizeable, some 80,000 words, and had to fit a list of general requirements provided by the publisher, with pro forma pages and a list of glossary terms, and a thorough discussion of starting a business or several businesses by using one’s camera and photography skills.  Photography has been a lifelong interest of mine, probably longer than writing, and started with many years of yearbook photography in high school, training with a mentor teacher/advisor for wedding work, and then before college having a part-time photography business in partnership with a good friend.  I went on to study part of a formal apprenticeship with a commercial photographer after being graduated from college; and later have had my photography held by museums in Akron, published in many local newspapers, literary journals, and even The Washington Post.  So, by the time I took on the commercial book project I had a fair amount of experience with photography, as well as at that point, having completed the writing of over a dozen of my own books. 

           It took some four or five months part-time to complete the project, The Photo-Entrepreneur, including background research, rewrites, etc. and then it was accepted by the publisher.  I had wanted also to do what smart freelancers usually do, take every writing form or project and change whatever necessary to also market parts of the project in other ways, to write other smaller articles from the original research, publish them myself as smaller booklets, and proceed to do recorded material.  But I left that project go at the time, and moved on to complete a fifth novel, Legacy, start an autobiography, go through much theatre training and work at community theatres, and other master projects with cosmology research, healing investigations, and launching the newsletter I have already spoken about, Virtù.  That was years ago now, and all before the advent of digital photography; so many of the technical details are quite different, actually revolutionized for today.  I still plan to publish several small photography books, with my photos, as private fine art volumes, but those are in progress.  All this is, however, another example, again of the wider fields of arts or varied interests that can open other writing opportunities for an author who stays creative, alert, and moving on with many distinct writing projects. 

           Other nonfiction book plans for me include a long-term production, about a new perspective in psychology that I have been researching and taking notes for off and on for several decades.  I hope to have work on that started within the next year or so, though I have been able to give some public talks about the psychology to a spiritual group in Akron, Ohio and also to The World Future Society, General Assembly in Washington, DC.  I guess what I’m trying to show here is that as one’s ongoing projects continue one should move with each of those, working first at the inspiration and clarifying the focus of one’s ideas, then conducting enough research to support your particular view or slant or interpretation about the topic, and then, of course, the hard work of sitting down and completing the writing.  I’ve intensified my research this last year especially for my psychology book, and have collected together enough of the basic foundation tomes and works that I’ll need and gone over them briefly (PhotoReading them), plus general refresher materials (“Great Ideas in Psychology” and “Psychology of Human Behavior” tapes from Great Courses) and taken many notes and done some online research.  But my research needs more depth at this point, so I’ll continue with that as I am.  Again, though, it’s important to keep one’s nonfiction projects moving forward and not to give up hope, should the project take years longer than expected.

           For publishing opportunities, one should also seek to reprint one’s longer works, maybe separate chapters or individual sections, as distinct articles.  I did this with my metaphysical book, Infinity, with reprinting a chapter in World Union magazine in India, and also with sections of my newsletter, Virtù, which regularly appeared reprinted in a local Pennsylvania newspaper, Focus.  There’s the chance of establishing a regular or syndicated column for your work, doing individual lectures or seminars or workshops, broadsides or brochures or brief eBooks, or creating books extrapolated upon or from topics mentioned in one’s writing.  My usual practice has been to collect, annotate, and put together my stronger nonfiction pieces into a full volume, Along The Journalistic Path; and do the same with this series of blog articles or chapters, for my book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Also, I’ve taken some of my renaissance studies and put together the beginning of an audio diskette program, which still is in-progress.  The audio script, “Renaissance: An Introduction,” was reprinted as an essay with four other significant articles of mine in Quintessence: Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance.  The book required the compilation of a detailed glossary of terms and an index (an innovation actually of the Italian Renaissance).  The first inspiration for collecting my work together, again, proceeded from the pre-renaissance Italian poet, Francis Petrarch.  For modern pragmatic suggestions of converting one’s various works into other publishing products, see Dan Poynter’s insightful suggestions with his books and offerings, www.ParaPublishing.com.  For more emphasis with online possibilities, such as eBook readers and iPhones, see Steve Weber’s book, ePublish.

           Online publishing or the authoring of nonfiction primarily for the Internet has provided interesting texts to introduce us all to blogs and online writing in general, Writing.com by Moira Allen and Dispatches from Blogistan by Suzanne Stefanac.  My own foray has proven different from most experiences; I’ve authored brief promotional copy for my own book/storefront pages at several web sites and promotional projects, had a few articles published online, and next was this ongoing blog.  My experience here is outside the norm, and another example of learning many of the rules, then going about breaking them.  One’s first rule is to keep one’s postings short, the material posted frequently to update one’s blog, and perhaps on the topical side for subject matter, to interest the widest audience possible.  This can clash, of course, with one’s inner necessities and one’s long-term projects.  With my blog experience, I decided to publish online lengthy nonfiction book chapters, ranging from 3,000 to 15,000 words as one long yet distinct post.  Such writing length, with research and editing, proceeds more slowly.  So, while the rest of the world was decreasing the scope of expressive communication to less than 140 characters (Twitter), I decided to increase it to an average of 14,000 words (true macroblogging).  Again, one must meet one’s inner goals and extensive artistic productions.  For me, it was a greater question of being able to post and thereby publish longer work and more substantive discussions, than staying in touch with hundreds and hundreds of topical or nonsensical daily reports.  Also, I feel, that for the health of reading (online and off) and circumventing our current censorship of American commercial presses (Where, for instance, are the exotic vampires in my writing—unless in the publisher’s office?), authorship could only stand to gain from lengthier posts.  After all, the avant-garde goes out in front of current fashion, not follows the herd!  (Besides, already I had helped inaugurate the “one-line novel” with publishing those one-sentence tomes as humor features in my newsletter, Virtù, in 1993.)

FICTION

            Although the heyday of fiction, especially novels, was the Nineteenth Century lengthy prose narratives should be understood as an art form going back to ancient times.  We have remnants of early novels by Ancient Greeks and by the Romans, Petronius, with Satryicon in 61 AD and Apuleius’s complete picaresque novel, The Golden Ass (170 AD).  Such books were studied by St. Augustine (354 AD) and during the Italian Renaissance.  In between was the Tale of Genji by Shikibu in Japan, 1010.  (Wikipedia)  Though the novel blossomed later in the West, Boccaccio’s The Decameron, a collection of one hundred stories (Italian “novella” or “a tale, news”) was published in 1354, and the French Rabelais’s novelistic series, Gargantua and Pantagruel, in 1537; but the birth of the European novel usually is cited as Cervantes’s Don Quixote, 1605 in Spain.  Later Defoe and Swift appeared in Britain and the fiction of Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, Sterne, with English novels by Jane Austin and the Brontës, eventually Dickens, Thackeray, Trollop, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy; Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther took Germany by storm; in France were Balzac, Flaubert, the works of Zola, Stendhal; and in Russia, the masters Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky; America inspired the novels of Hawthorne, Melville, Mark Twain, Henry James and on to the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century.  (Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature)

            Fiction writing has been my own personal center, since the beginning of my writing, again with an early short story completed for an eighth-grade advanced reading class.  By the time I was twenty-one, right after being graduated from college, I started my first novel, Abbas & Merdan.  I had written a few short stories then also, mostly kinds of parable-like tales, but didn’t want to do what is considered regular American short stories, rather more poetic or symbolic renditions.  At this point, I was more interested in philosophy and the applications of philosophy, especially the meeting of the East & West, and felt it best to bring about all that in a larger fictional format, to show the effects of philosophy lived out in a type of reality.  I remember that it was Aldous Huxley (Brave New World, Chrome Yellow, Doors of Perception), who once mentioned it’s one thing to write a straight philosophy book and quite another to show what you mean in a fictional encounter where real sorts of characters have to move through your ideas.  Again, I was much under the influence of the German/Swiss Romanticist popular at that time in America, especially with the counterculture here, Hermann Hesse.  I remember first having a general idea, then taking most of a long ten-hour evening, to sit down and put all my ideas for a story down onto paper and figure out all the details, characters, situations, and plot sequence.  It was my idea to set the novel in Tangiers, Morocco, a place I had visited several years earlier, during my junior year abroad, studying Spanish in Valladolid, Spain, through my American university, IUP (Cervantes, with the first European novel, was a sign).  I had met a young street hawker that befriended me, and we toured the area (for a few cents tip, of course) but I later wondered exactly what sort of life that guy had, and what he might encounter there in Morocco.  The scenery was interesting enough, as a third world country, and part of Morocco and old Spain (Ceuta on the coast of Africa) across from the Straits of Gibraltar, and it was also, I realized many years later my first inspirational encounter with the continent of Africa, which later influenced so many authors (Conrad, Hemingway, Doris Lessing, modern African and Afro-American writers).  

           Originally, I planned on writing a short novel, actually a novella, but as I continued working over the completed first draft of the novella, the book grew into a novel.  It was, again, under the auspices of a Bildungsroman, or novel of development (of the young street hawker), and I thought with the philosophy an unusual sort of continual questioning and answering between the young hawker and his master, a rug weaver, sage character.  At the time, I didn’t realize that such a “dialogue” was perfectly consistent with philosophic inquiry, but was a bit dated, at least since the days of Plato.  Also, my original problem with the novella was that I wrote in a more basic or plain style, less poetical than my literary mentor, Hermann Hesse, so I felt the book gained by longer novelistic development, rather than an intense, more poetic and symbolic rendition, as might have been done by Hesse.  I completed Abbas & Merdan in another year or so, but was overwhelmed at the amount of effort it required.  I was working a full-time job at the time, had recently married, and the writing effort entailed all my weekends, all my holidays, and most ever spare moment I could muster to complete.  When I was done, I went back and estimated that I had spent over 2000 hours on the novel (actually, that would be the hourly total of a regular job; that is, 40 hrs x 52 weeks!).  Once I was done, I turned to my patient wife, Brenda, and mentioned that I had learned more writing that book in a year, that I had in four years of college training.  (I think it was Vonnegut, who once mentioned, “All writers’ wives are beautiful.”)

            Two things I feel are important about fiction writing, especially with that experience with my first novel:  One, is to do some research first on the forms of novel writing and different styles; and Two, is to do it, the writing, get it done.  You should have some training or access to different forms of writing, technique and style, and the many different kinds of novels and novelistic presentations (and this with much practice, not solely book or classroom training).  And then, you need to write and write and write.  It is only with an intense passion for your project and total dedication that you can reach for achievement, especially with all the great masters of literature who have blessed our world.  You’ll learn to compete only with yourself, but to learn and grow and change what’s necessary; and also, you’ll learn to improve on your particular strengths and lessen where your weaknesses might be.  You have to accept the masters, then you have to accept yourself also.  You cannot be like anyone else, fortunately; and as soon as you trust yourself, your natural writing abilities, your natural style (“voice” as the aural academics like to label it) or Vision, your own intuitive instincts, passions, vices, and compassion will all add to that.  It’s a great undertaking, a novel, and it requires a very great amount of energy.  I remember when studying Dostoevsky, of seeing before and after photo portraits; when he completed his last masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, the project had aged or wearied Dostoevsky considerably.  He died not long afterward.  Perhaps, as readers, if we actually realized the great store of knowledge, wisdom, creativity, and the years of effort required for each and every book on our shelves, we would value those wondrous tomes as true treasures in God’s wide world.  

           After my first novel, when I went about doing my following novels, I always set aside time to complete the first draft without any interruptions (full-time writing).  This will have to be decided for each individual author, each author’s working methods, and each author’s personality or circumstance.  I am the sort of author who works with an authorial “vision,” seeing the book as I would a live movie in the mind’s eye and writing the thing down usually as fast as I can type or scribble if doing longhand.  It’s a sort of “write-through-the-first-blast-till-the-finish” type of experience for me; and during the time of composition, often writing 20-25 double-spaced pages a day for a couple months, it’s a time when I can think of nothing else, when I’m creatively obsessed with the work, waking at night to jot notes from dreams, doing on-the-spot research for something, going over instant rewrites sometimes of difficult scenes, but continuing always forward.  At these times, with later books, I’d often find myself awakening in the morning with a continual flow of narrative in my mind, even thinking very self-consciously in set paragraphs, indents, types of necessary spacing and dialogue (a truly trained internal authorial process).  Once the first draft is completed, I feel “safe,” that it’s completed, that I won’t forget the story or that it won’t be interrupted by some delay or event or disaster, and that the neurotic worries about the project are over—in that the novel is completed.  Afterwards, in the deep doom of post-book depression for most authors, I will let the draft set without viewing it for at least several weeks, maybe a month or so; then I’ll return to start the rewrites, doing close readings of the original draft, taking further notes, hand correcting the paper or hard copy, and then preparing for a long, laborious rewrite and editing process.  I’ve detailed my editing routines and suggestions in earlier chapters, so that’s not necessary here.  What is necessary, however, is the dedication part, and knowing that the entire creative process is a much longer affair than what one might imagine.  Some books have taken me years to complete (some also done in a month or so), some decades or are ongoing processes; but the projects do reach completion.  Usually, it’s a matter of technical difficulties, length, necessity of creative time in my current life, and of course, other personal priorities. 

           Probably, I should mention one of my own faults, in that really the most fun with any writing project is the first draft, everything after that is tedious hard work, creative once involved, but not the fun or the rush and high of creativity (the “Peak Experience” of Maslow’s psychology).  It’s for that reason, then, that sometimes if a book takes too long to come back to, for extensive rewrites, it might already “be time” in my own life, for another NEW creative project, the next novel.  Sometimes, I’ll use the new creative project as a carrot, to complete the previous; but I’ve found that it can lead to many years even of lack of new projects, if the editing process takes too long—if I’m working full time at a day job.  This happened, after much creativity since the year 2000, when I completed the rewrites for a sixth long novel, The Entropy Wars, then went back to three or four chapters of a previously started autobiography, to complete that at about 180,000 words, then completed a first film script of my sixth novel as an adaptation, and continued with all the marketing letters, queries, agent solicitation for those works.  In a year or two I did that work and also published three of my works as eBooks online (Quintessence, Shared Lives, Keystone). 

           Several years later, I published two works of fiction, my fourth novel, Gratuity, and my third book of short stories, Shared Lives, as printed paperback books and found that all the rewrites, editing, designing of the published books, then marketing to book reviewers and new agents and publishers all took its toll in time, effort, and patience, in that I could complete no new work.  Those were creative ventures, of course, in themselves, and all about my primary concern, literary production and achievement, but again, the tediousness took its toll for several years.  My main artistic goal is to achieve the first draft completion point, in my heart, and after that, it’s the usual editing process and rewrites for me.  This leads, naturally, to countless projects planned, and again to extensive notebook lists and future projects upon projects to accomplish, but always, especially as one’s talents grow and one’s ambitions and other interests widen to varied and extensive artistic projects.  This is a product, too, of the Renaissance Consciousness I spoke of before, at length in the chapter on “Creativity,” in that one can become so optimistic and so inspired that all the future work takes priority and the notebooks are filled and the actual realized-in-our-reality achievements are slowed or become minimal.  That was a prime aspect of Leonardo da Vinci’s work habits, and even his contemporary, Michelangelo, chided him in person in Florence, for his poor reputation of leaving so many projects uncompleted and moving on to the next creative challenge.  Better that sense, however, than the image of many writers who burn out early in their career (some after only one book, like Harper Lee with To Kill A Mockingbird), or after a wondrous early rash of creative works, to end in the horrible American author’s vice (shared by Joyce), of drinking oneself to death (as did Fitzgerald, Lardner, Kerouac, partly Hemingway, and countless others).    

            My early working methods, with novel writing, were to eat a large breakfast, farm style (for several decades I followed a vegetarian diet exclusively), then work while drinking much coffee and writing for long blocks of time, from 10-14 hours, usually 5-6 days a week, eating a dinner only after achieving a set number of pages per day.  My first novel was written longhand, then typed; my second and third novel were written at a manual typewriter as first drafts; my fourth novel was written longhand, then typed; my fifth novel was composed at a word processor (my first); and my sixth novel was completed with a word-processing typewriter (one that shows maybe a quarter page of typing, while holding the data on a disc for later transfer)—at that point I was without a desktop computer, because of having it stolen from me, during a previous apartment burglary.  The word-processing typewriter was functional, but for me, is not the same as being able to view an entire page worth of prose, all at the same time, to gauge actual production, layout, how the dialogue flows and interacts, how the pages and scenes meld, etc.  I say that because there are many portable devices that offer the same these days, but I would be leery of using them for much extended prose, because of the limited page visibility.  

          Each author will have to decide on the best option for him or herself; and perhaps today, with the plethora of many inexpensive full-screen laptops, even those negative comments are already obsolete (we do see in Japan, authors actually composing entire novels on their cell phones!).  As I mentioned with the “Creativity” chapter, I think it is essential for a modern author to compose directly at a computer—laptop, portable, or desktop—so as not to waste precious creative time, re-typing or having to key in older manuscripts (I’ve had to do this with several previous books, not only retyping but scanning in previously typed pages, and even that convenience is a great headache with all the scanning corrections necessary, especially for a long manuscript.  My sixth novel, The Entropy Wars, a lengthy book of 98,500 words needed to have the entire typed manuscript scanned, so I could complete it properly on my desktop.  Those having to do the same, should consider professional scanning at office stores like Staples and OfficeMax, which offer the service for a nominal charge—what’s saved is having to do this page by page by page.  The scanning software at those stores is more professional than most of us have at home; therefore there’ll be fewer typos to correct before actually going through and doing the creative revisions and proofreading necessary to complete the final drafts). 

           That being said, again on occasion, I’ll break my own rules, and go back to pen and blank paper to compose some original draft.  It’s romantic, it’s archaic, and it’s foolish (for the extra time involved); but for some projects it breaks through the seeming artificiality of machine copy, and perhaps, brings one back to “the old days,” when one’s actual handwriting constituted finished pages on a project, instead of the current “industrial application” of composing at the computer and seeing printed hard copy.  It might be noted, however, that over years and years of intensive writing, my handwriting has diminished steadily in legibility, so that often the worst part of my own final transcription of handwritten notes, is that I can’t decipher my own script.  I often joke to others, that I’m like a medical doctor, where I’ve written so much so often by hand, that it’s now barely discernible.  Others, again, will make way for the best creative approach for the project and tools at hand. 

           With my novel, Gratuity, there may be interest in the extensive writing and peripheral notes.  I had worked personally in the restaurant industry for some ten years, a day or evening job, that I could do while continuing my writing.  (I am reminded of two smarmy Mom’s discussing their daughters in New York City. One said, “My daughter’s an actress.”  “Mine too,” the other woman said.  “Where does she waitress?”)  Most of that had happened in Charlottesville, Virginia and coincided both with a rebuilding and revitalization of the downtown area and a focusing of the arts community, particularly with creative writing and publishing.  At the time, Charlottesville was cited by the New York Times as being third in the country as a writer’s haven, behind only San Francisco and New York City.  My time there had been filled with much published writing and publishing ventures, including two years as a contributing editor for a community newspaper, The Times of Charlottesville, and a new literary magazine I founded, The Blue Ridge Review.  The writing of a novel, my fourth, about all that was only a matter of time and focus.  I had been working also with studying several writers’ oeuvres in the sense of gaining atmosphere, technique, and background for the novel, probably the most salient being Emile Zola (with his documentary Naturalism), George Orwell (Down and Out in Paris and London), and William Faulkner (varied novels and short stories—he had been an author in residence much earlier at nearby University of Virginia). 

           Readers often think novelists start their books in some rational, conscientious way, which sometimes happens.  It is of interest that after years of vague preparation this novel started early one morning, when I awoke, remembering not only a dream, but the last dialogue of the dream spoken by a matronly woman, saying, “Yes, love,” with a sort of British or Canadian accent.  I got up, bumped around with some coffee, but the image of that scene and “Yes, love,” reverberated in my mind.  I remember saying, “I think my restaurant novel’s started.”  I went to a desk and pulled out some blank typing paper, picked up an ink pen, then set about writing the first chapter.  I took out some additional pages, wrote some hurried notes about Charlottesville, some of the necessary scenes and characters, some of the details that should be included, and some notes on a general plot.  I then went about, over the course of a few months part-time, completing chapter after chapter of Gratuity, all in longhand (this was before home PCs were popular).  Later, I would spend an additional few months, part-time typing all of the rough drafts and making some preliminary revisions.  I spent more time, making notes for a final draft, doing other background investigation (including driving to certain areas I had portrayed to make sure the visual details were correct, in particular the scene near Barboursville with the wine tasting), and doing research.  

           I’m detailing this novel in particular, because, although it is a shorter novel for me, and one of a more simpler plot (love affair), it does have extended themes about the history of Virginia, the completion of several Jeffersonian dreams, one with his love and attempts to establish sophisticated viniferous in Virginia to produce palatable European-style gourmet wines there (defeated in his time with the vulnerability of the vines then, to mildew and pests) and Thomas Jefferson’s promotion, as a founder of America as a new nation, of American industry, including the arts (he was an “amateur” though excellent architect himself and author).  Also, a major theme with the book was the documentation of an Arts Movement there in Virginia, of which I was a major player, but one which was ignored by mainstream media (though many authors were published by national publishers, including Christian Gehman, Peter Taylor, Ann Beattie, John Casey, Douglas Day, James Alan McPherson, bibliographer of William S. Burroughs, Joe Maynard, plus many poets, including Gregory Orr at UVa and many grad students, most of whom I had some contact with).  The ignoring of the Arts Movement was significant (most of these published authors were UVa professors), and in Gratuity’s preface, I mentioned that it involves censorship efforts, if perhaps unconsciously, and have suggested in more detail in an earlier blog chapter (“Acceptance of Individual Authors”) that America has had such renewals in the arts similar to the New England Renaissance, only the renewals haven’t been reported.  So, the novel documents several kinds of events of grand historical importance, the Jeffersonian dream completion (by Italian wine manufacturers in Virginia), the reinvigoration of Charlottesville, and a National Arts Movement.  

           My own work with the fiction, one in which I spent a great deal of effort, was with character portrayal, with the rise of women in America (the older matron though eccentric was gradually portrayed with more and more sophistication throughout the book and the main character’s love affair and final engagement, was to a young woman artist, who attended UVa and is successful and very career oriented—this was originally penned around 1981).  I wanted to document, in naturalistic fashion, a good glimpse of the restaurant business, it’s glamour and tediousness, it’s link with economic survival for many artists and writers, myself included, which had not been done in American fiction, as well as produce a solid story about the disaffection of the young professionals in America (those true to their inner values and the personal standards versus Establishment, with my main character who had left a career as a teacher and ended up as a maître d’ at a gourmet, French restaurant).  Finally, I told myself, that I was completing not my usual novel (of grander aspirations) but a shorter, compact novel (glimpse of modern life with historical themes), and one that would prove an excellent, minor novel. 

           This will show the effort with one novel.  I later rekeyed by hand the entire typed version of Gratuity into my first home computer at the time, did more research, and a major rewrite of the novel during my creative year in Montana (within four years of composing the original).  Gratuity then about twenty years later went through another major revision, where I essentially reworked much of the language structure (to make sentences shorter, more easy to read), and even more research.  Again, with that revision (this time with a different computer system) I had to scan all the previously printed pages, go over them for scanning errors, then proceed with the actual rewrites.  The background research included reading much literature about Jefferson’s era, going over his biographies (Peterson’s Thomas Jefferson & The New Nation and Jefferson’s own Autobiography from The Thomas Jefferson Reader), studying Ken Burns’s documentary, Thomas Jefferson, viewing many web pages and modern information about Charlottesville, Virginia online (and researching the Italian wine company, Soave), and wine background (even going online to make sure the vintages I had listed and types of wines in the novel were accurate for the time period), then completing the exact book page layout before printing.  I did extensive studio photography (digital) and designed the book’s original covers.  The cover displays a photo of a bottle of French wine, two wine glasses with red wine, and a leather-bound hand journal with a pen, full color against a white background.  (A later still of the cover photo I printed as a gift was titled, “Vintage Writing.”  Gratuity’s cover can be seen at www.LuLu.com/CharlesATaormina.)  It’s important for writers to understand the necessity of such additional work, with background research for books dealing with historical themes, and too, the often tediousness of constantly redoing one’s earlier version over the course even of several computer operating systems, and finally, the necessity of many rewrites, proofing, and final publication (Gratuity probably went through four major rewrites, with the last being an extensive reworking of the original language [I had wanted the lengthier sentences of the original to resonate more with Faulkner; by the time the book was published, some twenty years later, I felt it best to shorten the sentence structure.]).  The last “revision” probably entailed three regular rewrites in itself.  A book isn’t completed, however, until it reaches a final form! 

           I’ve gone on here to discuss in detail my longer fiction projects, and have avoided till this point much comment about shorter works.  I’ve written now three small collections of short stores (39 stories total), with a projection of at least two more additional books, one experimental (all outlined) called A Title That Sells, and the other, more traditional, to include more direct Christian Themes, as discussed in my chapter on “Spirituality.” (Completed story collections include Early Tales, Moments, Shared Lives.) 

           Short stories are a demanding genre in themselves.  I think it was Mark Twain, who once informed an editor that he could have a lengthy story to him in four days, but a shorter version would take two weeks.  It’s a great effort not only to condense an experience into a short story form, but to actually work from within, that is from within the classical short story framework or demands.  The short story itself should start closer to some main action for characters involved and leave sooner, as soon as a natural dénouement or direction for resolution is reached, even symbolically.  The rest doesn’t need to be said.  Again, it was Hemingway, who noted in a gripping sort of way, that he was surprised at how much experience his shorter work used up, I think in reference to his wonderful novella, The Snows of Kilimanjaro.  This is not a minor complaint, however; a good or better short story might use up many different sorts of life experiences for an author, specific settings, types of characters, plots, and of course, any of the currently acquired wisdom the author might be graced with.  That being said, the full challenge of the short story medium is grand, and a wonder to work at, and when done properly, a great feeling of accomplishment results for the author, and we hope, a special sort of reading experience for the public or general reader. 

           My short stories have ranged from sketches, to formal omniscient narrations complete with much dialogue, to framed stores (told in a “look back” sort of way to hold the narrative experience and frame it or expand it even more for the reader, such as “Retribution”), to experimental tales told through brief poetic bursts interspersed with traditional narrative (“Russian Discourse”), to epistolary sorts (told through letters) with “The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin,” to document parodies (“Between The Lines”) to a series of love stories told with much dialogue and minimalist prose (Shared Lives).  Each of them presented different creative challenges upon the writing.  Often, I used to sit down to “write a short story,” and as mentioned before, sometimes would find that the story after a paragraph or two would go nowhere; so into my “Story Beginnings File” it went.  Sometimes, as mentioned in “Creativity,” I would search back through this file, pull out a few-paragraph beginning and completely finish the story in a day or two (“Before This Story Gets Rolling”).  Some I would complete at one setting and change very little in the revision process (“Moments”).  Others, particularly some of my earlier, longer tales, often done in traditional fashion with narration and dialogue, took a great deal of effort.  “Retribution” though completed nearly twenty-five years ago, went through a rewrite in Montana, then again, just this year, another revision before publication in book form (Early Tales). 

           Also, another tale that I had started while in Virginia, a folk tale from my family, called “My Cup A Dreams” (Early Tales) about an Italian immigrant barber was written with most of it complete in a rough draft.  I remember, working over that story for two or three weeks, full-time while I was in Montana, during my long creative writing year.  The story took a great deal of detailed effort:  One, because of it’s immense importance for me, of my own family’s immigrant experience (my step-grandfather’s on the Italian side); and Two, because I wanted to take a seemingly average or everyday occurrence of a hair cut for a male customer in an old-fashion ethnic barbershop and expand that fully into a kind of rendition of this barber’s life experience, and with it, the life experience of many immigrants to America, not just Italian, and leave all that with the reader, in a very full and satisfying way.  It was an example, really of a mini-Bildungsroman, because it shows the story of two separate characters and their development; it shows the change in the characters even in a brief 25-page story (manuscript); and it was an example of another one of my own personal tenets with fiction, that “character is plot,” the unfolding of character is the function of the story.  So, that was an artistically demanding writing experience, and one that I was able to master, and one, for which I feel, along with some other stories, might move the fiction into the “masterpiece” category. 

           Others will sit down to write a story and it will go well, with most of it being completed right away in the first draft.  Some of my stories will start that way, or start with some notes about something that happened in real life, some person with something interesting that might be transformed into fiction, some event or place that has a deep mystique or mystery or romance to it; sometimes I’ll note in my smaller day book, something about a title that sounds interesting that I’ve found somewhere as a phrase or collection of words, or a comment maybe someone in my surroundings mentioned casually, but has heavier resonance to it, and that will go into a notebook for further use.  Often, I will work out some theme or concern in my current thought space and play through that in a short story, or at times maybe the understanding of some person I’ve met, who doesn’t seem to make sense as is, but transformed into fiction, will yield a dramatic experience that brings about some fuller transcendence, understanding and closure.  I have not, though, as was evidently the case for Virginia Woolf, used my short fiction as a sort of “preliminary workshop or laboratory” for larger themes or similar characters, which were later used in novels.  Usually, once going through the process in a short story, that finishes the theme, the character or characters, and sometimes the locale, etc. for my other creative ventures.

           Only in one case, of a currently finished book, Shared Lives, did I sit down to start and complete an entire book of short stories, and those again (as mentioned in the chapter on “Creativity”) were all completed in five long working days, with only minimal revision later.  The stories were linked only by general themes, love stories among non-related and non-interacting characters, and those all finished in a similar style using a great deal of dialogue with minimal prose.  There’s one other short story book I’ve planned in the same way, sketched out all the short stories ahead of time, all different and all using distinct experimental techniques, A Title That Sells, which still needs to be completed.  Only a few of the first drafts have been attempted thus far.  My next book of more traditional stories, I feel, will contain longer stories, told with more traditional dialogue and narrative description, with more overt Christian themes; and I expect those will have to be completed in a more lengthy way, probably one long story after another, without sketching them out beforehand or composing all at once.

           I think for the general author, one should approach the short story as a challenge but not with any formidable drawbacks and try to complete one or two on one’s own terms, working out the characters and themes of importance to the author at the time.  In my own case, I came more to the short story as a way of backtracking for myself and my particular talents, to practice the condensed versions of stories, to heighten my language precision and ability (again especially with the condensed intensity of the genre), and to treat certain characters and themes, that I did not want to spend an entire novel working with.  Of the novel, though I didn’t mention it, there is obviously a greater volume of effort not only with the writing and imagining and research and actual composition as well as the rewriting and editorial revisions, but there is a greater swatch of time and scope and scale of character, theme, drama, and even background scenery and the sense of place, which is always so important to any fiction (the locale can actually “become a character” or so intense that the setting of the novel permeates the story, Alexandria, Egypt for instance in Laurence Durrell’s quartet, The Alexandria Quartet, or any of Faulkner’s novels with his self-created Southern locale, Yoknapatawpha County).  That volume effort is exceptional to recognize at the beginning of writing the novel, because without that lengthy focus and depth of commitment from the author, and without that inner interaction between the writer and his or her material, the grand length of a novel will prove impossible.  If a short story can take up a great deal of writing experience, again to paraphrase Hemingway, then too, the novel can take up many lifetimes of effort even.

           We work at fiction, of course, for its many challenges as an art form, and because, there isn’t any other way we have of actually transposing and passing on the spiritual and intellectual experiences of our race to each other in quite the same intense and complete fashion.  Movies will never replace novels, plays work at a different level, and so do other forms of writing, nonfiction, biography, autobiography, and other kinds of written discourse, including poetry; none offer the total challenge to author and reader, the total satisfaction between the lone creator in one period of history, and the expanse of illuminated readers over the following course of the future.  Nothing but fiction can fulfill the great void of mankind, the need for entertainment and learning of life wisdom that great fiction has provided, continues to do, and will continue to provide into our future.

DRAMA

            Of the three forms under discussion, it is with drama that I have perhaps lesser experience, and perhaps, which I am still very concerned with, as to development, of my future ambitions, and what might be done.  Thus far I have completed (still to be revised) a collection of five one-act plays, gathered into book form, Tauromenium.  I have completed in rough draft a lengthy three-act drama, called Freedom One, and then also started with several short sketches completed (and produced in a small theatre in Pittsburgh, PA) or short skits, which I want to add to and include in a brief satirical book called, Downsizing.  Besides that, as mentioned in the chapter on “Creativity,” I have completed a short set of mini-sketches or brief one-acts (ten total), which I’ve titled, A Tension Span (as part of my larger “anti-art series” discussed earlier).  Also, I’ve completed a film script adaptation of my novel, The Entropy Wars, and am in progress with a film script for my fourth novel, Gratuity, plus a different project in-progress for a bio-pic about an historical subject.  Writing of film scripts will not be considered here under this drama discussion.

           I’ve discussed this some before, about the supreme importance of history, with drama and want to reiterate, that I if you have an interest in writing drama you should immediately do two things:  Study the works of the Ancient Greeks, and Start attending on a regular basis live theatrical performances in your community (take notes).  What is startling, immediately, is that this is an unbroken chain of performance art within the human psyche for over 2500 years (and once seeing even a few of the Ancient Greek plays done well today, you’ll understand that these are still quite live, thriving, relevant productions for the human spirit).  With that, I would suggest a brief study of the architecture and history of drama, where it was produced, how it was staged (and the many changes since ancient times), and what are current innovations today (a good publication for the current national scene and even published contemporary scripts is American Theatre Magazine). 

           It should be understood, that ancient drama developed from regular religious festivals in Greece, the festivals of Dionysus (the wine god, then themes of Dionysian vs. Apollonian), and to discount the power of drama and the unfolding of our inner spirit with its direct connection to religious sentiment is to do it a dishonor.  In many ways, still in Roman Catholic churches today, there is a regular drama, pomp, sacred ceremony, that is enacted within every Mass every day it’s celebrated, to dramatize the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Passion plays at Easter are only a small part of this drama, and the mystery plays of medieval Europe only a further extension, or in-between study, of the course of theatre moving from ancient times to our modern days.  (This goes for today, with drama’s continuation on TV and in particular with various dramatized versions of the “Life of Jesus,” evangelical performances, including the regular production of various saints’ lives).  That being said, as to the history, for me the complete and absolute astonishment, is to understand when seeing some Ancient Greek performance for instance, that 2500 years ago was recorded a script, with dialogue and probably song and dance, for live actors to move through now and enact, to present as live active characters the complete concerns of individual humans, as felt two and a half millennia ago!  A miracle. 

           With all the mention of religious sentiment, however, we should understand that drama and theatre, even the more street or community versions of ancient commedia della arte by the Italians, and among Ancient Romans, often were discredited and looked down upon by most authorities, most cultural elitists, most religious people later, including the church, and even to the point of the Puritans in England actually outlawing  any theatre performances (even after the life and productions of Shakespeare) in London, England for a time (1642).  Of course, what’s easy to miss, is the amount of ribald sentiment, foul language, disreputable behavior (adultery, murder, revenge, hatred, and everything in between) that always has been part of popular theatre productions (Aristophanes in Ancient Athens created an hilarious comedy, Lysistrata, about a sex strike by wives of Athenians to get the men to quit making war!  Productions then even featured the wearing of giant phalluses and other sexual paraphernalia, behavior unaccustomed to community standards of modern times.)  So, there are several sides to the full appreciation of drama and the history of theatre.

           Before tackling the creative aspects of writing drama, it might be best to mention that the modern writer should consider three aspects of drama:  conventional understanding of drama, as a script to be performed live on stage in front of an audience; also conventional but little talked about “closet drama,” that is a valid literary style of writing a full drama, only with the understanding that the production probably never will take place, that the play is meant actually to be read (silently or by one person out loud) as another piece of literature; and lastly, other sorts of dramatized scripts that include film, radio, TV (which will not be covered here).  Lest we think the “closet drama” a thing of little regard, most historians regard Goethe’s poetical play, Faust I & II, as a closet drama, and its influence has been extensive. 

           My first advice to the novice playwright is to gain a most thorough knowledge of plays, theatre terminology, production techniques, the reading and study of modern plays, but also an extensive time inside live, active theatres—first with the obvious of attending live theatre performances, next with watching them when recorded live on VHS or DVDs, next with listening to them on recordings. (There was an extensive collection of visual and aural recordings in Akron, Ohio—I’d suggest checking at the nearest metropolitan or university library, and if all else fails, perhaps see what’s available to rent from Netflix.)  If one can gain any sort of live theatre experience, it would help one’s way immensely.  There is quite a tradition that playwrights should come from the acting crew (and often Shakespeare is cited as a prime player/playwright, but again I’m of the camp that believes the Shakespearean productions were composed by Sir Francis Bacon).  I have a problem with that, the supposed necessity of acting first as essential before writing plays, especially when I went to write much theater, and had very little ambition to do any acting performances whatsoever; I kept telling people, “I want to write plays and direct them, not perform in them.”  But still, some sort of acting experience will help focus and season the playwright. 

           If one can’t gain access to commercial or university productions this way, I suggest looking to your local community productions.  Often, those crews are severely understaffed.  You’ll have some fun and meet new friends; and you’ll gain access to all the mysterious inner workings of general theatre.  I’ve worked with a small Kent, Ohio group to provide some photography and observing performances, during a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (actually my young daughter, Angela, had a minor role in that production), and I’ve been able to attend several university public offerings about theatre events and techniques, most notably at the Pitt Campus nearby Uniontown, PA.  I was able to act in a small role (Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker) in a community theatre in Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, and also to spend many months as a volunteer understudy for directing, with many nights per week watching rehearsals, hearing of problems, offering suggestions, and absorbing a great deal.  I served as a Playwright-in-Residence with another nearby group, in Uniontown, PA, Theatrix Unlimited, where some of my original plays were read at public gatherings, and also I was able to work as a paid actor in several popular performances in the area with that group.  I had some of my brief skits performed live at a small theater in Pittsburgh, PA, and some of my original scripts read publicly and discussed again in Pittsburgh at a Playwright’s Reading Group, as well as having my small one-act, Rally! read live in public and recorded on video, at a playwright’s gathering in Los Angeles, CA.  I got close, also to having my first one-act, The Catalyst, commercially filmed in Akron, Ohio, and went through some preliminary production readings, but that never transpired.  My other plays were planned for small-scale video productions there and those too, had to be delayed.  Soon? 

           Probably the first thing about writing drama is the obvious, it’s all about dialogue.  (As obvious as this seems, it’s the opposite from film scripts, which are scripts for exactly what they are intended for, “moving pictures,” so movie dialogue is minimal, at best.)  If you feel talented with dialogue and have a good ear, then continue.  Also, where I’ve discussed elsewhere my own proclivities for visual writing and visual reading, this (and of course poetry) is the place to stop.  A dramatic production is an aural script for a live performance of actors performing your lines and your plot and moving about on a small stage in front of a live audience.  As soon as this is forgotten, the play falls apart.  Everything, then, since you are writing a performance script, is worked through with production themes, the primary of which isn’t necessarily length, but timing.  The production, actually each scene of each act of the full drama must be timed out, as it is composed (I always had a large clock on my desk as I composed), as well as the falling of the lines in themselves being timed and coordinated with all the other characters.  Being off a bit, ruins the work; just as timing is all important for the telling of a joke, for a stand-up comedian, so are the timing of the lines, the fall of the lines and dialogue, and the interweaving action of the drama as the lines are being spoken and acted through.  If the character action doesn’t jive pragmatically with the lines (and the thing isn’t meant as an hilarious farce), then the play will not work.  Also, the drama can’t be all dialogue, dialogue, dialogue, or else it gets static, boring to the audience, and actually probably never will be staged.  Lest you think this a rule of contemporary theatre only, take some time to study just the stagecraft of Shakespeare’s plays.  Besides the verbal virtuosity and poetry there, the actual stagecraft is brilliant, so efficient as to be startling, and a foretaste (or precursor) very realistically of more “modern” cinematic techniques. 

           Two primary considerations when starting, I believe are:  the actual form or genre of style of the play, and the language.  Again, without some idea of all the brilliant and varied work already completed in the history of theatre, it’s impossible to move on with your own plays, without having the precise form, genre, or style in mind.  Do you want to create a realistic drama, a surrealistic, an absurdist’s play, a conventional one, avant-garde, a comedy, tragedy, farce, mythic drama, or what?  (Lest you think there is some emphasis on one form over the other, consider how in ancient Greece, any playwright submitting a series of tragedies also had to submit a short comic “satyr play,” to be done at intermissions as well.  Comedy was sophisticated, too.)  Understanding the precise form of the drama you want to create is essential; after that is language.  It’s difficult here to discuss this obvious item; first, the play has to be in a colloquial language (if that’s its genre), but second, the language of the play (especially with us of the English tongue having a master wordsmith behind us such as Shakespeare) must endure, even if the language is on the plain spoken side and colloquial or the language of the streets say, it should be eloquent.  I bring this up, because after working with a small Playwright’s Reading Group in Pittsburgh, I was surprised and saddened by the amount of scripts we considered that were so impoverished by the language in the dialogue.  I turned to one of the influential organizers once and mentioned, “They all sound like TV, the drivel from the banality of TV shows.”  It’s finally a question of “Language.”  Meaning. 

           After the style, timing, and language considerations, it behooves one as an aspiring playwright to be as practical as possible.  This is why it’s important to see exactly what can be done in a theatre and what cannot (it’s not like a film, where in three seconds the scenery changes from Washington to Beijing).  So there are setting requirements and there are also staffing requirements.  The days of very large productions are not necessarily over (it still happens on Broadway with musicals such as “Les Mis,” the adaptation of Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables and for Shakespeare), but for most community, university, and smaller professional theatres the maximum amount of theater characters is probably four or five.  And of those, most should be women, not because of our need to address feminist issues these days (though that might be important), but because the overwhelming amount of actual dedicated actors these days are women (just as fiction is falling away from the preeminence of the male author, and so is the decline of male reading in America following the same pattern).  Suddenly, you have these very hard, actually rigid structures with the writing requirements, a definite kind of game plan, one setting probably, with minimal kinds of stage props (so not too expensive) with minimal amount of characters, and those, again, probably being mostly women.  That’s the modern game plan, at least, for nominal writing of plays in current America; until, I hope, more live drama catches on and the public demands live theatre again and will support a more grandiose and eloquent sort of production schedule in every major city.  Again, this is a Global Renaissance Age, and our renaissance in the English-speaking world is centered on Shakespeare, so I believe live theatre once again will come into its own (as mentioned in “Creativity,” the drama emphasis currently is with cinematic production, TV and film). 

           There should be mentioned, too, some necessary study with the exact current form of recording or printing modern plays.  A quick look at any book of plays or anthology or reader of some playwright will show the novice the new form.  It goes without saying, that even the first draft should be arranged in that manner.  There are even several different ways of arranging the dialogue now, depending upon whether you move directly to “actor’s scripts” (with character name in center of page and dialogue following that, maybe closer to film script formatting techniques) or the traditional method, which is the way it’s displayed in printed books.  I’ve stayed with the final book-printed format, because I feel the final or page formatting eventually will have to be formatted to that after any initial reading or small production or workshop of the play, so that seems best.  (Some writers will immediately go to various writer’s software, set up especially for drama and screenwriting.  While I feel this is unnecessary for traditional drama, such software can help immensely with the idiosyncratic formatting required now by larger film studios.  I use a current brand myself, Magic Screenwriter, purchased primarily because I liked not only the automatic formatting options but also the option to have the lines read aloud by the computer, as various character voices, a real convenience.  I did, however, complete my entire first screenplay, using only an inexpensive Ms Word application purchased over the Internet.  All my mentioned plays were done only with standard word processing software.)  Again, check the formatting to see where to write the condensed stage setting (italicized), how to set up characters in the front, how to format for stage directions within the dialogue (italicized), doing different scenes, acts, and final curtain.  Also, I would suggest to do a brief synopsis of the play for each of your dramas, so that is completed with your current production—it’ll be instrumental for anyone you show the play to, after completion. 

           As I mentioned in previous sections (“Creativity”) for the actual writing of drama I’ve used several styles of composition.  For my first one-act (The Catalyst) I wrote the play completely on a large, blank blotter tablet (17 x 24), longhand in pen, again so as to time the scene sequences, see several scenes or parts of scenes side by side, and also take notes on the same pad for characters, stage props, setting, and other relevant notes.  I’ve used this technique for several of my shorter plays, which allows great versatility, I believe for smaller plays, ones that might be experimental or need extensive notes at the beginning or throughout on production techniques, setting, scenery, and other additions besides dialogue changes.

           For my longer three-act, Freedom One, I returned to my conventional longhand composition techniques, which are using a Pilot pen with blank typing paper, all held in a small stack on an oversized stainless steel clipboard (sized for legal pads).  With the longer play, I felt less need of seeing individual scenes side by side, as the scenes were lengthier, and I suppose, with the length and extensive character involvement, I could concentrate more actively on the dialogue, interaction of characters, plot strategies, and longer-term planning, than seemed necessary or interesting for the shorter, one-act plays.  Freedom One confronted directly a theme I had been moving around for several years at the time, Freedom of Speech in America, it’s lack of effectiveness (with both theatre production, but more so with book production in the late Twentieth Century); so it was a complete interaction among independent book publishing people and some of the trials and travails of that entire scene.  The title, of course, referred to the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights and the need for us actually to go about winning that freedom, for it to be valuable and remain a mainstay of our constitution and the future of arts and publication and journalism and other forms of free speech in America. 

           I wrote the play in 1987, for the Two-hundredth Anniversary of our Bill of Rights.  Attached to the frontispiece, however, was the U.N. Bill of Rights, which actually guarantees what we think our American Bill of Rights does.  Elsewhere here (“Our Rebirth of Writing”), I’ve discussed my own delineation over three decades of our freedom, and how it has been confused and pushed to almost useless extremes these days, with there being (as I wrote in an essay, “Psychology & Economics,” collected into my book, Quintessence:  Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance) a grand difference between the ability for anyone with enough money to print his or her own book and the ability then to distribute that book to a larger public, which I’ve labeled as an additional or distinct freedom, The Freedom of Communication.  Freedom of Communication implies Freedom of Thought, actually to get your work communicated to other citizens.  It is this sort of consideration that the long play confronts.  I finished the first draft of this, but have been unable to complete the rewrites at this point (perhaps that will be done for the Two-hundred-twenty-fifth anniversary of our Bill of Rights in 2012).  A brief quotation shows some of the focus:

           “You know, magazines and books are strange.  Sometimes, fifty thousand books are printed and distributed and read all over the world, just for one man or woman’s thought to reach one other man or woman.  Life carries on that way, truly it does.

           “Fifty years after the death of an author, some new person on another continent picks up those inspired words and changes the earth.  Funny, this thing about communicating . . .” Freedom One, Act I, Scene 1 

           Again, with actual writing tactics, I’ve mentioned that I keep a clock in front of me when writing the dialogue and know approximately the timing for one page of dialogue, but after completing a scene or portion, will read it out loud and time it with the clock to make sure of the production values.  This is a point where the writer has to be very self-conscious about working within an aural tradition and an aural production, just as once the play moves to actually being produced, it also enters a more “community arena” in the sense that it is a group project by a crew of dedicated professionals focused on the play (producer, director, stage manager, prop and stage hands, maybe costume and set designers, promotion people, and of course, the actual actors and actresses). 

           Working with the dialogue being spoken out loud, helps to refine the writing process as one continues, for in the rewrites it’s much easier to hear the lines that are off or some misplaced word or ineffective comment, than if one just goes through it as usual, in the sense of visually reading over the play several times.  Of course, it is also a much lengthier process of actual writing and composition and rewrites, making sure all the elements all fit properly—again for the audience in front of a live performance.  I have mentioned some of the elements involved here and there are many excellent texts to aid one in the first throes of writing for theatre.  Some actual experience is necessary also, with all the live set requirements and customs of live theatre, “Break a leg!” for good luck.  Another associate playwright mentioned the good advice to go through the scripting for each individual character in a skit, or full play, alone by him or herself, so as to make sure of continuity of each character (without confusion from the other characters’ lines).  As mentioned also in my comments in the Chapter on “Creativity,” about the eidetic imagination (ability to imagine machines or visions in three dimensions), I was able to develop something like that ability with playwriting.  I found myself, once in the throes of creation, able to see a full stage completely lighted in my imagination; it appears in the frontal space, the area of the “third eye,” as they say, but so clearly that I’m able to watch an imagined production, change characters or props, do run-throughs and rehearsals, adjust lighting, and refine the production visually and in three dimensions, as I am actually writing the play.  I don’t know if others visualize in a similar fashion, but want to mention, that I do think this sort of talent is available and can be developed by serious writers planning to do and complete professional dramaturgy. 

           I have found playwriting to be the most demanding of all the written arts; and also, the most satisfying.  I moved to that center later in my writing life, but once there, I wanted to stay and make a great success of it; especially, of course, with more creative, full-length plays in the future.  There is a certain purity and stark classicism to the form of drama (the actual writing form, in the scene description in condensed form, in the concise and precise stage action, in the rest of the drama being revealed almost totally through dialogue, spoken language, and too in the infernal game plan or actual demands of plot and the tight formula each play must move through).  Too, it being a performance art at its end, it is unlike any other writing form, save perhaps poetry or the early age of poetry, where it was all aural, being recited or sung almost exclusively.  There is something profoundly super real about the media, I feel, in that it appears as a stark static form on a page, which can be brought verily to life within the confines of a stage and audience, and then the sparks fly, and continue to fly forever.  It’s like recorded dramatic eloquence, characters right in your face, and moving live action all in front of you, till the curtain falls and the lights go dim.  Nothing like it! 

           And too, like other serious playwrights, I wanted somehow, to help bring back American Theatre to a true center of greatness, personal and professional creativity, and to establish a great tradition not of singular entertainments and charms, little plays that would be safe to produce in many communities or college campuses, but those that would question, deliver wisdom, inspire, and bring about some transformation in the audience of today and the future.  We’ve had another playwright in America with those ambitions and achievements to match, of course, with Eugene O’Neill; though we’ve also had our definite share of very great talents, including Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Edward Albee, T.S. Eliot, plus contemporaries like David Mamet and Sam Shepard. 

           With my shorter plays, there were things of learning for me that struck strong notes others might appreciate.  I spoke earlier of the one-act Rally! and how it was written as a community festival play, done with an urban patter for the language of the lines, then recast completely into a rural patter (so as to be done either on an urban street corner or a rural county fair), and also there was a brief puppet script, slightly different, but to be shown most anywhere to younger children (the first two scripts highlighted teenage actors mostly).  The puppet script piqued my curiosity, because it had to be fun up front, a sort of slapstick kind of visual hand puppet comedy strong and vivid enough for young children, and yet it had to fit the pattern of helping to renew the community, in a self-conscious didactic fashion or moral or ethical pattern, as were the two earlier script variations.  I found myself relying, curiously, upon two memories of puppets, one from the very earliest days of TV (memories of “Kukla, Fran, and Ollie,” watched I believe on a small black-and-white 9-inch screen maybe in 1954 or so, and “Howdy Doody”) and the other, from experiencing with startled vividness the large manikin-style puppets or marionettes, used by street puppeteers along the avenues of Palermo, Sicily, when I visited there as an adult, in the 1980’s.  Those puppets for me, were gigantic, maybe 3 feet tall, with long sticks that moved them, were beautifully crafted and decorated and colorful, and they performed stories of the time of Charlemagne, and the romantic tales of French troubadours, chivalric knights from Charlemagne’s time and events like Roland’s stand (also immortalized in 1532 during the Renaissance by the adult epic poetry of Ariosto with his Orlando Furioso).  There was the public cutesy image from TV, and then the rousing still vividly done puppetry at night along the active Italian/Sicilian streets about ancient battles of Romantic Glory.  My own little puppet show did not meld the two, but in a way, though closer to the American TV version, still brought across the color, vividness, and idealism of those Sicilian Marionettes.

           With my first one-act, The Catalyst, after several group readings, I had many well-intentioned people (often with theatre backgrounds) mention that I should actually show the good teacher of the play, in action, to bring across exactly how excellent of a teacher he was.  This, I think, was based on a certain “show-don’t-tell” sort of inspiration from those offering critiques—and again, though well-intentioned (and I did accept other more useful advice) I bring this up here, because it is important for the playwright to know the center of his dramatic intent, and to hold to that, even through the production.  In this instance, my play was composed to display the attacks and continuous criticism the regular world or establishment often administers to stop, derail, or co-opt a creative person out to alter society, especially for the better.  The satire of the piece even portrays one character, wringing her hands and saying, if only the main character were evil, there’d be some hope, but he was the worst of the lot, good!  And the teachers finally can’t help the good teacher, who is let go, losing his tenure and has to fend for himself.  The play opens with him being welcomed back from a sabbatical, goes through all the tensions where he is almost talked out of his actions, then ends with him without a job, but receiving a community award for his many deserving achievements; and again the same friends are there to say they knew he had it in him, to show the full display of hypocrisy and the usual techniques of mediocrity.  For me, the playwright, the play was not about being a good teacher, there was no need to show him in action; the play was about what always happens to those who become an agent of change in society, the truly gifted, the truly creative ones, who are often misaligned, fired, bamboozled, abused, exiled and ostracized.  That was the story that needed dramatized, the story of what happens to The Catalyst, once he goes about to create change in society, only society feels it must stop him and any positive change, especially if it’s a threat to mediocrity (by working hard, working smart, being inspired, going the extra mile, actually presenting true moral or ethical lessons to students, as in too much violence in society).  So the playwright must understand the very center of his drama, his reason for expressing it, what its intent is upon the audience, and how all that could never be changed for anything else.  Otherwise, it becomes a different play.

           This also brings up a different kind of observation about drama, and one, that as I learned more about directing, and too, more about the intricacies of acting and the way certain lines can be said, unsaid, understated, overstated, all those ways that the actual meaning (not the emphasis or inflection, but actual language meaning) can be altered and actually reversed is remarkable to witness and should be understood by the playwright.  This goes further, of course, with the ability of any new director picking up any theatrical script and not just doing a personal interpretation of it, but actually dropping, deleting scenes, or underscoring certain dialogue with great emphasis, to a point that the entire intent and meaning of a play is completely reversed from the playwright’s intentions.  This is done often with very modern, “avant-garde” productions even of Shakespeare, and sometimes, I think, even with other more well-intentioned productions; I remember seeing a production of Romeo And Juliet, without the preliminary prologue (“Doth, with their death, bury their parents’ strife.”), where some modern director didn’t want to be quite so didactic, yet the very great transcendence of the tragedy of this wondrous young love is in the healing of two feuding Italian families in Verona.  It’s what the playwright intended; it’s what truly makes the play something more than a modernistic, cutesy romantic young love drama (like the musical adaptation, West Side Story).  But the playwright should be on his or her guard during production time, to make certain that the gist of the drama is not changed for any reason that the author does not want (certain performance corrections, lack of clarity, scenic or style adaptation are all understandable and suitable for some temporary productions), but actual content/meaning change should be taboo.

           In my sacred drama or sacred festival play, Mystery, maybe again in the fashion of Wagner (with his Parsifal not The Ring Cycle), learning the stark use of some music for me in was important, but here more symbolically, for Mystery is a sort of transcendental play, with levels of cosmic or eternal time moving in and out of more mundane reality, where it opens with a lone flute playing, and then ends with that same flute playing; it  seemed important to bring across a spiritual message or subtext, of introversive import, and also a focusing or attention as would an angel’s announcing horn, to awaken spiritually the audience for the beginning of the production and the ending.  Music can be used in a myriad of ways, of course, and my singular and low-keyed use of it with Mystery proved effective and substantive.  In another, with a more mythic drama, the namesake play, Tauromenium, survivors from ancient Troy wash up on a Sicilian coast, and around a camp fire tell their tale; that also starts and ends with what I was able to find, an old Greek folk song, done with guitars or lyres and sung quickly and with a low melancholy tone, which brings across some of the mythic quality.  It is a dramatization in one way of the Aeneas myth, of the founding of Rome, and harkens back to Virgil and all the traditions, legends, and actual archeological evidence pointing to the great possibility of such traditions being fact.  The music helped, as did, with this one play, using an elevated modern language, not quite Elizabethan, but elevated enough (without resorting to verse) to yield a starkly mythic and powerful rendition of the profound theme.  The play was set to premier in the ancient ruins of the Greco-Roman Theatre at Taormina, Sicily, where legends state that Aeneas visited.

           There’s also a good playwriting group, to gather information from, The Dramatist’s Guild, of which I’ve been a past associate member.  One needs to pay yearly dues, yet the publications and keeping up on all the latest legal support and production notices prove interesting as one get’s more involved.  I do, however, wish that at some point the DG would take a stand for somehow standardizing all submission format necessities for any playwright submitting new scripts to any acting company.  It’s a real bane to new playwrights to have a completed play in hand and then notice that out of five possible submission opportunities, four of them each have idiosyncratic format requirements for manuscripts—just to offer them production.  Who wants to spend his or her creative time changing all the format settings on computer and hours to make all that right, only to send the play off to some small company, and probably have it refused?  These companies should all have one professional or universal script format as a submission policy that everyone can adhere to; then we could all concentrate on the important work at hand:  producing great drama.  Also, as one comes to completion, it is valuable to try some sort of “workshopping” of the play, to have it read out loud by a like-minded group of actors or even run through the ropes on some set stage, to see how the lines fall, how the character interactions work, how everything fits together.  Unfortunately, many acting companies will refuse to even consider a play, unless it’s gone through such a process, just as many publishers will even refuse publication, until the play actually is performed.  Typically, for the performance run, it’s usual to start in the hinterlands (so as to work out the bugs and revise) and move to larger metropolitan centers (New York or London) for full public viewing. 

           Another reminder here, maybe again with the themes of Freedom One, is that as one becomes more involved and probably finds more and more opposition to one producing one’s own plays (why is the Freedom of Opportunity becoming so tightly locked down to any talented newcomer now in USA?).  You should continue with your work so that you have a good collection of plays, one-acts or longer, and then as you go about trying to get them produced, don’t discount the option of doing it on your own.  I’ve had to follow this in my life with my other writing, helping to start a serious community newspaper (The Times of Charlottesville), a literary journal (The Blue Ridge Review) and a serious print newsletter (Virtù) as well as the publication of novels and books of short stories (via The Renaissance Workshop).  So, of course, that is another option for me.  At some point, I finally decided, it’s time simply to rent some storefront, put an ad in the newspaper for actors and actresses, put aside some budget for promotion, and produce my plays.  This is what’s done in many of the other arts, with small musical bands starting up locally at first, painters and photographers doing small craft fairs before museums, poets working through “poetry slams” at local coffee shops, dancers doing holiday school productions. 

           I have been a part of small start-up theatrical groups already, again as a Playwright-in-Residence with Theatrix Unlimited in Uniontown, Pa, but I think something more dynamic has to be founded for my own plays.  This is not so far-fetched, consider only August Wilson, the Afro-American playwright, who died recently with great acclaim for his completed and collected 10-play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle.  He started the same way in Pittsburgh, PA; when he couldn’t get his plays produced, he did it himself.  Also, it is well known, that Eugene O’Neill was taken in by a small theater group, The Provincetown Players in New England, who performed on a small scale many of O’Neill’s early one-acts.  Of course, there’s the other Nobel Laureate, G. B. Shaw.  After years of acclaim as a published musical critic with London newspapers, Shaw went about decrying the state of British live theatre, saying it needed a revival with serious productions.  When other critics called him on the carpet for that, he and an associate wrote a play that was produced (Widowers’ Houses).  George Bernard Shaw went on to write and have performed another 66 plays, and later to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

           With all of our writing today, something dramatic needs to take place.

 

 

RESOURCES

1. Nonfiction:  On Writing Well by William Zinsser; The Art & Craft of Feature Writing by William E. Blundell; Writing Nonfiction, Turning Thoughts Into Books by Dan Poynter; Follett’s Modern American Usage by editor Jacques Barzun; The Careful Writer by Theodore M. Bernstein; Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors; The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law by Associated Press; Dispatches From Blogistan by Suzanne Stefanac.   
2. Fiction:   Three Genres, The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama by Stephen Minot;  The Career Novelist by Donald Maass; Dare To Be A Great Writer by Leonard Bishop; The Complete Guide to Writing Fiction by Barnaby Conrad; The Creative Writer’s Style Guide by Christopher T. Leland; The Writer’s Idea Workshop by Jack Heffron.
3. Drama:  The Dramatist’s Toolkit by Jeffery Sweet; The Theatre, An Introduction by Oscar G. Brockett;  The Elements of Playwriting by Louis E. Catron; The Art & Craft of Playwriting by Jeffrey Hatcher; Dramatists Sourcebook, Cambridge Guide to Theater by Stanton & Banham; Stage Writers Handbook by Dana Singer; Oxford Companion to American Theatre by Bordman & Hischak;  American Theatre Magazine at www.tcg.org;  Dramatists Guild (www.DramatistsGuild.com); attend live theater, participate in community theatre, read diverse plays (ancient and modern).

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Saturday, Oct 31 2009

ARCHIVE

“Spirituality,” October 30, 2009

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

 

The following seventh article, “Spirituality,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources. All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina.

 

SPIRITUALITY 

by 

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina

 

             The topic of Spirituality may be difficult for some writers to accept, in these apparent times of so much ubiquitous secular influence.  I feel it is a much misaligned subject and one absolutely necessary for a full rendition of the reality we inhabit, and thus, a necessity within the art we are creating.  Some years ago, I wrote in a book about literary matters, Vision, Essays on Style, that one’s spirituality is a large component in a wide open acceptance of life and to the experience of life on earth, and of course to the rendition of that experience through literature.  I referred to it as a part of certain exceptional writers’ work, in what I call, “Full Consciousness.” 

             “Those [philosophies, religions, ideologies] have been the ways men have chosen to view their world and to interact with it, some only choosing that which temperamentally suits them after major events.  Many from those beginnings, however, are swayed over to make dramatic changes in the societies we currently inhabit.” (Introduction, Vision, Essays on Style)

             It probably could be argued that our very first recorded literary forms were religious, perhaps even first with the invention of writing for mankind, stele and historical tablets, only preceded by the recording of mercantile documents (cuneiform) and political conquests (hieroglyphs).  (The earliest writing in Sumerian cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphs predates 3200 BC.)  Hieroglyphs were called by the Egyptians, “words of God,” and later by the Greeks, “sacred carvings” (Hiero-glyphs).  We have numerous pyramid texts and later burial papyri from Ancient Egypt (3000 BC) and the architectural recording of glyphs everywhere on temples, cuneiform myths blending with gods in The Epic of Gilgamesh (2150 BC), the first recordings of ancient Hebrew revelations (1400-800 BC) and later the Greek heroic poems, Iliad and Odyssey by Homer (750 BC), showing the interaction of gods with men.  With the early writings of Christianity’s New Testament (earliest believed to be Pauline material, about 40-50 AD, the Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John no later than 100 AD) arrive for the general populace the master forms of later western literature—biographies, fiction about everyday people (versus only stories about kings and queens or great warriors), letters or epistolary forms, multiple viewpoints, continuing wisdom literature (spilling over from forms of the Old Testament), as well as hagiography and later closer care with history (church fathers from 300 AD with Eusebius on through St. Augustine and St. Jerome in 400 AD, St. Gregory in 600 AD and others).  In the East there were the “revered Five Classics” under Confucius (551-479 BC) and his Analects though not exactly “religious,” while the first note of actual book printing was in China (868 AD), with a woodblock printed tome about Buddhism. 

             More than history, we must note, the absolute centrality of religious experience to humankind.  It is central also to humanity’s literature or artistic expression.  To believers, this sounds simplistic, in that if the world and our life within the world was created by God, then we must render our experiences with understanding, knowing, learning about, feeling for, and prayer with God.  Many smile at the cynical phrase “first profession,” but we must also think, that it might first have been a priest, prophet, or holy man.  (There are current documentaries, How Art Made The World, the BBC series in 2005, which have unearthed probable explanations about our first recordings in art—the cave painting expressions [painted circa 32,000 BC, predating recorded language], of hallucinatory or self-induced visionary spiritual experiences by indigenous holy men—these are still done today by primitive tribes, with magical or early spiritual overtones, in certain areas of the world.  Our first art, our first writing, our first concern is:  God, or how we fit into God’s world, that is, Spirituality.)  

             Those questioning the political significance for Christianity should renew themselves with the encounter that Constantine The Great had, in early 312 AD.  He was faced with being the unwelcome co-emperor of the Roman Empire and had to confront Maxentius.  Before the battle of the Milvian Bridge he had a vision, where he saw the Chi Rho insignia blazoned in the sky (the first letters, “X P,” of Christ Savior in Greek) and heard, “In hoc signo vinces” (“In this sign you will conquer”).  He instructed all of his soldiers and officers to paint the Chi Rho insignia over their shields; he won the battle, though outnumbered five to one.  Immediately upon becoming the emperor over the Western Roman Empire, he declared Christianity free from its many persecutions under Rome; and later, as sole emperor of the entire Roman Empire, he eased the way so that Christianity would be considered Rome’s official state religion (Under Emperor Theodosius I, 380 AD).  It was this same Constantine I, who became the Roman Church Builder with such as Old Saint Peter’s Basilica (his mother, St. Helena, even traveled to Jerusalem to follow her son’s instructions and build the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, plus discover the original cross of Jesus Christ), using most often the Roman public Basilica architecture (that we usually recognize as church architecture today), and throughout the empire Christianity in 313 AD was an accepted religion in Rome, later the only sanctioned state religion.  That’s a long way from the simple faith of one centurion! (Catholic Encyclopedia, Wikipedia)  

             For those who side with the Free Mason Edward Gibbon (The History of the Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire) about Christianity being a principal reason for Rome’s fall, should consider history with more thoroughness; the Eastern Roman Empire never fell, until 1453 AD, with the invasion of the Ottoman Turks (and it was more intensely Christian, Byzantine Christian, from the time of Constantine’s building of the capital there in Constantinople; in effect the Roman Empire continued almost another 1000 years past Gibbon’s glib analysis!  Gibbon:  “. . . its total extinction in the West, about five centuries after the Christian era.”  The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire).  The effect in the West was certainly different, with the invading Barbarians, who most often tried to integrate themselves within a continuing Roman Culture (versus invading to takeover and transform the Western Empire into a Germanic Culture)—not fully collapsing, until the economy around the Mediterranean came completely under Muslim control, around the Seventh Century, actually setting the scene for Charlemagne.  (Original discourse proposed by the brilliant Belgian historian Henri Pirenne, Mohammad & Charlemagne; insightful history with Gibbon and Pirenne discussed by Philip Daileader, The Great Courses, “The Early Middle Ages.”)  

             Charlemagne focused an important period in history (800 AD), initiated concepts of lasting importance (Carolingian Renaissance, Holy Roman Empire or a United Europe—finally synthesized with the European Union in 1993—repositioning a united political culture in Europe as a defense from the Muslims in the South and the Norseman in the North, repositioning Christianity as central or a “Christian Republic” [www.historyguide.org, Steven Kreis], though “convert or die,” was offered unfortunately to thousands of Saxons, who chose to die).  The Carolingian Renaissance then, while not of the magnitude of later Italian Renaissance, did provide a first model for renewing culture, and left us with lasting results:  sweeping educational reforms opening education to many individuals, including women; instituting legal reforms throughout realm; the revival of book “publishing” or massive copying (over 50,000 books copied by hand), first Bibles were reformed (to a Vatican standard) and promulgated everywhere; monetary reforms using silver coinage (though not gold, currency was stable again); resurgence of trade; rebuilding of certain areas with grand architecture (more in style with Roman or Byzantine structures, as in Charlemagne’s palace in Aachen); the restudying of Latin (as a learned language, which ended up accelerating the use of the vernacular); the formulation even of clear and standardized handwriting “Carolingian minuscule” (it was under Charlemagne that written language first adopted lower case letters, punctuation, and actual spaces between words) including the use of our current cursive, which we also now use in printing as italics; and in general the bringing round him in a mobile court (because of his constant military campaigns) excellent scholars and becoming a patron to them (including Peter of Pisa, from Italy; Alcuin of York, from England; and Joseph Scottus, from Ireland), so that they could reinvigorate the land (later, of course, a usual practice by the Medici’s and Sforza and astute Italian Renaissance courts in Sixteenth Century Italy); with books written, including Einhard’s Vita Caroli Magni, his biography of Charlemagne, penned as a contemporary in the king’s court, plus Charlemagne even promoted the collecting of early heroic tales and songs or Germanic legends. (Einhard’s Vita Caroli Magni; Catholic Encyclopedia, “The Early Middle Ages,” Great Courses, Daileader)  Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans on Christmas day in Rome in 800 AD, by Pope Leo III.  It saved the church, Europe, our current civilization, the Italian Renaissance, and probably Christianity for the West.  Still, we are speaking here about spiritual matters and the close interaction of history, as usual, with world religion.

             (Charlemagne was canonized as a saint in 1165, and earlier became the subject of medieval literary cycles, similar to later Arthurian Knights of the Roundtable, with the Charlemagne Cycle—as obscure as this might sound to Americans, I was shocked to see the persistence of these heroic  myths during a visit in the 1980’s to Palermo, Sicily, where large street marionettes, still performed animated scripts about “Roland and the Knights of Charlemagne” for local children and parents and travelers like myself.  [See Best of Sicily Magazine, “Sicilian Marionettes and Puppet Theatre,” Antonella Gallo, www.bestofsicily.com]) 

            Moving to the beginnings or what we call our more modern world, some might try to defuse that, by saying through the Italian Renaissance man came into his own terms, and especially after the Reformation, spirituality was a private reserve, and one not so much in the forefront of men and women’s minds, especially as more modern times prevailed with man’s horrific penchant for warfare and self-destruction and the glories of science, technologies, and modern convenience (in the West).  Part of this for the general public, I believe, is the result of ignorance and also a well-documented societal propaganda especially propagated by the Protestant experience.  I say this because, as the Catholic Church is often chastised, it is the church and the profoundly effective monastery movement in Europe that preserved the remnants of civilization and proceeded to pass along the arts and domestic science and whatever remained of ancient manuscripts into the hands of remaining civilization in the Middle Ages, again for Charlemagne’s Carolingian Renaissance, and for later days. (How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.) 

             We have the Roman Catholic Church not sitting on the sidelines during the Italian Renaissance; rather the church is at the very forefront of continuing the arts, serving as patron to major artists, sculptors and architects of Europe, supporting writers (it was a  Vatican cardinal, Cardinal Farnese, who suggested to Vasari to record the lives of the artists then, otherwise we would not have the essential, Lives of Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects), and it was often those supported in some way, even by minor orders, such as Petrarch, who went on in the earlier ages of Italy (1304-74) to lay the foundation for the recovery and study of ancient classics, for scholarship and international poetry (Petrarch invented the sonnet form, and was crowned “Poet Laureate” in Rome), and in later days added much to scholarship, the arts, and education of renaissance Europe.  What would the world be like without the magnificent works by Michelangelo or Leonardo?  And though such as Leonardo, worked usually more for private secular patrons, most of his magnificent paintings were exquisite religious creations (“Virgin of the Rocks,” sketches of “Virgin and Child with St. Anne,” “The Last Supper,” “St. John the Baptist,” half-finished “St. Jerome,” sketches for “Adoration of the Magi”).  In his Notebooks Leonardo once mentioned a unit of time as the length of saying a rosary (Catholic Marian prayer beads) and in his last days made a final confession and communion plus arranged a Catholic funeral.  While we have the popular anti-clerical sentiments with science, with such problematic attacks on Galileo, it should be noted that Leonardo worked at a later period in his life in Rome for the Vatican, 1514-1516, making architectural studies of the Old St. Peter’s, and one project in particular concerned his creation of large, unusually curved or concave mirrors, which some believe were the basis of a Vatican project to build a gigantic telescope and observatory, perhaps on the scope of the Hale Telescope at Mt. Palomar—only five centuries earlier.  The Vatican Observatory with a smaller telescope was founded in 1891 (though astronomers’ calendar studies in the Vatican date back to 1582).  For those thinking the church continually avoids science, one might recall that it was later Roman Catholic theologians, who helped found genetic studies (Gregor Mendel) and another priest, (George Lemaitre) who put forward the theory accepted today so widely in cosmology, The Big Bang Theory (named by someone else).  (Our Sunday Visitor, 7/5/2009)  These notes are not so much meant as apologetics, but as establishing the validity, still today, in all realms of humankind’s encounter with religion.

             Americans may have a difficult time with this, as there is an almost unconscious bias in America (through public education, continual mass indoctrination by TV and film, plus popular newspapers) that our world here started with the factual emigration and permanent settlements of English colonists in 1607 and Pilgrims in 1620 (Jamestown, VA;  and Plymouth, MA).  What is lost in the history of things, is that Columbus discovered the Americas for the modern age and western man in 1492, funded by a Spanish monarchy and Royal-Church ambitions, that Columbus himself was an Italian Catholic during the Italian Renaissance (from Genoa), and the place was named after another Italian explorer and navigator, Amerigo Vespucci (from Florence, in the employ of Lorenzo de Medici).  It was the Italians, in 1533, with the marriage of Catherine de’ Medici to Prince Henry of France, later King Henry II of France, who brought into the more northern countries recipes such as egg and custard pie (called by the French, quiche), books such as Machiavelli’s The Prince, a knowledge of renaissance art, and even amenities such as the modern dinner implement, the fork. The English of Shakespeare still ate with their hands!  (Leonardo provided an introduction to the arts when he died in France in 1519, living under kind patronage of the French King Francois I.)  The knowledge of the Italian Renaissance, moving through the rest of Europe, and its effect by the men and women of the Italian Renaissance (including Columbus, the establishment of the oldest city in North America at St. Augustine, Florida by the Spanish in 1565, and statesmanship, architecture, art, colonization even from the ancient masters of Rome and Greece, democracy from Greece, Republican government and law from Rome, warfare, mercantile expertise, seafaring and navigation and on and on).  In the negative sense, it was the latifundia scheme of Ancient Rome (large farming estates worked by crews of multi-racial slaves) that was the basis for our southern slave plantations (complete, of course, with Greco-Roman frontal columns on their palatial mansions).  It was no accident that Thomas Jefferson copied much of the Italian renaissance architect, Palladio, for his home, Monticello, or his bringing about a neo-classical rebirth with Jefferson’s many beautiful architectural designs for America, including The University of Virginia.  One might also note not only the Italian influence, but the Spanish, and the phenomena today in America that our largest, fastest-growing minority is Hispanic, most certainly of a Roman Catholic heritage. 

             There was a recent article in the Catholic Our Sunday Visitor (Oct. 11, 2009), “Pulp Fiction Rubbernecking” by Robert P. Lockwood, that adds a bit of gasoline to the fire of this debate.  The article was sub-headed with his comments:  “. . . Anti-Catholicism is part of the cultural DNA in the United States.  And it works because you can always make a buck off of it.”  Lockwood’s column, Catholic Journal, was about the popularity of “harum-scarum” anti-Catholic novels, including Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Steven Berry’s The Third Secret, and Robin Cook’s Intervention.  Lockwood refers to them as “silly publishing fads” and an “era of anti-Catholic potboilers,” but it is significant that such propaganda appears in the Twenty-first century and that such American books are even published (instead of being laughed out of professional publishing offices) and promoted, as in Brown’s case, with film adaptations.  I had earlier made comments about the poor research and off-the-wall assumptions of Brown’s (even with the title, the standard usage for referring to Leonardo da Vinci is “Leonardo”; Da Vinci is not a surname, it’s the town where Leonardo was born [his father’s name was Piero].  We don’t refer to Michelangelo as Buonarotti [his true surname], do we?  And all the twisted revisionist seemingly feminist sensibility [Brown’s wife was his researcher] about Mary Magdalene marrying Jesus is only regurgitation of third-century heresy often promulgated by the troublesome sect, The Gnostics).  When Brown’s tome was popular I mentioned (and tried to get Newsweek to print a “letter to the editor” about this, but it was refused) that if Dan Brown were writing a novel that slandered Moses or Muhammad (instead of Jesus Christ), the book never would’ve got published.  That those other tomes do is perhaps then, not so surprising; just so the general public doesn’t think that the era of supposed “political correctness” finally is upon us.  (When I grew up in Pennsylvania there were tales of vigilantes nearby breaking up Roman Catholic meetings—so much for the Catholic King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella, of Spain financing the discovery of our continent.  Again, the name “America” is from the Italian navigator, Amerigo Vespucci.)  We really need to launch a nationwide boycott of such authors.  These potboilers do, however, show the importance of some religious sensibility within their novels, even if they are biased, false, and fueling a debate which ultimately results in violence or hatred (and, of course, quite poor reading material). 

             I mention all this from a kind of first-hand understanding, in that when my daughter was going through public grade school, around Thanksgiving time, I helped read through a history book.  Both my daughter and I carried a surname, Taormina, from a town in Sicily, whose actual history goes back beyond 300 B.C., with ancient Greeks, later Romans, etc.—so it was necessary, even in a more simplistic fashion, to instruct my daughter about her true heritage, and pull the veil as it were, from this propagandist notion of our entire American world starting “so wondrously” here, in the 1600’s with a group of British settlers. (Appropriately, Taormina, Sicily is known as the birthplace of the Ancient Greek historian, Timaeus.)  Plus, there are those previous novels filled with Catholic bashing.  For the larger view, we might note that we are back to the importance of religion and spiritually, even for those “beginnings” in America, with the Pilgrims emigrating from England for Religious Freedom. 

             For our central discussion, two insights about spirituality and art come from the master Renaissance Titans:   “Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is not art.” (Leonardo), and “True art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” (Michelangelo).  That leads back to my earlier discussion that spirituality must become a major part of one’s writing and one’s sensibilities and one’s understanding of the world, and that religion should be, I believe, reflected in one’s own art, in the characters’ lives, in the world or reality portrayed, and in the plotting of what is to be a greater work, if it be serious fiction. 

             I am reminded here, of the recent comment by a local Ohio critic, about literary matters, and especially about modern Christian writing.  The person thought, for some reason, that spiritual or “Christian Writing” was a matter of a “small genre” or minimal category of American writing, and today, especially would be only for the Bible Belt in America, or some small, particular niche in Christian bookstores, or maybe only as part of a well-intentioned effort to produce apologetic or evangelistic materials for some particular church. 

             Several things were awry with the person’s remark.  I mention them here, not for correction of an individual, but because these thoughts are so endemic for many, within what they feel as a mostly secular culture in America, and with the pervasiveness, perhaps, of so much popular “atheistic” or “anti-clerical culture,” it needs responded to more fully and completely.

             Most of my discussion for the writer concerns the art of the novel.  That is where my experience and knowledge are greatest, and it is the center of this book about writing, though I do touch on other writing forms and ways of literary expression.  This idea about “Christian novels being minor” is completely outside the history of literature.  In one response alone, with Russian masterpiece art, we need only consider the Nineteenth Century with Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky, both of whom were intimately affected by Christianity and very much involved with spirituality in their lives and their art.  Their books show that, especially with the great novels by Dostoevsky, and with the later fiction, plays, pamphlets by Tolstoy, their profound commitment to Christ (and the entire movement by Tolstoy’s followers, called Tolstoyism, whose tenets of voluntary poverty and Tolstoy’s non-violence—inspired by Christ and Thoreau—so affected the later political leaders of Mahatma Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King, Jr. in America).  Those saying that’s only true of the past, are avoiding the exact same Christian center and global achievements in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century with the modern Russian novelist, Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn. 

            It might not be obvious to a general reader, of the effect or outstanding significance that the Nineteenth Century Russian novelists produced upon all writers.  There were, of course, more serious authors elsewhere, with America’s Henry James and Hawthorne and later Melville, England’s Jane Austen, France’s Balzac, (and later Flaubert, Zola, Proust), Germany’s Goethe; yet it seems the center of concern, confrontation with then current reality, and depth, but depth in some more profound sense than we’re used to even understanding that, with Tolstoy’s early “wide consciousness” (some critic’s have labeled it most accurately as almost clairvoyant, with mental portrayals of characters in all levels of society, and even with horses) in War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and then the turgid, necessary extensive psychological portrayals/studies/mental portraits of Dostoevsky’s, with characters and plots pushed to multiple extremes (influenced by Poe).  All that should leave a beginning author breathless—as compared, for instance, in America with the light-hearted Mark Twain, or adventuresome “The Leather-stocking Tales” of James Fennimore Cooper, or even the sea travels (before the later seriousness) of Melville.  We must remember that it was Freud who studied Dostoevsky (to improve his understanding of psychology and culture) and not the opposite.  In the moral realm, again, is the lasting and far-reaching effect of much of Tolstoy’s writing (Death of Ivan Ilyich, Kreutzer Sonata, What Is Art?), even to the political reality, with his effect on Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Tolstoy’s work with the serfs in education and emancipation (akin to the freeing of our own agricultural slaves).  More, there’s the unabashed Christian center with Tolstoy’s move to a primitive Christianity and writing works in his later years like Resurrection and plays such as The Power of Darkness; Dostoevsky even named one entire novel Demons which often is translated as The Possessed, and had lengthy dream scenes with metaphysical inquisitors (The Brothers Karamazov), Christ-like main characters (The Idiot), monks and spiritually inspired characters (Brothers Karamazov).  While the West bandied about with existential philosophy, agnosticism, and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, it was Dostoevsky, who anticipated them and showed the effects of individuals caught within the intellectual sway of such heady albeit destructive philosophies (Crime and Punishment).  

             In the Twentieth Century we have Solzhenitsyn’s nonfiction, The Gulag Archipelago, his novella, One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, his short stories and poems, and novels such as First Circle, Cancer Ward, August 1914, and his expanded cycle, “The Red Wheel.”  The fiction is significant, artful, disturbing; Solzhenitsyn’s nonfiction shocking and unflinching, everything thoroughly Christian, and he is one who even in his many addresses to the West (while residing here in America) still sounded a clarion call for depth of confrontation, avoidance of consumer traps, and the glib and awful effects of pop culture here.  He, of course, later returned to the former Soviet Union, and told them exactly the same things and continued writing, explaining, scripting his novels for TV productions, and assisting victims of prison camps, like himself.  (See my earlier blog post for “Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” one year anniversary of death in 2008.) 

             For those more familiar with English literature, it should go without saying that the entire oeuvre of Charles Dickens is infused with Christianity and Christian sentiments.  His self-published masterpiece novella, A Christmas Carol, has come to define for popular culture the entire celebration of Christ’s birth (without ever actually mentioning Jesus Christ).  He has been labeled popularly as “the inventor of Christmas” and even Father Christmas himself (The Lives & Times of Ebenezer Scrooge by Paul Davis).  Other involvement should be understood that way, the constant portrayal of children and their abuse or salvation as a persistent concern (more than for the popular tug of the sentimental); for it is through Christ’s words that such sentiments are echoed:  “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God” (Luke 18: 16-17).  In other profound ways, too, with the determined effort to display the abuses of that era’s industrial England, the outcasts, criminals, orphans, unwed mothers, all that displays a wide expanse of the human canvas, and one grounded soundly on Christ’s “Love ye one another . . .” (John 13: 34) and “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matthew, 26: 40-41). There are the kinds of major plot movements, with heart-choking displays of pure compassion, where Dickens shows the true patron of Pip in Great Expectations as being Magwitch, the chaotic criminal from the first scene, and the protagonist Sydney Carton’s volunteering of his own life to save Charles Damay, the husband of the woman he loves, Lucie Manette, in A Tale of Two Cities, which are beyond some glib or quick-witted plotting genius; these are profound and fundamental moral teachings, displayed or dramatized by one of the English language’s great literary artists and geniuses.  (Those doubting Dickens’s sensibilities for the poor must understand that he went to great efforts outside of writing to help the disadvantaged in England and even with the success of his novels, he was busy as an editor and journalist in London, where he championed humanitarian causes like mishandled children, sanitation, and workhouses.)  We also, I think, in a counterpoint to the bleak or heavy-handedness of some of that century’s Russian authors (Dostoyevsky in particular) must evaluate Dickens’s use of humor, enchanted storytelling, and active or entertaining plot lines as one example of his imbuing the culture with good grace, compassion, and a terrific sense of brotherly charm. 

             The enduring popularity of Dickens is significant, with his books still being taught in high schools and colleges, still read by people all across the English-speaking world (one novel, A Tale of Two Cities, alone has sold over 200 million copes; it’s among the most printed original books in English, Wikipedia); his endurance perhaps is displayed even more by the sound success of dramatizations through film and theater (Oliver!), opera, and yearly TV productions (180 film and TV adaptations).  Obviously, his work will survive into future centuries and serve to promote a foundation of Christianity and examples of some of the best of the novelistic craft to entertain humanity at all levels of any future society.  

             (I recently mentioned to a close friend, after his talk of reading Dickens’s Bleak House and catching the PBS dramatization, that I had always praised Dickens’s novelistic and quirky imagination, for producing so many eccentrics and odd British characters—till I had the opportunity of visiting England some years ago, Oxford, Stratford-on-Avon, and London, where I visited the Dickens house.  I was startled to notice so many eccentrics and “typical sorts of British odd characters” actually in the street and all about—I realized that Dickens had been portraying reality quite closely, if with a bit of good-natured braggadocio.  Also, upon my own recent re-reading of Great Expectations, I was astounded by what I had missed upon my first reading for a tenth-grade English class.  All I remembered was dense Victorian text, too many characters and melodramatic plot twists—upon re-reading, and after penning six of my own novels, I was shocked to witness the “voice of a kindly actor, or obviously a dramatic entertainer” within his narrative, an English rendition that was lively, openly entertaining, and soundly artistic in the best sorts of theatrical ways [also I had written plays].  Again, upon seeing Dickens through different eyes and experiencing his dramatic narration, the effect or intended moral uplift of his plots left me astonished.  I wish, somehow, that was put across long ago!  Such are the treasures of humility one learns with honest maturity.) 

             Again, all of this, as a sort of lively digression, is meant to educate those thinking that Christianity is something quaint, provincial, and unpopular for a wider audience in literature—it’s the exact opposite! 

             For more American literature, there is the well respected output by modern authors, Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and in other nonfiction forms the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day (chronicled in excellent fashion by Paul Elie’s The Life You Save May Be Your Own).  The British had an earlier rush of Christian authors, American émigré T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, Hillel Belloc, and J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis (much excellent criticism offered by modern Catholic critic, Joseph Pearce, Literary Giants, Literary Catholics).  There is discussion these days about how William Shakespeare was even a covert Catholic during Queen Elizabeth’s Protestant England, The Quest for Shakespeare by Joseph Pearce.  (My opinion about Shakespeare—based on research, many spiritual insights, my own essay composition and playwriting—points unfortunately to a different conclusion:  Mr. William Shakespeare probably was a Catholic; however, all the plays ascribed to him were written by the renaissance genius and Protestant, Lord Chancellor of England, Sir Francis Bacon. See complete notes at www.sirbacon.org or a shorter, stunning “32 Reasons” at www.sirbacon.org/pott32.htm.)  

             For more historical writing, there’s the work of Erasmus, The Praise of Folly and Utopia by St. Thomas More, plus John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. And for the popular mind today, there is the best-selling apocalyptic novel series, Left Behind by Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins and the work of Ann Rice with her recent Christ The Lord novels, and journalist and film script writer, Joe Esterhazy (both later converts to serious Catholicism, yet sincere in later life), and the most recent film renditions of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, plus the Tolkien Catholic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings.

             From another literary expert, John M. Bowers, we learn that in literature in general, we cannot discount the effect of The Bible (“a library . . . or anthology of literary genres”), and mostly, the effect the Gospels of The New Testament have had (“The Western Literary Canon In Context,” The Great Courses).  I mean this in the form of literature, outside of the obvious religious or moral influence; that with the massive readership, generation after generation reading The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (not to mention the wonderful letters of St. Paul), the impetus “to record stories, parables, tales, biographies,” and again with the Pauline literature, “letters upon letters,” including epistolary novels (done as a series of letters) is difficult to overestimate.   Another critic made the point that stories of men and women were not unusual, but stories about ordinary men and women, showing the extraordinariness of ordinary lives (outside the Kings and Queens or aristocracy) was new.  We have since very ancient days records of prose novels (from ancient Greece), as well as fragments from Rome (Satyricon by Petronius, AD 50), and in the East, after the Eleventh Century The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu in Japan, before the advent of the Italian short story or “novellas,” so popularized by Boccaccio (1313-1375), story of Pantagreul (France, 1532) and Don Quixote (Spain, 1605)—all these were not necessarily spiritual though they showed the context of a Christian culture (even with irony), plus again demonstrate the influence of preceding spiritual forms (in Japan of Buddhism), and bring us to more modern days.  It would be difficult to imagine some of the experimental effects, especially of multiple points of view, of say a Faulkner novel like As I Lay Dying, without our having the Gospels (the Bible and Shakespeare were Faulkner’s favorite reading), as is of course, even the genre of biography (with the St. Luke’s style of narration), or even later autobiography, so followed up by such as St. Augustine in his Confessions, a Catholic Church Father.  In the world of experimental styles, many readers and writers are enamored with the “magical realism” of South American experts like Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude) and the post-modernism of Borges; but how would that have come about exactly, without the supernaturalism everywhere in The New Testament?  Some might ague that it harks back to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, but is it coincidental that such sparks of supernaturalism or forms of irony about “mundane or material reality” since the time of Cervantes and his Don Quixote all developed within Spain or Spanish-speaking nations, predominately Catholic cultures? 

             There are other, more oblique sorts of spiritual considerations with literature, as well.  While many are familiar with Goethe’s masterpiece play, Faust I & II (1808, 1832), I believe most will not admit to the modern influence such a forewarning about demonic influence might have.  We, of course, since the invention and first use of the atomic bomb, often talk about humanity’s “Faustian Bargain,” in trading scientific knowledge for the possibility of absolutely destroying our world (not to mention more slow, subtle, yet just as deleterious effects of modern technocracy or industrialism with Global Warming), but I feel this has much more direct applications to our lives, especially for productive artists and writers. 

             There have been three times in my life, my writing life, where separate, discrete, yet obvious events happened, when I realized afterwards that I was being presented with exactly that same “arrangement.”  Those unfamiliar with the Faust Legend (also treated in 1604 by England’s Christopher Marlowe with the play, Doctor Faustus, and by others such as Germany’s Thomas Mann in 1947 with his novel, Doctor Faustus), should know that it is a story of a medieval alchemist or scholar who conjures an agent of the Devil (Mephistopheles) and signs a contract to sell his soul for agreed upon terms (for Goethe it meant advanced knowledge, continued youth, the actual love of a resurrected Helen of Troy, visionary travels, and much more).  Goethe provides the warning, and tries in the end to provide a sort of salvation, for Faust to get away from the terror of his damnation, to a different resolution. (I was able to visit a Goethe Museum in Dusseldorf, Germany some time ago, seeing a juxtaposition between the detailed rational appearing handwriting of Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and his contemporary in music, Ludwig Van Beethoven, who’s exclamation points and declamations were what might be imagined, two giants of German Art—both providing warning and inspiration.)  In my own circumstance, I was gaining power in my writing career, through a community newspaper in Charlottesville, Virginia, publishing a literary journal, and doing many other writing projects and new works.  Suddenly “odd people” entered my life “to help,” and for a time I thought in a positive way, but soon I understood, that it was to an evil effect; in other words, I was being helped “to become successful” as an author (by demonic direction), because soon I would have a platform to influence others. 

             Another instance, this event in Pittsburgh, PA, happened as I once more was gaining power as a writer, this time as a playwright with new theater groups, I was approached by another “odd person,” who proclaimed he was more of a “producer,” that is, someone behind the scenes, who could help and open doors, so that my plays would be performed and I could become successful.  The “producer” image upon second thought, for the helper in this case, seemed a perfect cover for demonic manipulation or covert Satanic subversion.  Slowly, I realized what was going on, and I bowed out; but this, too, especially as a second demonic incident, served as a warning.

             A third time, while I was doing more writing on novels in New Stanton, PA, and trying desperately to match up enough “day job” experience to survive physically, while producing my written arts, I was approached and befriended, again by an “odd person,” who eventually revealed herself, for a true demonic entity.  All I would’ve needed to do, was “to agree”; simply to agree spiritually to this deceptiveness, this bargain with the Devil, and I would’ve been successful, first materially, and second, with my written arts; again, so I might mislead or corrupt others.  These are kinds of incidents I mention here to forewarn others and I will discuss in more detail, so that everyone might note how real all this truly is, for each one of us. 

             I’m certain there are many recorded instances of such activity; for me, I remember the notation of one author, in particular:  Ms. Karen Blixen (pen name, Isak Dinesen), authoress of the memoir, Out of Africa (later, of course, made into a film), where she admitted in a recorded interview that she had made such a pact with Satan.  She described it casually, as before success with any of her writing, of once when alone of having a tingling sensation or feeling in her body (a sensation that “someone or something was there with her”) and then came the opportunity to agree or disagree to darkness.  She agreed; her success followed quickly.  There were in her case no “visions,” no appearances of physical “odd persons” (later I’ll describe them officially as “entities”), and no obvious “written contract,” or even a conventional verbal agreement.  But she knew she had made the deal!

             It is my opinion that it’s easy to see similar results in the publishing media.  You can expect, also, that the more sensational the details or results, the more “effective” (or deceptive) the writing is to ensnare innocent readers or, the bigger the “marketing platform,” the bigger the success.  My recommendation of an obvious lesson is with the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.  This seems a case (witchcraft for children) that is easy to follow; a completely unknown author (an unemployed single mother with no prior writing experience) suddenly creates a witchcraft book series for children, and one of the novels in the series “surprisingly” sells 9 million copies in just 24 hours, one of it’s later volumes 11 million copies in one day (total sales for the series are about 400 million copies worldwide, with of course film rights per novel added to that success).  These are not simply extraordinary figures, they are supernatural results.  

             The Biblical injunctions against Witchcraft are from Exodus 22:17 and Deuteronomy 18:10-11.  (Also, the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.”)  I wasn’t surprised to see later correlations or direct manifestations, with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry then the Hoof & Mouth disease so rampant in England that millions of pigs were slaughtered.  Then the Potter novel with Harry running around certain stops in the British underground (subway), the same stops later actually blown apart by terrorists in London.  A recent report is of a 21-year old university student, Toby Rundle, being found dead, after having sold his early copy of a Rowling novel, for enough cash to help finance his university education (BBC News).  There was the knife murder of a recent actor, Robert Knox, from a Potter movie, and the nude photos of main actor, Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter fame, playing some racy London stage production (Equus).  Radcliffe, an atheist, because of starring as Harry Potter in the films, is now at age 20 the thirty-third richest young person in Britain. (Wikipedia)  His Potter co-stars, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, also are in the top 10 on a Tweens list of mega-earners.  David Holms, a stunt double for Radcliffe, has fared worse:  he was seriously injured on a recent Potter set, during rehearsals.   

             To the cry of, “it’s just fantasy, not witchcraft,” what of the midnight party promotions at national US bookstores, where all the kids and parents are dressed completely as witches and warlocks?  The occult is always dangerous.  Recently, Mrs. Linda Harvey, author of Not My Child–Contemporary Paganism and New Spirituality mentioned how “a 2002 survey showed that Harry Potter was creating an interest in witchcraft and wizardry for our kids.” (Crusade Magazine, Sept/Oct 2009)  Michael O’Brien, Catholic novelist and commentator earlier wrote:  “Among the young, an interest in witchcraft, sorcery, and allied occult activity is growing at an astonishing rate.  Some libraries now put the occult section beside the Potter books, to make access easier for young readers.” (National Catholic Register, Oct., 2000)  To show the power and intent of just the filmed version, I noticed a Harry Potter film here in USA this year being shown over prime-time television, of course, during Easter Season.  Coincidence?  (Hey, that’s exactly what Lucifer paid for!)  Ms. Rowling, of course, went on to become “the wealthiest woman in the UK” (factually outdoing Queen Elizabeth II); and in 2008 was cited in the UK as the “world’s richest author.”  Believe me, the story of Faust is not simply a parable or legend, but factual occurrence in the world.  It happens in art, politics, business, science.  We must remember the words of Jesus, “What does it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, but loses his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26) 

             Perhaps, for the main argument, we should retreat to the idea that in fact Witchcraft or “Wicca” actually is considered a religion; so once again, we have at least returned to the significance and timeliness of our original subject.

             My main premise here with this article is about the importance of spirituality to our writing, but more, about the significance of Christian Writing to our current Global Renaissance.  Christianity will center once again in this renaissance, as it has in most of the world’s modern Golden Ages for the same reason it always has:  Resurrection, the building of The Kingdom on earth, and Love (with compassion for one’s neighbor as central to a Christian Humanism that promotes forgiveness and the love of God.  Jesus Christ is Savior).  Again, for those still arguing from Edward Gibbon’s point of view, that Christianity contributes to the fall of empires, one should examine modern historians, like the insightful Pirenne (Mohammad & Charlemagne) concerning how a more plausible fall came in the Seventh Century with the Moslems conquering territory around the Mediterranean—again, half of the original Roman Empire (Byzantium), which was more religious than the West, remained in existence until conquered by the Ottoman Turks (again the Moslems) in 1453.  It was the Christian Charlemagne, who around 800 AD promoted the Carolingian Renaissance, not as grand as the later Italian Renaissance, but nonetheless, he did secure Christian Europe, the transition from ancient Rome and future “Rome” or Holy Roman Empire, and stabilized much of the culture, including a political dream or “actuality of a moral civilization” as a possible Christian Republic, a modern day European Union. 

             Two decades ago, while researching historical background for my novel set in Virginia, Gratuity, I walked between cramped library shelves in Charlottesville and a book almost fell into my hands or suddenly grabbed my attention:  The Philosophy of Civilization by Albert Schweitzer.  Schweitzer (1875-1965) was the German pastor and doctor who had a pastoral and medical mission in Africa.  He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952.  (He was a theological scholar, philosopher, a professional musician and scholar with the works of J. S. Bach, dedicated pastor, and a trained medical physician.)  His grand theme is summarized in his phrase:  “Reverence for Life.”  I had been familiar with Schweitzer, coming into contact with him and his work when studying background for the modern Greek author, Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba The Greek, Saint Francis, The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel).  The two had been friends, and later I wrote in more depth about these men (Kazantzakis as an author with Full Consciousness in Visions, Essays On Style and Schweitzer about the Renaissance of Civilization in Infinity).  I’ve been greatly influenced by both of these writers, in particular by Albert Schweitzer, and in specifics, with this book of what first appears as fairly dry philosophy. After my first reading The Philosophy of Civilization (Kulturphilosophie), I ended up having half of an entire notebook scribbled with quotations.  It was with this background, and the depth of spirituality with it, that I came to an understanding of our necessity for creating a renaissance (which I had been studying for years) and the centrality again, of Christianity to that foundation.

             Schweitzer discusses the need of humankind to reflect on his reality and its meaning, more than just the material, and reflect on the spiritual basis of life:  “The spirit of the age drives us into action without allowing us to attain any clear view of the objective world and of life.  It claims our toil inexorably in the services of this or that end, this or that achievement.  It keeps us in a sort of intoxication of activity so that we may never have time to reflect and to ask ourselves what this restless sacrifice of ourselves to ends and achievement really has to do with the meaning of the world and of our lives.”  (Quotations from Schweitzer’s The Philosophy of Civilization, Page 59)

             “It [the spirit] has to get attention concentrated on civilization while the growing difficulty of making a living absorbs the masses more and more in material cares, and makes all other things seem to them to be mere shadows.” (Schweitzer, Page 47)  

             Then, found that on a spiritual understanding of Christ:  “It gradually begins to be accepted as self-evident that the spirit of Jesus does not renounce the world, but aims at transforming it.”  (Schweitzer, Page 143) 

             Finally, his tonic to restore civilization:  “It is not the civilization of a race, but that of mankind, present and future alike, that we must give up as lost, if belief in a rebirth of our civilization is a vain thing.”  (Schweitzer, Page 38)

             “A new renaissance must come, and a much greater one than that in which we stepped out of the Middle Ages; a great Renaissance in which mankind discovers that the ethical is the highest truth and the highest practicality . . .”  (Schweitzer, Page 84)

             Lest many think that Schweitzer’s Lutheran background made him too much of an unorthodox Christian, similar sentiments are expressed in these latter days by another German, a major Roman Catholic theologian: 

             “The entire creation must become ‘a new city,’ a new paradise, the living dwelling place of God:  ‘God all in all’ (1 Cor. 15:28)—thus Paul describes the end of Creation, which must be conformed to the Eucharist.

             “Thus the Eucharist is a process of transformations, drawing on God’s power to transform hatred and violence, his power to transform the world. . . . We pray that He transforms us, and together with us the world, into the new Jerusalem.”  Pope Benedict XVI, “Eucharist, Communion, and Solidarity,” The Essential Pope Benedict XVI, His Central Writings & Speeches.

              I want to go on with more personal discussion to demonstrate by example how spirituality plays a role with the written arts, how it has for me and my work, and how it might expand and focus your own.  Before people take me to task for what might be imagined as simplistic rambling about religious preferences, what might sound obvious for a “cradle Catholic,” I want to clarify my own years of troubled faith.  I shied away from the church in my early adult years and felt like I was leaning toward agnosticism, except for one characteristic of my personality, which has always manifested events for me:  my talents with parapsychology (or “Gifts of the Holy Spirit”).  Most of my immediate family, parents, and my brothers, all were extremely sensitive to telepathic transfers of thoughts, to pre-cognitive dreams, to miraculous healings, to clairvoyant visions, and other spiritual manifestations.  It’s the kind of thing that you don’t hear from others or see on TV or films or read of in some sensational sheet; it’s the kind of thing that often happens in your own life, so frequently and with such intimate details, that it’s impossible to ignore.  There are three ways to accept this:  one, to simply say okay if it’s true then it’s some part of mind science we don’t yet understand; or two, it’s a complete part of an invisible universe, one that has been created by God; or three, accept both of those explanations. 

             For those readers scoffing at the facts here, I might mention briefly, that my next younger brother, James, while an MP in the U.S. Army years ago, was taken aside by his superiors, and after being tested for parapsychological abilities, asked if he would enter a special government training program, in America, for such sensitives.  It was my brother’s “Faustian Moment,” and fortunately, he refused.  This sounds like the stuff of pop horror fiction, but believe me, these sorts of talents are more common, more intense, and more generally accepted than the educated populace would ever believe (In 1970 there were reports of such study with the military in USSR, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain by Ostrander & Schroeder).  In my case with my own abilities, I knew something was going on, something unusual, and something that I had been taught by all the years of science in regular high school and after receiving a B.A. degree from my university, to ignore totally.  

             This lead me into two intense decades of personal research through religions of the world, philosophy, through spiritualism, through researching occult practices, secret societies, Native American practices, through the study of the lives of Christian and Hindu and Buddhist and Confucianist and Islamic “saints” or holy people’s lives, through traditional theologies and philosophies, parapsychology, and through a varied collection of almost unbelievable personal psychic episodes, most of which I will not detail here (there are included in my spiritual memoirs, Each Man Has A Journey).  I will say this:  that my own strong opinions, for instance, earlier in this article about Witchcraft stem not from general animosity or superstition, or even from simple theological injunctions against Witchcraft, but rather because I know it works.  Witchcraft is real; there are supernatural means to alter reality (for a time), there are direct links to evil, there are those who “master” these techniques, or are mastered by them for world conquest (Hitler), and there are many others who by demonic deception, become pitiful victims of a treachery so terrifying as to be beyond the imagination of ordinary mortals. 

             In my own experience, then, I returned to the Roman Catholic Church of my youth, later in life, but with a full-blown, complete acceptance of all of its tenets.  I had a lot of sins to be forgiven, needed a lot of grace for healing internally, and experienced a salvation beyond explanation.  I had learned not only a scientific understanding and new insights (I did enough research in parapsychology and known or unknown modern mind science) to be able to explain in totally rational terms all of the Divine Sacraments, and had by that point in my life, experienced nearly all the miracles attributed to Jesus Christ in early Israel (and actually, so many more, that I’m still writing about them).  What I finally came to, was a personal understanding, that if I had so many “psychic abilities,” I wondered what would happen if I started using those abilities for traditional Christian prayers, especially for healing my brethren and the writing arts.  Also, while I didn’t really “care for” much of the theology as taught and still explained throughout all the Christian Churches today, I accept it as absolutely the base of truth and the foundation of the actual reality of our world.  I sincerely do not think it is possible for anyone to fully understand this world, without accepting Jesus Christ.  It’s impossible; just as it is impossible to understand the universe created by God, if you don’t believe in the universe’s first premise, God Almighty.  Much of the forefront of scientific thinking with the extraneous events and abilities I’m speaking about, are explained vaguely now in scientific terms, under what’s called Quantum Mechanics, even to the point of admitting, that you cannot enter an experiment to measure it precisely because your actual human presence there alters the results. 

             That being said as frankly as possible, I can convey ways I’ve gone about, especially with my years of later adult writing, to bring into the written world many of the insights I’ve learned, many of the gifts God has manifested for me, and some of the drama of God revealing this to all of us, just as He has throughout the course of many millennia in The Bible.

             One of the spiritual problems I want to discuss immediately is about topics, themes, and events one might write about.  This is a special case some will think for me in particular, with all the given “talents” and special abilities, but I believe this will make a case for others also to think more seriously about exactly what they are writing, the fiction they are composing, and with all that, the worlds of the imagination which each individual author, as a gifted artist, creates and also releases upon the world.  I think books change lives; I’ve witnessed that in my own life, with countless exceptional tomes of literature and profound nonfiction changing my own personal life, forever after.  Books are so profound for me, that I never stray far from some kind of innocent bewildered wonderment even at the power of simplistic reading, of language conveying any information at all from another soul, let alone an entirely different world, complete with visions and sounds and new characters and voices and actions and events, and wonder.  A true miracle of God’s grace, this human facility for communication is and the invention of language and its copying and transmission in different forms to different peoples over different languages, times, cultures.  The transfer of consciousness!  A wonder. 

             But given all that, what kind of world are we authors creating for the consumption of sometimes generations upon generations of readers, going on for how long into the future we cannot guess?  I know this flies into the face, especially of current Twenty-first Century American tenets, which are concerned ever more with simplistic, commercial genres such as adventure, science fiction, mystery, thriller, or romance books—but where, where is all that going, and what kind of world is it creating, what kind of world? 

             In my own case, again perhaps an extreme example, I have for many decades had an ability to create events (in external reality), maybe characters, certainly the manifestations of worlds, from the stories, novels, dramas that I create.  This goes further with me, in that often, I have found that solely by reading someone else’s book, silently, I will witness the manifestation of characters, events, even certain descriptive elements of the scenery into my external world.  In my notes of parapsychology, I have described this process as “BiblioKinesis,” or even BiblioGenesis (my own terms, the first derived from psychokinesis and the word for book, “biblio”) and AuthorKinesis, in that I have the ability to create manifestations in our external reality, simply by creating stories in my mind, then recording them onto paper.  Usually, publication in some form solidifies the process.  Sometimes it is with reading alone.  I have not had enough external success as an author or playwright, to know if the actual encounter of my words with others will accelerate, alter, or stop the process; I only know that this is fact.  My point in detailing this is not for the sensationalism of it; rather I want to detail exactly why, for instance, I could never write a murder mystery.  Or a horror story, or a vampire story, or a disaster film script or a science fiction scenario showing aliens invading earth, or any other factual absurdity—because it might very well manifest within days of publication or viewing. 

             My next point with this artistic confession, is how much of the rest of our book world also operates under similar laws?  We’re always quick to say, oh such violence and sex on TV or in films or graphic displays in novels, all that is part of the “catharsis function” qualified by Aristotle in his Poetics from Ancient Greece; but is it really a casting out, or is it more of a continual emphasis, a continual drum roll and clapping for more horror, the desensitizing of young men and women, and the continual guarantee of the manifestation of such terrible negativity?  (By the way, ancient Greek theatre of Aristotle’s time never allowed the showing of a killing or suicide on stage—it had to take place away from the spectators and be reported through a narrator or other character.)  And that’s for more secular stories, or by writers who are not so “sensitive” as I am; but what should we do for our entire culture?  I will add one more assertion to all this; should you believe any of what I am relating, all of a sudden you can understand completely, what many groups go through in destroying certain types of books.  Or in carrying around “the good book,” The Bible.  The other book type is born of darkness, it manifests darkness, it’ll keep doing that long into humanity’s future.  (How can we gauge the total death and destruction caused by Hitler’s Mein Kampf or Marx’s Das Kapital?  See Books That Changed The World by Robert B. Downs.)  Does that mean we should bring back book burnings?  No, but at least, today, now and tomorrow, we writers can accept the responsibility for our thoughts, our actions through words, and the full consequences our stories bring into the world, and the style of the world we are creating for ourselves, our families, and our descendants into the future. 

             To give an example of BiblioKinesis (AuthorKinesis) briefly, I’ll mention how I innocently created my third one-act play, “Rally!,” about youngsters on a street corner, who learn that a new kid has recently had his apartment burglarized, and his single mother had no apartment insurance.  I did this in a very positive fashion, showing how the street kids all came together, started playing music and collecting coins on the street to help out, and assisted the new kid.  It was supposed to show a regenerative function in any community, a brief dramatic script to be performed at community festivals.  Within a year of my publishing this play (“Rally!” later collected into my book, Tauromenium), and having some public readings of the work, my own apartment was burglarized, and of course at the time, because of my artistic poverty, I had no insurance.  I lost everything, cameras, full computer equipment, special heirloom of a personal clock built by my aging father, TV, stereo equipment, phone, nearly everything.  Only, different from my play, nobody came to help.  It took me over five years to replace most of the material, and was a real burden, actually shutting down a small publishing effort of mine, with a global intellectual newsletter, Virtù, that I was publishing (perhaps the real target of the entire crime). 

             Another time, I met in everyday reality a working-class character of mine, one I had used as a prototype in several short stories, only suddenly, I wrote (some years ago, when this was fashionable) a post-modern fiction, “Before This Story Gets Rolling,” where the characters “jump out of an inner story” and take on lives of their own, actually with the main character escaping.  Later, I met the character in real life. 

             A different time, as part of a professional editing job for my youngest brother, Daniel, I had to retype, copyedit, and proofread his first novel (Secret Lives).  Upon completing about half the manuscript I met one of his characters; I felt shocked when I saw the guy standing nearby in a Laundromat I frequented, but when I saw him, I said, “That’s Benoit!” (a character from my brother’s novel); also a woman character from that same novel appeared, walking out of a house on the very street where I lived in Akron. 

             Later I wrote a complete warfare novel, The Entropy Wars, which I detail in later pages here and which I thought was positive because it dramatized a Spiritual Warfare, through actual physical warfare and prayer, for a spiritual transformation of America.  On one of the last returns of the manuscripts from a New York publisher, that same week, 911 happened with the Twin Towers.  Prescient?  Also, in the book is an incident happening around Niagara Falls, with the hydroelectric plant, and within two years there was a massive electrical outage throughout the Northeastern U.S. (2003), caused authorities now suggest by a lightning strike at the hydroelectric plant in Niagara.  So, warfare happened; some would argue that this is an exact example of “Spiritual Warfare” (but that was not the sense of what I wrote about, though warfare within the continental US and manipulation of the weather and the Niagara locale were all significant parts of my novel). 

             These are a few examples of what I’m talking about.  I do want to mention that I was gabbing about this to an old college pal and ex-roommate some years ago, and he laughed and said, “Why don’t you write a story about getting your latest novel published and it being a great success?”  I smiled about that, but went ahead to compose a very brief, one-page story about such a success (“Total Fulfillment, The Transforming Scene,” BiblioKinesis—7/17/2000).  I experimented with printing out the story daily from my printer here, for over a month; but nothing happened.  In the years following, those events still never transpired.  Many of these faculties happen at odd times or without any conscious efforts; afterward, however, I notice them in detail and recognize from past experience the correlations with my written work. 

             For those thinking that I’m exaggerating some of these effects, study only the weird occurrence for author Stephen King, when he suffered being hit by a mini-van in 1999, while walking his dog on a back road.  King was almost killed; the guy or driver who stopped, Bryan Smith, thought he had hit a deer, till he looked down at the front seat and saw a pair of glasses setting there.  He returned to find King, alongside the road, nearly unconscious.  King had to go through weeks in the hospital, a long convalescence with much pain and rehabilitation, and seems okay now.  The telling observation by this popular national author of horror novels, heard by interview was:  “It was like I was hit by one of my own characters, a character from one of my books!”  That year, before the accident, King had completed a novel, From a Buick 8, where the character dies from getting struck by a car.  (Wikipedia)  More astounding, was that less than a year later, on King’s actual birthday, the man who hit him, Bryan Smith, died in his own bed at home from an accidental drug overdose.  King admitted that both he and Bryan Smith shared the same middle name:  Edwin (“win by the education of experience?”)  After Smith’s death, King made sure that Smith was a character, by adding him and the accident to King’s novel, Dark Tower Series. (Wikipedia)  Was that a real person?  Or was it a darker manifestation, and a temporary, albeit destructive one at that?

             The question of what to discuss takes in many areas.  First, each character should have a reaction, for or against religion, right off; as that is a primary character trait in our world, actually as a part of us living as human beings here:  is there a belief in God, is there a belief in Jesus Christ, is the person strong in his or her faith, or maybe a vague believer, but one who still attends worship in some church (other faiths will quickly accept worship in Synagogue, Mosque, or Temple)?  How does that person’s life reflect such beliefs; does it entail regular prayer, does it entail special gifts, visions, prophecy; does it entail at least special rituals maybe or probably with the family involved, are there deeper involvements with Sunday Catechism or Bible teaching or volunteering with the church, maybe volunteering for a charity group like a soup kitchen, holiday rituals, travels to sacred sites or pilgrimages, special Biblical studies, prayer journals, group prayer, national prayer, political action with religious overtones (against abortion, executions, euthanasia)?  How does all that reflect into and through the character’s life and the story’s drama?

             Second, we must bring into our plot lines and story drama the spiritual element, there’s the effect of conscience, especially within modernistic or agnostic philosophy (as Dostoevsky so portrayed in Crime and Punishment), there’s corruption or damnation for power (as in the Faust scenario), there’s the discovery with character maturation of the true wisdom of Christianity (my own personal drama), there’s the recognition by characters of a supernatural world perhaps first (that is away from agnosticism or atheism) and second of a supernatural world with God and Jesus Christ at its center (as a tale of believers in other religions or those involved with New Age persuasions soon discover), there’s the story of national grief as a nation swerves away from the path revealed by God (a tale perhaps for politicians, national leaders, maybe even international thriller-type scenarios, even some of the Left Behind series dramatizes that), there are re-workings of the plots and stories from the Bible in modern-day garb (Joseph among the Egyptians, Esther saving her people, Job, Daniel, other prophets, King David & Goliath, King David & Bathsheba, the story of Judas, The Centurion, the Apostles, Paul, Peter, Luke, Matthew, Mark, John, Mary Magdalene, many of the parables of Jesus—should these seem out of the realm of possibility for great art one might consider Thomas Mann’s novel tetralogy, Joseph and His Brothers, Michelangelo’s sculpture David, Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks, Dostoevsky’s novel, The Idiot, Tolstoy’s Resurrection, Kazantzakis’s Saint Francis).  Shakespeare, too, shows many instances of faith or the culture of Christianity (even to scenes where for instance in Hamlet, Hamlet refuses to murder his uncle while the uncle is at prayer, because he doesn’t want the evildoer to go to heaven).  Of course there’s Dickens, and his almost inventing the West’s spirit of Christmas with A Christmas Carol, and Francois Mauriac in France and other tales of Christian sentiment as Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and in Britain with G. K. Chesterton’s Christian detective fiction, Father Brown series, or The Man Who Was Thursday, C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Tolkien’s Catholic-based Lord of the Rings.  There’ve been the Jewish authors in America, who’ve stressed religion, with Chaim Potok, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, and Saul Bellow. Even the East pours insights into new territory, with Emerson’s Transcendentalism (he was first a Unitarian minister) and too, in the 1970’s and 1980’s in America there was the influx of Hermann Hesse’s many novels about spiritual questing (Siddhartha, Journey to the East, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund), showing an Eastern or Buddhist or Hindu slant, as well as the early work of many of the Beats influenced by Zen Buddhism, including Jack Kerouac (though he died a serious Catholic), and more conservative mainstream Catholic authors, like Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor, and the nonfiction and poetry of Thomas Merton, plus Dorothy Day (The Long Loneliness).

             Third, it is through the trappings of religion, all the details and rituals and even the smaller intervals of meaning or miracle or grace in a character’s life, that lead the ongoing plot into deeper realms; to plumb the depths of character in art one must move the soul; it is even the term we use to speak about depth, to our very souls, or “soulful” or despair of the soul or relinquishing the soul.  The phrases are there because the depth of events in human life often plumbs one’s entire spirit, and with that, of course, so must our stories.  If we don’t confront that or don’t go deep enough or even avoid the spiritual issue altogether, we really are only skimming the surface of human life; our tales could be shallow, regardless of the wordplay the academics like to concentrate on; but without profound depth, without true character delineation, without the rise and fall of grand comedy or tragedy, our stories, plays, novels, novellas, or other productions are glib entertainments only, shallow, marketed for today perhaps, but certainly not with any staying power.  And with the soul, with the heartfelt emotions so entwined with one’s spiritual nature, so too moves the power of true drama and the effectiveness of spiritual writing.  There are spiritual heights with Dostoevsky’s characters saved from destruction by faith (House of the Dead, Crime and Punishment) or Tolstoy’s death-bed recognition in his novella, Death of Ivan Ilyich, the profound sacrifice of self for human love in Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, the traditions of Chaim Potok, as well as kinds of other profound yet more oblique spiritual insights, say with plays Our Town by Thornton Wilder or Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot, or even the shock of spiritual despair and loss of faith in Ernest Hemingway’s masterpiece short story about European Existentialism, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.”   

             To move on to my own examples about general spirituality, my first novel, Abbas & Mehrdad, was a Bildungsroman or novel of development, set in Tangiers, Morocco, which I visited as an undergraduate while studying in Valladolid, Spain.  The story is about a young street hawker and thief, Mehrdad, being caught by the police and later offered either to go to prison or help an aging rug weaver, Abbas.  Mehrdad, of course, chooses the weaver’s offer, thinking he can later escape, but ends up pursing a formal apprenticeship with the master rug weaver.  It’s a tale not only of personalities with son and father themes, but also wider spiritual confrontations of Morocco, with the Straits of Gibraltar serving as the crossroads of the world, the clash of ancient and modern cultures, and too, wider mystical constructs of a Master teacher passing along his wisdom to a Student, for spiritual enlightenment.  It is a story, also, that I think would make a good animated production (of which I have notes for) as well as perhaps a series for children, with smaller booklets, filled mostly with illustrations.  But upon the writing, it was intended as a fully adult book, about philosophy and wisdom, and the necessity of understanding or appreciating exactly the circumstances where we find ourselves.  There were themes of individual craftsperson vs. corporate effort (Mehrdad’s attempts to expand to several shops and mercantile marketing), which was a central concern in America during the 1970’s.  Spirituality was key.  The ability to move through enlightenment, versus simple material success, was central.  Meeting of East and West, crossroads of the world, continent of Africa, tip of that entire continent of extremes in history, weather, sand and jungle, ancient civilizations of wonder and sophistication, ancient primitives, darkness and light, death and destruction, and on the other edge, enlightenment and spiritual wonder—all that provides the basis of the novel. 

             I wrote some earlier short stories, as well, incorporating some of my younger psychic experiences, one called “The Awareness Overflow” tells a tale of mockingbirds at windows serving as messengers . . . but these tales I let go with some of my earlier writing.  My second novel, Endgames, used part of a theme based on Cain & Abel; a fifth novel, Legacy, treated the Greek myth of Daedalus.  Between writing those novels, also with more conventional realistic and psychological and social themes, I did work on a couple different short stories that had central spiritual effects, “Incantation” and “The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin,” (both short stories collected into my book, Moments.  Also, “Collected Letters” was later expanded into a full novella).  “Incantation” uses an impasto technique with repetitious musical phrases to conjure a memory of lost love for the main character, but many of the details work upon mystical influences and details, such as Cabala, Atman Ra (from Egypt), and passionate sorts of oblique telepathy, which again come from many years of personal study and experience.  The later portion of “Collected Letters” was developed into a novella that portrays in more intense terms sorts of psychic shocks and inner revelatory visions by one of the characters, and that again, came from direct experiences in my own life. 

             Later, my second one-act play, Mystery, is a sort of “sacred drama,” in the Wagnerian sense, where on stage a mystical or spiritual reality continually fades into and out of our usual material world.  (Again, play collected into book, Tauromenium.)  There is chanting by robed monks in the preliminary sequence, a later death-bed scene, and a final kind of denouement, all to bring to bear an exceptional focus on the spiritual world within the usual context of our material assumptions.  Though vastly different in theme, setting, and characters or plot, there is a similar effect of “spiritual transparency” which Thornton Wilder so masterly conveys in his Our Town.  The title “Mystery” was supposed to evoke medieval mystery plays, but in this modern version is more of what I’ve labeled in the play, as “A Metaphysical Drama.”  Also, the final one-act in this collection, from which the title is taken, “Tauromenium,” is set in ancient times, at the theater in Taormina, Sicily, whose name I bear as surname, and shows through almost Elizabethan intensity a mythic and spiritual tale of shipwreck survivors arriving in Sicily from the destruction of Troy (following the mythic framework of Virgil’s The Aeneid and the ancient founding myths for the original Roman culture, with Aeneas).  While this is not necessarily “spiritual” in a conventional sense, it is based on ancient myths and the influence of classical mythology or the ancient gods, and does resonant most profoundly with those themes.  Characters in the play are visionaries (as was Cassandra of Troy, and as was Virgil himself, with the foreshadowing of Christ), and go into ecstatic trances from time to time, conveying the power of loss or exile from Troy and the power of the future, with a prophetic sense of destiny (moving on to found Rome and the West). 

             To give a sense of the history of that part of Sicily, it is said that Homer based his scene with the Cyclops and Ulysses in the Odyssey around the caves near Taormina.  (I am of the opinion with all of the Mysticism in Sicily and Rome, that the “one-eyed” giant was no literal monster, rather a dangerous Mystic, trying to “eat the rational minds” of the Greek’s men; that is, convert them to a more profound religious sentiment.  It’s no coincidence, that the Cyclops was blinded by a sharp spear—pencil or pen—by the ancient Greek poet, thus maintaining Greek rationalism and destructive warfare until the final conquest by Ancient Rome, after which of course, Rome was conquered internally by the power of Greek culture). 

            I wanted to go over some of the ways Spirituality was incorporated into my earlier prose works and dramas, to give an idea of the necessity for this, the power of it with readers and for the full dramatic presentation of the themes involved (which would’ve been superficial at best, without such depth and spiritual treatment).  Again, the idea is that with Spirituality being a prime aspect of our lives as human beings, it should figure profoundly within our art and stories and the literature or drama that we are creating for the public.  Literature is spiritual writing that endures.  (From my brief writing text, Keystone, Notes for Apprentice Authors)  I have written many times, that literature passes along that spiritual legacy of our culture.  (Earlier post, “Our Rebirth of Writing.”)

            My major work concerning overtly religious themes, however, is my sixth novel, The Entropy Wars (plus accompanying film script and another new, different script based on an historical character).  In the novel I wanted to incorporate what I had learned about traditional Christianity, from a Catholic viewpoint, and also some of the extraordinary psychic phenomena which I had experienced, to compose a book about some major ideas (spiritual, intellectual, and scientific) and one that appealed to a general reader, as a fast-moving story, about Spiritual Warfare.  I chose, for the first time in all my writing career, to do a longer novel in a more or less accepted genre, religious adventure, albeit with some science fiction themes (entropy and others), which also fit at the time (1998) with some of the apocalyptic fiction that was focused with the arrival of the third millennia after Christ.  After doing my first draft, to show how close I was, there hit the NY Times Bestseller List, the first of the Christian “Left Behind Series” of novels.  (Often I find my work “co-opted,” by someone else publishing similar books, before I can get to press.)  I was following the lead, however, of another Christian novelist, doing some interesting Spiritual Warfare books, Frank E. Peretti, with his novels, This Present Darkness (1986) and Piercing The Darkness (1988).  What that author was able to portray in his best-selling novels was a world with invisible forces, aided by dark and light angels, fighting in the heavenlies or working “behind the scenes,” to either build up or destroy towns in America.  For someone like myself, who had for years taken notes on manifestations and factual spiritual events, it offered an imaginative scenario of how God’s angels might actually do battle.  It was an astonishing depiction.  

             For those unaware of the entire concept of Spiritual Warfare, it is a technique of intense prayer and Godly action through Jesus Christ, to circumvent the ploys of the Devil and heal a person, family, town, or nation.  Exorcism and prayer are central elements.  Various authors, both Catholic and Protestant, have written tomes about this (most of them Protestant, Possessing the Gates of the Enemy by Cindy Jacobs, Breaking Strongholds by Tom White, Warfare Prayer by C. Peter Wagner, The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a different depiction, with a similar function) and I became well-versed not only with the information, but the factual evidence in my own life of this being a dynamic answer to many of the evils or chaos I was witnessing.  There are also tomes from the Renaissance with Alphonso de Spina’s demonology section in Fortalitium Fidei (1464) and Don Lorenzo Scupoli’s The Spiritual Combat (1589), which has an early reference to such attacks:  “Moreover, we must combat enemies who hate us with unquenchable fury, and are consecrated to our destruction.  The more we would make friends of them, the more they would make derelicts of us.”  

             A keynote summation phrase, though, about Spiritual Warfare, comes from Scripture (Ephesians 6:12), by St. Paul:  “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.” 

             Another incisive comment in a penetrating and disturbing volume, The Handbook of Spiritual Warfare, by Dr. Ed Murphy, is from his preface:

             “As you continue to read, you will discover how the post-Enlightenment Western world view has filtered out much that the Bible reveals about the evil spirit world from our understanding.

             “The church is revealed in Scripture not only as the people of God and the body of Christ, but also as a part of God’s warrior kingdom in ongoing conflict with internal evil (the flesh), social evil (the world), and supernatural evil (the spirit world).  I call this a multidimensional sin war.”

              In my own case, other spiritual experiences had tempered this understanding, or perhaps prepared me for it in a very different way.  Twenty some years before tackling the large novel (one for which I had to do conventional research into warfare and humanity’s actions with all sorts of war for many months), I had been gifted with a special revelation into certain individuals who were influential in my life at the time.  By gifted, it might be better to use the Christian term “discernment,” because like the definition of Revelations (an unveiling) what happened in my life, spiritually, was that suddenly, during an intense creative and psychological period in my life, I was able to see that certain individuals who I considered as friends, were in fact something else.  One person, in particular, would’ve escaped my notice probably, except for my intensity about studying so much renaissance art and history even then, some thirty years ago now; what I witnessed was a full blown portrait, by Titian, of a visage that was EXACTLY the same as a person in my life, only the painting, of course, was completed around 1515 AD in Venice, Italy.  (That person’s appearance today does not necessarily suggest evil, only mystery and urgency.)  Further, the “discernment” to me indicated that this in fact was an agent of Satan.  It was a shock; first, because it suddenly tore through a friendship of many years into an entirely different realm (like discovering your step-brother was a Russian spy for twenty years or something); and second, the very fact of how on earth (or heaven!) could this be, this same individual pictured by Titian five hundred years ago, be somebody I would sit down and have coffee with today in my everyday reality? 

             Years later, with another group of friends, while studying intensely everything I could get my hands on about Christian Spiritual Warfare, it again was revealed to me, that another friend of some year or two in my surroundings (a different acquaintance in a totally different geographical locale and year date) was not “a friend,” or even something sinister like a direct agent of Satan, so much as a “demon”; actually, it was revealed to me as having the simplistic name, “Futility.”  Suddenly, after going home from the revelation and a brief talk with “the person,” I felt many of the reality constructs in my life crumble away.  First of all, this sort of discussion about demonology, exorcism, and agents of Satan seemed too simplistic (though it is mentioned often in the Bible, even as advice:  “So submit yourself to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  James 4:7) and in fact is a holdover from a medieval if not more ancient worldview.  This was in the Twentieth Century (at the time), and the worst part for me, was I could see, witness, feel and totally accept what was being shown to me by God as absolute fact.  The problem with this understanding, however, is a larger intellectual view, especially of history, in that if suddenly many individuals in each of our lives are not “real people,” but actually spiritual entities, then that throws the entire realistic drama of politics, science, arts, and even everyday life into a completely different cosmic and moral arena, battleground, or transcendental framework.  It meant the horror of being victimized often (depending upon your own stage of potential for influencing others—the grander the artist, the bigger the prize) by what seemed as the most sensitive, most cordial, the most friendly and interesting (the more talented the demon, the more it expressed similar interests as your own, similar background, and of course many possibilities “to help you”) new friend, when actually it was an agent of darkness, a spy almost, working for the other side.  

             I can’t go into more detail here, other than to say, that this was displayed and proven many times in my life, with enough veracity that I knew it wasn’t an aberration, some form of paranoia, misunderstanding of a new acquaintance, or something false or imagined.  It was real!  It also meant that all of history was askew, as we accepted it; for continuously there were immortal, cosmic double agents manifesting throughout our material realm to subvert, seduce (for evil intentions), or destroy whomever was in some power position or soon would have the ability to control, influence, or educate many others.  It meant that the true battleground or stage of every political action, election, takeover, despotic or democratic contest, every success or failure in every field, could all be subject to another entirely different sort of cosmic, that is, theistic interpretation—God was allowing the manifestation of good and evil with a constancy that nobody, not the most learned, God-respecting, pastor or priest even could imagine.  Too, it meant, that there had to be other ways to work through such manifestations, to protect and deliver loved ones, to move one’s life onto a different plane of existence, this time in complete obedience and reverence for The Lord God Almighty.  (I’ll never forget the day that I walked into a Christian bookstore, to pick up the copy of the C. S. Lewis book I had ordered, The Screwtape Letters.  Lewis’s fictional account was supposed to be a series of letters from an experienced devil to one of his underlings, about how to successively tempt mortals.  It’s a defense of Christianity.  I approached the counter to pay for my ordered volume, The Screwtape Letters.  Immediately, behind me, along the other side of the shop’s wall, I heard a loud shatter of glass; a large, three-foot long mirror had crashed to the floor.  Kristallnacht, of a different sort.  Continual psychic signs happened to me, just getting near these books!) 

             Now, I also had been working through many advanced science processes in notebooks for many years and studying futuristic scientific concepts, and also been writing and studying about the entropy of cultures (what could slow or accelerate that process for a nation or an entire culture like The West, including a written discussion in my book Infinity, again with insights from Schweitzer’s The Philosophy of Civilization: “If the ethical foundation is lacking, the civilization collapses . . .”), and all of these ideas merged together, basically into a sort of Christian adventure story, showing the possibilities or impossibilities for some of my advanced science ideas, and for the first time in my own fiction, showing the action in our material realm of these different sorts of “entities” or demons, also the magnitude of the cosmic deception involved, in that each of us in every reality is probably duped on a constant basis, by entities who seem as real as you and me, but who are playing with an entirely different spiritual agenda. (Some insights are later collected in an essay about what I call telepossession, “TeleGenesis,” in Quintessence, Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance.) 

             My novel, The Entropy Wars, was completed in a rough draft form (actually going through several rewrites even for that completed draft), after many months of other diverse research.  Let me say, that this was a subject, Warfare, that I never warmed to; I had spent my life in earnest as a pacifist, acting that way, writing that way (see my pacifistic book chapter from Infinity, published in India’s World Union, with my title, “WAR\Peace-Peace/WAR”), and now suddenly, I was drawn to this, for God I felt, to study War, conventional and spiritual, so that I could write an interesting novel dramatizing all that I had encountered and so that others could learn from the substance.  I don’t want to divulge more book details, as the novel is still being circulated to publishers; though, I also wrote a screenplay adaption of the book, thinking that it might be easier to market as a full “book & film” package.  With all the action, too, I felt the film adaptation would be successful.  (It might be of interest to note, that with the advanced science, prescient mention of new inventions, and actual description and graphic dramatization of an entropy war on earth, that I was bordering on science fiction.  More, science fiction often had dealt with societal commentary or extravagant “what if’s,” often in the sense of “speculative fiction,” and this novel had all of that, only from a supernatural perspective.  Though I hadn’t realized it at the time, I was studying much of C. S. Lewis’s other materials, and early on he had written some of the earliest modern science fiction [1938], actually still considered among the classics of that era, the “Space Trilogy”:  Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength, from Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature.)

             My next overtly spiritual fiction is a novella, which is still in progress, being about one third or so competed.  As mentioned in a previous chapter, this new novella, The Casting Out, is intended to be the last of three novellas in a book-length collection, to include the completed Of Rifles & Butterflies and The Collected Letters of Sol O. Sendin, and for which a solid introduction for the book also has been prepared.  With this novella, basically about a long-term exorcism, I wanted to confront this cosmic deception, the power and persuasiveness of a sort of demon, the means of course to “cast it out,” but too, a more fully aware fictional confrontation with the main character about exactly how our material reality works or seems to work, and exactly what such entities can do to manipulate reality, manifest scenes, opportunities, characters, events, entire locales even, so as to continue the deception, Satanic control and with that, the outcome of one character’s life and those he might affect from his or her personal realm.  The theme and some of the questioning of transcendental realities are from years of my own research and different sorts of spiritual experience. 

             Insights from Schweitzer have proven significant, from The Philosophy of Civilization, with his discussion of the world-affirmation of the West, as contrasted with the world-negation of the East (especially India).  This applies directly to the themes of my novella, because the novella’s demonic entity is Kali, consort to Shiva of the Hindu pantheistic trio: Vishnu, Brahma, Shiva.  In Casting Out a major theme is the reality manipulation apparent with appearances of Kali, but that throughout the course of the story, this facet becomes not a symbol of power as many would think (she can induce different reality constructs and even personas of herself, as illusions, Maya) but rather as a part of the demonic darkness.  A portion of the Hindu world-negation comes through the use of that deception or illusion generation; it becomes a distortion or diversionary device from ultimate reality, rather than providing full command over the entire world as a full reality (dimension we inhabit).  It allows one to progress in the story from a seeming conqueror or spiritually militaristic entity, to one who is in fact a prisoner of a grander world than the demon thought possible (she is not a liberator, but a pawn); the full reality (Kingdom of God) is not a plaything/playground or metaphysical weapon as her eschatology has presented to millennia of Hindus as a portion of the darkness.  The destructiveness or total world negation, which her very transcendental metaphysics represents within the grander universe under one Almighty God, one God and Son and Holy Spirit, is in opposition to one Almighty God, with which knowledge the previous entities recede, fall away, diminish, or are vacated (exorcised).  Total reality becomes affirmed, glorified to the height and length and breadth of One God.  With the darkness gone, the destructive agents removed, our reality is then transformed into an affirmed civilization, a true Kingdom of God. 

             Schweitzer would have indicated:  “Only a Christianity with is animated and ruled by the idea and intent of the Kingdom of God, is genuine.  Only such Christianity is genuine.  Only such a Christianity can give to the world what it so desperately needs.  It is only through the idea of the Kingdom of God that religion enters into relationship with civilization.”  (www.all-creatures.org/hr/hraschweitzer.htm)  Again, from Pope Benedict XVI:  “. . . the entire creation must be transformed.” 

             Moving from that point, and to generalize for our reader and other aspiring authors, I might mention that one of the biggest changes in actual writing styles or manners with these new fictions is what should be called “Spiritual Realism” or Supernaturalism.  I’m using Supernaturalism in a formal artistic sense, as a foil or evolution of the more common term Naturalism, but to show that my newer work, to fully incorporate a mature spiritual understanding of life must of course work through different stylistic considerations; the work must have quite realistic details for presentation of the fiction, yet veer off, explode with the revelatory, or otherwise pass into a supernatural realm, to portray convincingly exactly what real life is about.  As bizarre as this might sound upon first consideration, one must concede that many popular works, especially with numerous fantasy genres, both in books and films, work already with such necessities.  And too, we need go back no farther, than to our actual Gospels, to see exactly the same writing, actually wonderful examples of the most believable and humble prose, made all the more effective because of its elegant simplicity, yet still showing the most astonishing events (miracles).

             Next, for me, are some projected long-range projects, with several notes for novels, about which it is too early to discuss in detail.  To give one sort of idea, I do project another book of short stories, my fifth (fourth is all outlined, but still in-progress), where I want to compose conventional lengthy stories, with realism and lots of inner portrayals, showing especially the coming to terms with Jesus Christ, probably with actual conversion experiences, crises experiences, and also something approaching an achieved level of spiritual maturity, or saintly exposition.  I’ve done much research into saint’s lives and conversion stories and the actual psychology involved, because I want all that to enrich my later fiction.  I have also started a short book of Christmas Stories (with one story so far, following a regular holiday routine of composing inspirational tales for the Christmas season, as did Charles Dickens).  

             Also, as mentioned, in progress is a spiritual memoir (Each Man Has A Journey), where I detail many experiences and events, as well as the research for explanations of those encounters with the Divine, my own ideas or insights, and the meaning or implications for such profound events in our reality.  I have been studying too with great interest numerous film renditions of actual lives of saints, and want to complete some film scripts for that, also an experimental short film with spiritual ideas, and perhaps several opera productions. Lastly, I have three major architectural projects for Christianity (modern cathedral, special large-scale monument, and a city-wide superstructure—rough plans completed for each design).  

             With all of this discussion, however, I think the depth of the psychology and subtlety of writing must increase (keeping in mind the depth of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky; we must use the giants of literature to display the “anatomy of the soul” just as Michelangelo and Leonardo mastered the display of physical anatomy for a different time in Italy). I think, too, that we must bring the topic of spiritually back to the center mentioned some pages ago, that of showing one person’s development and one artist’s projection for how God’s world through Jesus Christ can be displayed and worked with creatively today, for true transformation almost as a casting out of Defeat, within a grand center of Renaissance Consciousness.  Finally, there are the words of Jesus Christ, before an exorcism (Gospel of Mark, 9:23):  “Everything is possible to one who has faith.”

RESOURCES

1. Books for Background:  Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI, Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton, How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., The Philosophy of Civilization by Albert Schweitzer, A Concise History of the Catholic Church by Thomas Bokenkotter, The Life You Save May Be Your Own by Paul Elie, Literary Giants, Literary Catholics by Joseph Pearce, Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis, Stories for Christmas by Charles Dickens.
2. Films:  Saint Francis, Saint Anthony, Saint Rita, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John Bosco, Into Great Silence, The Miracle of Marcelino, The Jeweler’s Shop, Bella, Fireproof (all available from Ignatius Press, www.Ignatius.com; or Netflix).
3. Novels:  The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, Great Expectations by Dickens, This Present Darkness, Piercing The Darkness by Frank E. Peretti, The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas, The Citadel of God by DeWohl, Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Lord of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Man Who Was Thursday by G. K. Chesterton, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, The Complete Stories (short stories) by Flannery O’Connor.   
4. Spiritual Warfare Texts: The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare by Ed Murphy, Possessing the Gates of the Enemy by Cindy Jacobs, Breaking Strongholds by Tom White, The Spiritual Combat by Scupoli, Receiving the Power by Long & McMurry, and associated books, Virtual Gods by Tal Brooke, A Landscape With Dragons by Michael O’Brien.  Those thinking that demonology is the stuff of ancient times or from some medieval mindset need only peruse briefly a few of these tomes, including Ed Murphy’s text and Peretti’s novel, This Present Darkness.  Spiritual insight into the unexplained!
5. Online:  (First listing, CWG, is organization dedicated to rebirth of Catholic Arts and Letters) www.CatholicWritersGuild.org, www.CatholicPoetsandWriters.com, www.catholic-pages.com/dir/literature.asp, www.poetryofcourse.com, www.cwfi.org, www.ChristianWritingToday.com, www.FaithWriters.com, www.ACFW.com, www.ChristianWritersGroup.org, www.acwriters.com.  
6. Workshops and seminars:  Study sessions, seminars, and retreats are available at American Christian Writer’s Association (above, at www.acwriters.com) and many of the other listed organizations or sites above, also check your area.
7. Reality:  Spiritual Reality is Fact—put your faith into action and watch yourself and your world change.  “There is no result in nature without a cause. . .” wrote Leonardo in his Notebooks; and so, the artist, writer, activist must study all of reality to incorporate those truths into his or her works and manifest fully God’s world.
8. Religious Services:  Attend church services and Bible studies, but more, begin to study even the architecture of our sacred places, the exalting majesty of cathedrals and shrines, also the contrasting depth of sparse beauty in poverty with soup kitchens, places for the homeless, spiritual clinics for the sick.  Praise and prayer and compassion!
9. Ninth Resource:  Nine is a profound spiritual number for humanity, from my own visions, from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, “Alle Menschen werden Brüder . . .” (“All men shall be brothers,” Schiller’s poetic words), and thus serves to remind us of Albert Schweitzer’s “Reverence for Life” and Jesus Christ’s eternal command, “Love ye one another” (John 13:34).  Our creative works, in all their grand complexity, through comedy and tragedy, should ennoble us, one to another, with love.  

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Sunday, Sep 20 2009

ARCHIVE

“Experimentalism,” September 20, 2009

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 29, 2009 

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 10, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

 

The following sixth article, “Experimentalism,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Two earlier posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog. Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  No Resources are displayed at the end of this article.  All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina.

  

EXPERIMENTALISM

by 

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina 

            Probably after an author’s initial writing attempts or early projects—many short stories, maybe some poetry, a novel or two—there will come to the author an interest in redoing that particular form, or extending the outer reaches of it, or moving on to some form or greater creative venture with writing.  The writing arts and all the creative arts are about that, of course, creativity; yet the theme of experimentalism has to be considered with great care. 

             Again, as has been mentioned earlier, one has to learn the rules before one can break them.  Also, it is my belief, that experimentalism must grow from the story, themes and necessity of character, and not just be “new” for the sake of being fashionably quirky, artsy, or avant-garde.  That makes the requirements for experimentalism more organic to each work then, than to a new literary trend, movement, or particular idiosyncrasy of some author.

             With the literary novel, the mention of “experimentalism” for modern authors usually indicates the work of James Joyce, especially with his novel, Ulysses (1922), and his further experiment, with his third and last novel, Finnegans Wake (1939). Ulysses is sometimes called an “anti-novel,” or in fact because of its many form sequences said to be, “the end of the novel.”  Most new readers will need a scholar’s guide to read Ulysses, and then a different sort of guide, about why scholars even have trouble with Finnegans Wake.  I am not a fan of the writing of James Joyce and have written in a previous article about the problem with Joyce’s “Aesthetic Arrest,” his ineffective musicality, and perhaps artistic narcissism (“Self-Editing [Part II]”).  I do want to suggest, however, that writers should become familiar with Joyce, with his seriousness and grand artistic ambition (sustained in the face of terrible obstacles, with his great goals achieved fully for what he intended and with his total dedication, until mid-life).  His work will either be an inspiration and jumping off point for many new geniuses or a point of departure or “road block” to other sorts of more classical authors.  Joyce cannot be ignored (Ulysses is regularly at the very top of world reading lists for great novels).  That said, one should also be aware that the Twentieth Century does not display the first occurrence of professional experimentation with longer prose works.  We must remember, in fact, that the word “novel” derives from the Italian, “novella,” and originally meant “something new,” or a new story, most likely conjuring the ribald short stories, The Decameron, by Boccaccio (1313-1375). (Novels however do go back to the Roman Petronius, AD 66, Satyricon, and on even to the ancient Greeks.)  So, experimentalism, in a way at least with story form, is part of the long history and nature of the novel.  Prior to the more modern development of the novel in the West (Don Quixote by Cervantes, 1605), there was The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu of Japan, 1021 AD; however, whether that should be considered experimental is another question.

             Also, in other artistic writing (drama and autobiography) there are Goethe’s Faust I & II, Eugene O’Neill’s plays, the earlier work of Petrarch’s alter ego of St. Augustine in his Secretum meum (Petrarch’s Secret), St. Augustine with The Confessions, and the hilarious ribald and political attacks and parodies in the plays of Aristophanes (from Fourth Century BC Athens).  Each of those examples might be considered “new” and pushing the particular styles of the eras.  (Much of this is discussed also in my book, Vision, Essays on Style.)

             In 1759 Irish-born English novelist, Laurence Stern, had published the first two volumes of his long, garrulous novel, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. Gentleman (Great Courses, “Classic Novels,” Arnold Weinstein, How Novels Work by John Mullan).  Critics suggest it was Tristram Shandy that so greatly influenced Twentieth Century experimenters James Joyce and Virginia Woolf and later Thomas Pynchon. (It should be noted, though, that Virginia Woolf started her experimental novel, Mrs. Dalloway, after reading and rejecting the manuscript of Ulysses for Hogarth Press, run by her and her husband. [Great Courses, “Literary Canon In Context,” John M. Bowers])  Dorothy Richardson, the Modernist British novelist, in The Pilgrimage, followed her own early stream-of-consciousness experiment (Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature) with the first published novel using entirely such experimental techniques, again before Ulysses.  (Wikipedia)  Also, there was the early writing in 1900 by the German, Arthur Schnitzler, with his use of stream-of-consciousness in his stories, novels and forms of experimental plays. 

             Italo Calvino stated that Tristram Shandy was, “the undoubted progenitor of all avant-garde novels of our century.” (Wikipedia, for Stern)  This, too, owed much to Renaissance literature, if not directly to Rabelais (Pantagruel, 1531, France), then others of the great satirists (Spain, with Cervantes’ Don Quixote, 1605, Lazarillo de Tormes, 1554, La Celestina, 1499, by Rojas; Italy’s Aretino, 1520; England with Moore’s Utopia, 1516; Montaigne’s Essays, 1580 in France; and later with Britain’s “association of ideas” from John Locke, satires by Swift and Pope) and the renaissance tradition of “learned wit.”  (Wikipedia)

             Stern was thoroughly innovative, with long digressions, incomplete anecdotes, stories-within-stories, experiments with typography (entire pages are sometimes filled with asterisks, dashes, or even left entirely blank, pages entirely black for mourning, wallpaper for end pages), and unusual time transitions (Encyclopedia of Literature).  Recently, I purchased Calvino’s If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, only to later recognize some of the narrative effects were based directly on Stern (just as Stern borrowed from others, such as Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy [How Novels Work by John Mullan]).  Perhaps all the scholarly notes even do a disservice to Stern, as Tristram Shandy, is first, a wonderful comic novel.  All that is noted for the new writer, researcher, and dedicated reader, so that the early history is acknowledged.

             Other “experimentalists” in the sense of extending or combining and renewing the novelistic form included Tolstoy with War and Peace, maybe Cervantes with the form of his “anti-novel” or at least satiric “anti-hero” of Don Quixote (and sections of Part II), Proust with his extended, brilliance in Remembrance of Things Past, Zola in France not only with the Naturalism that he founded and popularized, but with an entirely new form of a dense documentary style of novel, often “plot-less’ in conventional terms, but full of the sociology of many lower class worlds in Nineteenth Century France and some suggest vibrant symbols in the novels (taverns, markets, department stores, coal mines), modern French New Novelists Robbe-Grillet and Duras (How to Read Novels Like A Professor, Thomas C. Forster), John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1969 (with it’s multiple experimental endings), and of course writers in America, with Dos Passos in USA, and later Kerouac beginning with his intense, On The Road.  With the Beats we also have Ginsberg’s poetry and William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, Ticket That Exploded).

             We too, in the earlier Twentieth Century have William Faulkner with his brilliance and many stylistic innovations (often after reading Joyce), and experimenters from other cultures, including the wondrous Argentine, Jorge Louis Borges (just him labeling his “short stories” or intellectual sketches more as “fictions,” sent a clear signal to all writers in the 1970’s and later, that a new way of considering fiction writing was in the offing).  Others in Post-modern America included Barthelme, the little noticed Ron Sukenick, and later novels by Vonnegut, Brautigan, and maybe the extravagant “New Journalism” of Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and Hunter S. Thompson, more of The Beat Writers, plays by Europeans, Beckett and Pirandello. (Early in my writing career I read an interview with Burroughs in The Paris Review Interview series and felt astonished at his “cut up and fold-in” method of experimental writing, where he placed two folded sheets of typing together, copied incongruous sentences together, and folded them into a sort of coherent whole.  Later, I was honored as editor of the literary journal, The Blue Ridge Review, to publish a small submission by William S. Burroughs, from his novel, Cities of the Red Night.  There in Virginia, I was friends with the published Burroughs bibliographer, Joe Maynard, and I also met briefly, Donald Barthelme.)

             Some might even note F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first novel, The Side of Paradise, as being experimental in many ways for it’s time (1920), with inclusion of letters, original poems (in character), songs, longer personal notes (in character), intermittent scenes from a theatrical script, conventional narrative and dialogue, plus other usages.  It must’ve been exciting for that age, for the “new reader” or readers then (again 1920 in America) weary of lengthy literary tomes or maybe the usual up-to-that-time manner of extended prose narrative or uninterrupted novelistic text, a prescient observation about readership Fitzgerald mentioned to his editor, Max Perkins, at Scribner’s (Max Perkins: An Editor of Genius, A. Scott Berg).

             One should note Faulkner’s request of his publisher (refused at the time) to use different colored inks to indicate shifts in narrative time in his novel, The Sound And The Fury, which was not done because of technology until more recent days, such as with the color elements in Flanagan’s novel, Gould’s Book of Fish (Typography article, “Under The Covers, The Fine Art of Interior Book Design” by Timothy Schaffert in Poets & Writers, July/August, 2009).  There are also exceptional new examples of visual experimentation with the novels by Danielewski, House of Leaves and Revolutions.  Schaffert also mentions B.S. Johnson’s The Unfortunates, “a novel sold as a box of twenty-seven unbound chapters that can be read in any order.” 

             With the study of Faulkner, including short stories, one should note his ability with language not only in his use of poetic effects, but to bring across a depth of understanding and especially emotional intensity, which might be described only in musical terms as in FUGUE (by this I mean not language at a pitch of poetry, but story composed at a lower “bass note” or register of meaning in its intensity and spiritual depth and counterpoint).  By Fugue is meant the musical sense of listening to Bach’s organ tonal resonances to feel utterly what Faulkner’s characters feel—again, this is very different from the artistic narcissism and “aesthetic arrest” with a writer like Joyce in his Ulysses (Joyce throws the reader out of his work, Faulkner pulls the reader in more deeply, thoroughly, with the emotional bond of his experimentalism).  One hears always about Faulkner’s southern heritage (gothic in some extremes) and that of other southern writers (I lived for a decade in Charlottesville, Virginia, after Faulkner was a writer-in-residence at UVA and where Edgar Allen Poe had been dismissed for gambling, so I understand the South’s emotional intensity); but there is another pronounced language intensity, with line and emotions and the full effect of his stories told, in very experimental forms for the era, that is grandly creative, a mark of singular genius (and a sign perhaps, of Faulkner’s love of Shakespeare), and one that American authors should study with great care.  A sentence from his short story, “Barn Burning,” is worthy:  “. . . from where he sat he could see the ranked shelves close-packed with the solid, squat, dynamic shapes of tin cans whose labels his stomach read, not from the lettering which meant nothing to his mind but from the scarlet devils and the silver curve of fish . . .”     There is at bottom a warm romanticism with Faulkner (in the best literary sense), whereas with Joyce, there is a professional coldness, the chill of irony and elitism (“objectivity”), of the early Modernists.

            Then consider George Bernard Shaw, the Irish Playwright; and where one often hears the academics haranguing about being “didactic,” it was Shaw, who started adding brilliant lengthy prose prologues to each of his plays, discussing not only the play, but more detail about his insights on the subject, characters, themes.  Shaw thus took “being didactic” from an artistic error in those days to the expression of an art form.  Also, for those bored out of their adult skulls with the usual lack of “thinking fare” in American fiction (a critic, Leslie Fiedler, once chimed how all the great American novels belong “on the children’s shelf,” Huckleberry Finn, Moby Dick, Leather Stalking Tales, The Call of The Wild, “Rip Van Winkle.”  [Great Courses, “Classic Novels,” Arnold Weinstein]  Fiedler’s criticism seems to ask, When will our fiction grow up?) can follow as I did, the tact done so brilliantly by Shaw (whether in fiction or drama) of using more comedy and not only satire, but comic invention, to put across heavier, poignant intellectual themes directly in our own stories . . . A case in point was my own post-modern short story, “Before This Story Gets Rolling,” where not only did characters jump out of the story to talk to the author and readers, but the author discusses theme, character (with printed character background sheets) and many levels to the actual story (text-within-a-text, footnotes to fiction, fake reference books) and all this in 1979, before academics made that kind of experimentalism almost a cliché.

            I might mention in general here, however, that we in Post-modern America were progressing through that style of literary writing and reading (1970’s-1980’s), along with a complete assault upon the authenticity of conventional journalism, the hilarity of popular TV and pulp books and other radio media.  What was expected, I think, was that cultural life (and the increase in standards) for America was changing and finally changing in a radical way.  The effects were so ubiquitous and far reaching globally and affecting local, national, international politics and every institution to some extent that we writers unfortunately assumed that a new wave of literature and literary activity and a new hip readership were upon the world.  What happened, of course, was that everything was changing, but not in a positive sense; we were actually losing literary readers and even the entire market for any published literary tomes, and instead (where else but America or some sadistic satire could this ever happen?) the media became more entrenched, more conventional, and—this is the unusual point—more popular!  We never thought anyone anywhere would ever put up with more conventional plots, ordinary narration, genre books of any sort, characters that not only never change but are almost limitless in their boredom, mechanical or formulaic characteristics, etc., etc.  Again, instead of all that evaporating out of our culture (evolved out via an ever-more educated and sophisticated public), it was the opposite!  (I wrote a book of cultural essays approaching some of these themes, Ardour, Words of Speculation & Esteem.  But there was an appropriate catchphrase about strip-mining from a later book in 1997:  Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-Mining of American Culture.)  Only the devil could smile through all of that.

             While we were actually screaming and yelling at TV images of newscasters spewing propaganda on a daily basis, the rest of the population evidently was adulating them and nodding their heads, and I suppose, taking mental notes (if they could still think).  They wanted more cop shows, more violence (even after 1984, and as it became 1989 here in America, cop shows promoted “America’s Most Wanted”—how our friendly family TV now wanted us to turn in the next most wanted individual, “Look, Ma, on TV, that’s Sam from next door; call the FBI!” . . . Are the charges real?  Whom might be next?  A family member, friend or neighbor, or our own portrait?  Big Brother!), more wrestling matches, more National Enquirer-style news in the evening, now more “reality shows,” more refuse. One of my opinions about TV was mirrored by the talented and vocal author, critic, and entertainer, Steve Allen, in his national full-page ads some years ago, with giant headlines about how, “TV is leading children down a moral sewer.”  I had raised the issue for several decades of our need in America to shut down TV completely (Essays, “Psychology and Economics” and “Telepossession” in my book, Quintessence, Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance).  We should understand how TV functions similar to the “bread-and-circus” practice in Ancient Rome, whereby the masses are mollified or sedated, to diminish social unrest.  We have had calls for a periodic moratorium on personal TV watching (biannual “Turn Off The TV Week 2009,” April 20-24, 2009 & September 20-26, 2009), but I’m not sure the ruling elite or all our therapists can handle so many citizens traumatized with the sudden recognition of reality. 

             My point here, before I go on with personal examples about experimentalism, is that America’s national reading audience (if we might use such a phrase here without uproarious laughter) demanded more pulp, more detective tales, more romance tomes, more adventure, more escapism, more vampire sagas, more comic books, more sensationalism, more. . .  Need we go on?  (It was in my earlier chapter [“Acceptance of the Individual”] in discussing media censorship in America that I cited a quotation from Robert W. McChesney, author of Rich Media, Poor Democracy, about how corporate sponsored news wanted us, “To Shut up and go shopping.”)  For those considering the limits of satire, note what was learned before the death of satirist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. where in his novel, Hocus Pocus, 1990, he wittily created a fictional incident about some small American community outsourcing its local prison to a Japanese consortium, so that the penal institution might finally turn a profit (this in a nation, USA, with the highest incidence of its citizens in prison in the world).  I don’t think the dark humor quite garnered the laughter Vonnegut expected; at least I knew it was a bit too “ironic,” when reading a later newspaper article that described a small town doing exactly that with its prison.  So, in America, the land of Thomas Jefferson and Barnum & Bailey, Thomas Edison and Machine Gun Kelly, we must remember that it’s almost impossible to suggest any seemingly stupid-beyond-belief practice, because it might transform itself into the next “fashionable trend” sweeping east from Hollywood or west from Manhattan.  I am reminded of Nietzsche’s acute phrase about such value reversals, in his “Transvaluation of Core Values”—how the word “bad” can transvalue to mean “good,” or in current slang, “cool.”  Satire can be dangerous!  So, before the new author considers doing his or her own “experimental writing,” please understand that it might place you outside the framework of whatever publishing remains in America, after the stabilization of these odd and curious times.

             It might be appropriate here to discuss another sort of experimentalism, this with what should be considered “trans-media” or multimedia applications for the book world.  There was recent news about the innovation of the “digi-novel,” by Anthony Zuiker, with his production, Level 26: Dark Origins.  (Reuters by Michelle Nicholas and USA Today by Bob Minzesheimer, 2009)  Zuiker’s crime novel combines book, movie, and interactive fan web sites.  There are 20 some video clips online evidently, so that after 20 pages of book text, one can watch movie clips, and stay in touch with the book series online.  It’s important to understand that this innovation was developed not by some ultra-creative literati, but by Zuiker, the developer of TV’s popular “CSI, Crime Scene Investigation,” known as one of the grisliest cop shows on TV.  Minzesheimer cites Zuiker as having launched a “revolution in publishing for the You Tube generation.”  Also stated is that Zuiker “lacks patience to read a 400-page book,” though his own novel/book prints out to about 384 pages.  I guess now that Zuiker has ruined TV, he’s also going to ruin the book and online world.  For those wishing to consider the ferment of so many new media these days, one might ask when will television create “TV-Literature,” for those of us impatient with half-hour or longer TV shows and who want to read?  The networks could stop TV shows after 10 minutes, broadcast 10 minutes of written text, then return to the show, or commercial, as is most likely.  Talk about a real crime.

             Other legitimate trans-media experiments concern writing electronic novels or short stories or novellas and publishing online (or via e-book or CD) and have the text interspersed with different web sites, interactive links, music and video clips, even gaming platforms.  These experiments have been proffered by some literary people, at least since the advent of computer advances and online innovations, and can be considered with greater interest.  Called by some, hypertext fiction or multimedia and other sorts of digital fiction, these fictions are a cross-blending of text with various electronic options, often continuing experiments in fictional forms championed during the post-modern period, that is multiple endings, multiple beginnings, tales that never end, ability for the reader to choose sections or chapters of a book to meld with others (actually constructing different stories with each “reading”), and so on.  (The Electronic Book Review and Hyperizons are starting places for this work, and many other online sites are available).  I’m bothered by this approach, however, because it shows a horizontal reach for young artists, in packing more technology into one’s stories instead of a vertical depth of personal experience, psychology, or soul.  It recalls the old rock band antics:  instead of writing new music and lyrics, just wear gross make-up, raunchy costumes, and turn up the SOUND. 

             Much of this again, for me, smacks not so much of literary experimenters as pop holdovers from the electronic gaming culture, from TV, and others more involved with web surfing than the imaginative meditation or the true reading experience of literature (I’ve labeled such traditional reading, “ANDAR,” Alpha Numerical Dimensional Acceleration Response, a transcendental or spiritual practice, the real experience of “regular reading.”  See my article, “Psychology & Economics,” Quintessence:  Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance).  The insertion of obvious mechanical portrayals of music or graphics too, often limits the human imagination process; it’s a move away from the individual creative mind, towards a sort of mass experience of a few programmers or animators or directors.  Controllers.  It leads to the diminishing of one’s creative function; exactly of course, the goal of authoritarians.  Those who cannot think cannot protest.  Freedom! 

             I feel too, most seriously, that all the multimedia trials are less about literature and more about evolving away from any text reading whatsoever.  Who really wants to interrupt their text reading with a movie, or a web site, or even music or flash animation sequences, or whatever?  That’s the practice of TV watchers, not book readers.  Where this leads is to a future experience of all clips, or all music, or all videos and continual multi-media juxtapositions, which is fine in itself; it’s experimental film or advanced digital media; just don’t call it reading, and if not printed as a book (via paper or electronics or light optics), then don’t call it writing or literature.  That stops the nonsense, I think, because nobody wants to halt all the electronic creativity (which I’m sure will only increase); however, why stoop to calling it “literary writing” if it contains finally 50 words, and the rest is an hour’s worth of “multi-media” inserts?  Literature is literature.  

             As in other notes here about literary experimentalism, it seems best to return to the main discussion by using examples from my personal writing to demonstrate ways of experimentalism, to show its development in Post-modern America, and to lead others again, either to experiment in newer ways or at least learn from the personal experience from my own work.

            After finishing my first novel, Abbas & Mehrdad, a philosophical Bildungsroman (or novel of development), under much influence from the work of Hermann Hesse, I went on to write many short stories, nonfiction, and poetry.  For my second novel, I wanted to move more into realism (away from Hesse’s German Romanticism, though several of his works also were experimental, including Demian, Steppenwolf, Magister Ludi).  I had studied some of the Modernists, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Huxley, a little of Joyce, plus Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev, and many of the Beats, and much other literature, psychology, history.  I was also hearing among my immediate friends about plans to visit our Pennsylvania home for a tenth high school reunion.  All that worked together for my next novel, Endgames.

             I still remember the inspiration for the impetus of the novel.  I went to where my wife worked, as an aid at a children’s home, and found myself a bit early.  I sat outside of that small building at night, and found myself beside a medium-sized baseball field, with bleachers.  I remember looking over to the bleachers, with the entire field empty and its bright spotlights beaming down, and suddenly, I wondered what it would be like, to watch those young ball players active, but active in a physiological sense, active creatively in watching and experiencing how they might grow up.  I think I made some notes, but on musing about the fiction involved, I became much more animated.  Something new would be necessary I felt, to show the children growing older, maturing internally, and moving into adulthood.  There had to be some way of rendering their growth of consciousness.  I mulled that over and sensed a visionary experience about the process.  (Included in essay, “Notes From A Beginning,” Along The Journalistic Path and my autobiography.)

             I knew also, of some kinds of artistic renderings, at least of evoking childhood, especially with some lines from Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man (which even then I didn’t have much use for), but where Joyce composed a few lines of some child’s nursery rhyme, maybe mispronounced in what’s supposed to be a youngster’s voice “. . .met a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo . . . ”  Yet as I thought about that, and my own internal experience, I knew that was all wrong.  I started working out another device, with differing literary styles, which might prove more accurate to a child not only “coming of age,” but actually evoking that entire expanse of the increase of consciousness from the more simplistic for a child to the beginning of adulthood, then the maturation of spirit, not additions of Joycean naturalism or materialism.  I guess, too, with the reunion theme working within me, I wondered how all these people in our high school class might have matured exactly, or failed to mature.  What I then put together, was a medium-length novel, Endgames, broken up into eight major sections, each devoted to one specific character.  Each chapter began with the reply of the assigned character to a pre-party invitation, then proceeded with simplistic dialogue among young children (each character with the male protagonist, but all eight characters portrayed within the novel’s total structure) while they were playing baseball.  After several pages, was another section within same chapter of a scene with same character in early adolescence, using omniscient description and external dialogue, then a scene with the same character showing that person in high school, only now using internal thought representation plus dialogue and description, and more subtle and smoother techniques to show further maturation.  After that was interior monologue of the book’s narrative protagonist (wife of main character), then her diary entry, and a final scene, using a bit of both external description and interior, but showing the wife now meeting the character as he actually entered a restaurant for the pre-party of the high school reunion.

             The second sequence followed the exact same format for style in each of the scenic portions, only again with the second character portrayed, and again, ending with that character entering the party for the reunion.  For unity, I had a beginning display of a small one-page written portion of a diary, by the wife, open the entire novel, continue once in each section, and also finally end it.  The thematic discussion throughout the entire book then, was the actual experience of many characters growing up, from early childhood, through adolescence, high school, then meeting with character changes a few years later, and having all that resonate within the main protagonists:  the wife of the story and her husband.  The ending or final diary image of the wife’s was of discussing a family and of her looking outside, drapes falling over the window with people living aware, inside and out.  It was meant to discuss completely, how a young man and wife might go through a physiological experience about the maturation of consciousness in life, not for the intellectual challenge, or even the experiential sense of becoming aware of her friends’ changes by attending a high school reunion, but actually the process, by which this young, newly-married couple was arriving at an understanding about the possibility of bringing life into the world, that is, of them having their first child.  The point made through the book was that more couples should consider their own maturation and the state of their relationships with friends and family, before bringing children into their lives.

             My personal challenges with the book were many.  For one, while playing a great deal of sports in high school and often working out with weights and jogging to keep in shape, I always disliked baseball.  I played my share of football and sand-lot softball, but baseball was of little interest.  That I had to research, go to live games for experience, and watch some second-hand, and read about baseball, so as to grasp some of the dynamics.  Also, there were many stylistic innovations in the novel (though I had my own set framework, using that over and over for each character), but the styles had to be researched and understood, before doing more than an early rendition.  Each character also was developed as a special “ideal” or type of character (a Jungian archetype), and the characters had to be consistent, of course, within each section, and also with special talents of each (one a photographer, another a salesman, one was a poet, so there were short poems interspersed).  I wrote some poetry, so that was okay.  There was too, quite a bit to keep organized, basically each “age level” had to match the next or same “age level” of the additional character chapter (synchronized with the previous and all before and after chapters within that particular “age layer”), making sure of continuity of events, characters, time era, etc., within the specific time frame.  Plus, once done, I felt like it was all a sort of giant chess game, layered out in eight sections of eight scenic portions, or a grid of 64 scenic blocks, actually like a chess board.  The final change in titling the book (an early title was, Reunion) was the understanding that all the characters had to stop playing games and arrive at some adult maturation, to make a resolution for that time of life (a grand theme of that era’s Zeitgeist, with the countercultural 1970’s), hence the final title, Endgame.

             This discussion of a novel with its experimentation is appropriate because it displays the use of many techniques (and allowed me a grand time for “being creative” as an artist); but again, the final experience of the writing the novel was not to turn to the world and say, gee, look at all the fancy writing I did on this page or that.  The final experience would be within the reader’s mind, and that experience, I hoped, would portray fully how many characters matured in consciousness and also, possibly, the way the main protagonists, a young couple, might arrive at some awareness of their maturity and the possibility of bringing new life into the world.  They had been children themselves, as had their friends, and now with that all reconsidered, next would be the decision to create a childhood for some new human being, which they would each experience anew.  It might be noted, that though I had completed a revised “first draft” within two months of full-time writing in 1973 in Florida, I was not able to revise Endgames professionally, until my intense writing time in Montana, in 1985.  It was in the years between, with much other writing and study that I grew with enough artistic skills to make sure all the intricacies of this novel were created, crafted, and edited professionally.  There is a final growth story here about my own life as an artist, and a part of the tale, again about revision and self-editing, where the artist grows along with his or her work.  The final note, I suppose, is that as you go about some experimental form, make certain that you can handle it and that at some point, you’re able to complete the work properly and in a professional fashion to bring forth all of your earliest and best creative ambitions.

             After doing more work with short stories and poetry (verse from this period later published in my first chapbook, Rain Folio), I went on to do another novel.  My third novel (the title is chosen but for confidentiality I’ll use “In-Progress”) is both experimental to a certain extent and also conventional.  I wanted to write a sort of picaresque chronicle or loosely-based sociological saga of a group of countercultural people (many friends and I were living that sort of semi-bohemian life style at the time).  I wanted it to be more casual and intense than conventional literary fiction of the time (years 1970-1973) and to have an overlay of the taste of the earlier Beats with Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Greg Curso, William S. Burroughs, Gary Snyder, and others—though mostly from Kerouac.  There had to be joy, vivacity, direct cultural comment, and plenty of activity, but not so much “plot action,” as displayed by more conventional novels.  In my working scheme, this was the first of my three novels, which I did not plan out completely or outline in a more formal way.  I drew up the general dynamics, the overall themes, characters, and many lists of different scenes and locales I wanted included (I was living in St. Petersburg, Florida at the time, during a busy era or construction boom where the young people like us often worked.  It was just five years after the actual death of Jack Kerouac in 1969, there in St. Petersburg, Florida).  Also, I used an almanac closely and included many social comments of the era, especially countercultural from the student youth movement and student politics; this was composed during the time of Nixon leaving office, 1974.  One of my other influences was from the same French author, who proved influential in different points of my life.  After writing a short story, “Retribution” (included now in collection, Early Tales), where I researched the locales and dialect of West Virginia coal miners, a friend read the story and asked if I had ever read Emile Zola.  I had not.  The friend later brought me Zola’s Nineteenth Century novel, the masterpiece about coal miners, Germinal.  The other point was from re-reading a Kerouac novel, where he cited a Zola quotation, “If it has been lived or thought, it will one day become literature.”

             Zola’s influence was to bring in a more documentary style, a sense that it was okay to write about the lower classes and use darker language with a lot of slang for the characters, and also, Zola’s confidence in writing great novels, which lacked most readers’ idea of a “traditional plot.”  Also, that was a part of some the post-modernist techniques, in not following conventional character plots or formulaic structures.  Again, the third novel was to be more picaresque or the chronicles of a certain set of characters living a certain way in a certain time period in America.  It wasn’t exactly to be part of Kerouac’s “Legend of Duloz,” but it was composed in a similar spirit.  The lengthy novel was completed in four or five months, in a rough first draft, and it has been one that I’ve let go for many years, before actually completing the re-writes (I didn’t like the style of my first rendition and am still reviewing it to see exactly how I will complete the narration.)  Also, much research is still needed, as there were many ecological and historical themes about the state of Florida and that research is ongoing.  As with many of my book projects, especially if there are experimental treatments, the completion of the entire project might take years.

             My next stint with experimental writing came when I moved from St. Petersburg, Florida to Charlottesville, Virginia.  I did much conventional writing and publishing there, helping to found a community newspaper, The Times of Charlottesville (it was my recommendation at one of the first organizational meetings to reverse the suggested “Charlottesville Times” and that succeeded in a workable title) and publish a literary journal, The Blue Ridge Review (this, however, was named by a creative friend and journalist, Charles “Chip” Krezel).  I was able to interview and publish pieces about or from many visiting or teaching authors at the University of Virginia (Anne Beattie, Mary Lee Settle, Spanish authoress Ana María Matute, filmmakers Claude Jutra, Al Maysles, Aultman) and to read much more of traditional novelists (Hemingway, W.S. Maugham, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, more Zola, Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Faulkner, Orwell, Sherwood Anderson, Burroughs, Henry Miller), and one author who in particular affected me greatly, the wondrous Argentine, Jorge Luis Borges.  Also, playwrights were important then such as George Bernard Shaw and later, the Sicilian, Luigi Pirandello.

            I’m mentioning these fateful authors because it is from them that I went on to see how to present fiction in a way both more attuned to my own awareness and also to the surroundings and people I was encountering.  The reading of Zola (I was reading some of his biographies and had a grad student even translate French quotations of his texts, for I only spoke Spanish with a smattering of French and German, besides my native English) and Orwell directly affected the more conventional fourth novel I later wrote during those times, about restaurants in Virginia and the arts scene there, Gratuity.  Zola’s naturalism allowed me to catalogue more of the environment, but it was Orwell’s memoir Down And Out In Paris And London (his descriptions of working in a Parisian restaurant kitchen) that gave me the foretaste of writing directly about the restaurant scene as well as Virginia’s active arts community.  The completed novel is not experimental, but that book does show the effect of earlier experimental techniques in the history of fiction and how they might profoundly affect a later author.  (I did, however, insert one graphic element, a rectangular black line or “box” around a sign’s message, for an art exhibition, to mimic an actual sign.)  Gratuity was significant, primarily, because of documenting the completion of the Jeffersonian dream of growing grapes and making wine now in that area (Jefferson lived nearby at his neo-classical, self-designed home, Monticello) and for documenting an arts movement of note in America, which the conventional media largely ignored. The wine metaphor adds to the idea of “vintage writing” or indigenous arts, as Jefferson would’ve subscribed to American Literature as much as fine wines, the arts, or his love of French cooking and the democratization of resources, talents, opportunities in America, the nation he helped to found.

            It was from reading G. B. Shaw, and some of his later enthusiast’s writing, Colin Wilson (The Outsider, The Philosopher’s Stone, the author whom I’ve reviewed and corresponded with), but with Shaw, that I realized the playwright’s great talent for infusing all his plays with an intense intellectualism, for turning conventional writer’s dogmas or critics on their ear, and for Shaw’s ability to soften the serious effect of his great plays, by using humor.  His work is not so much satirical or even comedic in the obvious sense, rather it is filled with quips and enough sharp comments, turns of phrases and general wit, to show a younger writer another way.

             His plays are packed full of ideas (from why prostitution in Mrs. Warren’s Profession to the effect of longevity in a futuristic society, Back to Methuselah), and instead of kowtowing to the critics about “possibly being too didactic,” he again took his penchant for fun, incisive lecturing to the farthest degree by adding long, insightful prefaces to each of his plays—he made didacticism an art form, and was known everywhere for his witticisms.  He was once confronted by a postman at his house, who admitted to not liking his work and when Shaw asked why, the guy grumbled something like, “You don’t drink, you don’t curse, you don’t chase women; what do you do?”  Shaw laughed and said, “I spit,” and spat on the ground, just to stay in the heat of the argument.  He did much more than that, of course, and finally after St. Joan, won the Nobel Prize for his plays.

             It was Shaw, of course, who spoke about “creative evolution” and championed the individual:  “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:  the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.  Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

             Around this time (1979) I was going through my file folder of story ideas (pages which didn’t go anywhere on first draft, or were still in idea or outline form), when I stumbled upon my words of a beginning paragraph, “Before This Story Gets Rolling.”  I pulled out the page of typing, placed it into my manual typewriter, and started composing.  I realized that I could not only have a very creative tale (for the time) of a post-modern story with the characters (Maggie and Karl Sherwood Ottoman) jumping out of the story to talk to me and the reader, but could also discuss the story arc, character background (by actually showing a character background sheet to the reader), put in fake footnotes to have fun with the academics, and complete it with satiric fake book titles (The Varied Approaches of Segmented Critical Analysis to Stifle Creativity), and even include an ending with the character, Karl Ottoman, escaping to Connecticut and the author, me, having to post a note for readers to let me know if he were discovered.  The gist of the tale, however, was to show the texture of a story-within-a-story, the dynamics of what an author went through with character creation, and more of the feel of the author’s sense of a story’s frothiness in the creation stage or artistic laboratory (again for the reader to experience as it happens, not being told about it later or having it described intellectually). 

             What happened for me, the author, however, was more intense—I learned finally how to channel all of my intellectual intensity about story and theme and character into a new kind or experimental story that was more powerful, than if I had somehow used more traditional techniques.  The lesson from Shaw was important and significant to my work, and I hope to others, especially with the often constricted intellectualism so prevalent in the work of Americans (many who are taught in schools to “stay away from ideas”) and by a public who seems to pretend as if it never was graduated even from junior high.  Wasn’t that cliché, “I never made it past eighth grade,” from our parents’ generation?

             This too, is a perfect lead in, for the other writer of importance then to me, and I think in general, to American and world literature—Jorge Luis Borges.  I wish I had read him in the original Spanish, but my first acquaintance was with translations, and I believe it was the book of his shorter pieces, called Ficciones.  What sticks in my mind, mostly, is the sudden awareness from Borges that yes we are writing short stories, novels, novellas, and some wild sketches even, but we can consider them differently:  suddenly he simply labeled his work, “fictions.”  The term was perfect.  Those readers or writers not familiar with his work immediately should find one of the recently translated anthologies of his major writings (the beautiful Penguin paperbacks of poetry, nonfiction, fiction).  Borges was overly erudite, and didn’t mind showing off a bit, was usually humorous, always vivacious both in language and in concepts, and generally his work was a pleasant mysterious surprise.  He started writing in the early 1920’s or so, yet his books didn’t come to other countries’ attention until our post-modern period, and it came with a sudden wonder.  Borges often wrote short pieces about some outrageous character from his own made-up history, like a knife-wielding cowboy (gaucho) from the Argentine Pampas or some saloon lowlife or a gangster, and his next tale would be about a maze he found himself negotiating (“labyrinth” is a favorite word) among treasured tomes, or even a certain review of a startling book he had read recently—one that Borges completely made up!  So he was doing short bursts of exceptional experimental writing, dazzling with humor and insights, and often with incongruous mysterious elements (“Death and the Compass,” “The Library of Babel,” “The Aleph”).  Again, however, the key insight was more than the oft-touted Magic Realism; with Borges’s “fictions” there was an element of transparent, self-conscious parody, and his short-short stories (1-2 pages in length) became something more transcendent, graspable, and more significant conceptually, than any simple rendering might indicate.

             It was from these kinds of influences then, that I went on to do several other sorts of writing, some earlier conventional stories (“Kevin’s Gift,” “The Madness,” “When A Pauper’s Poor”), some sketches (“A Fresh-Fallen Snow,” “Moments”), and some that might be called (as I described in my introduction to collection, Moments) more in the line of expressionist painting, where each story uses a different style to render a character’s inner mind (from the mystical “Incantation” to “Russian Discourse” to “Being Casual”), to one series that I started as a short story, but which quickly grew to three times that length and became actually a novella, The Letters of Sol O. Sendin.  Again, this was a combination of effects with experimentation, using some of the concepts from Borges, but also the influence of another poet I was studying, Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), whose scholarship, creativity, and dedication actually inspired the Italian Renaissance (he’s the inventor, by the way, of poetry’s “sonnet” form).  I learned that in his later life, Petrarch was self-conscious enough about his own work and that of others, to gather together everything he wrote into book form, including his numerous letters (which prompted me to do the same).  One of his more creative projects, however, was that he often wrote what seemed like completely sincere and friendly letters to poets, artists, statesman of the ancient past (Cicero, his favorite, but also Homer, Seneca, Livy, Quintilian, and others), in which Petrarch would discuss his many views and those subjects important to each supposed recipient, as if the person were still alive and resided down the road.  I thought this wonderful; but of course, a creative idea already put to excellent use. 

             I did the next best thing, and wrote a series of “parody documents” mostly in letter form, only collected together as a book about some not-so-famous obscure Esperanto Scholar in Iowa, with his half-crackpot letters to various world leaders, including Castro, Hitler, and Nixon.  Mostly, the scholar thought he actually was writing in Esperanto, but the letters are in American English, so that “Esperanto” becomes a metaphor or symbol for the transparency of this scholar (to the reader) and the truth of what he is saying.  This allowed some humor (with the establishment of the time in a jibe at Nixon and his tapes filled notoriously with “expletive deleted”—I had the scholar apologize for ever having sent Nixon that tape recorder—and even to the Russian novelist, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, indicating that the scholar would be happy to sail to the Archipelago Islands for a travel series in honor of Solzhenitsyn’s book, The Gulag Archipelago, which of course is actually about Stalin’s intolerable mass prison system inside USSR, plus other assorted foolishness).  The story started with a complete introductory page by an editor, then a series of the foolish “Esperanto” letters, then an ending, which purported in scholarly fashion to show the footnotes, a page which included only footnote numbers, and after that, a crazy compilation of satiric elements as condensed into a tiny paragraph, as an appendix.  The original short story contained nine letters (included as a story in collection, Moments); the novella of the same title, contains now about twice that number of letters (though more involved), still within the original confines of editor’s introduction and final footnote.  The spoof of an eccentric scholar was not aimed at Petrarch, but was a bit of self-deprecating humor, even to the name of its author, who too often was submitting manuscripts to magazines, “Sol Offtin Sendin.”  (The acronym of “S.O.S.” as signatory initials in the letters was to alert our culture to its potential demise.)  The iconic reference in form to Petrarch (included in my special preface to Moments) also foreshadowed the discussion over these pages about America now experiencing a modern Renaissance.

             In another of my parody documents, I wrote a mock literary book review and let it serve as its own short story.  It’s called, “Between the Lines” supposedly by Dylan O. Geistwelt (as in “DOG” or cynic) and works with the usual literary banter of reviewing a book, especially the way bad reviewers do, who make some sweeping general statement, but never show any quotations or verse to document their opinions, and continues with a sort of misappropriate academic banter (he wants to hurry so he can go polish his Porsche) until the end.  It has enough of the clichés from negative east coast literary reviews to almost sound real, enough of the emotional banter to seem professional, and enough name-dropping of literary authors important to other critics at the time, Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, to show the reviewer’s true shallowness.  The final part of the experimentalism, however, was to make sure that the short story of this “book review” was printed in narrow newspaper column size, and in fine print, so that it appears exactly as it might in a tabloid review, newsletter, journal or newspaper.

             There’s also the experiment with two columns down each side of a page, showing a freewheeling everyday discussion between a man and wife, called “Ringside.” It shows the continuous interior monologue of each, down opposite sides of the page, with their spoken comments breaking out of each side column in ALL CAPS as they talk, respond, think then of a different silent reply in response to the other’s comments and also continue to talk.  It’s a short one-page piece, but the experimentalism again brings across a simultaneous intensity that is humorous, compelling, and also, I think, indicative of a close “one-flesh” relationship in a married situation.  “Ringside” should conjure convivial rings and also an ironical touch of the boxing arena.

             “Butcher,” another short story in my collection, Moments, was experimental in the sense that the true meaning is withheld from the reader, till the end, as discussed in the chapter, “Self-Editing for Authors (Part II),” within a structure of a hidden meaning but for the reader’s complete emotional impact.  Again though, the “O’Henry” ending was for a more complete empathy than solely a powerful reading experience; the reader enters the lie, the delusion lived by the character, who pretends to his friends and family that he truly was a “butcher,” not as in reality, a prison guard in Chile, known for his brutality to political prisoners.  The reader thus lives the lie and feels the character’s despair.

             There’s another discussion with this brief story.  Because I crafted the powerful ending for the tale beforehand, I decided to make sure that I broke “the rule” too often touted in writing classes, about “needing a great first line” for every short story—that the first line is the most important part.  Instead, with “The Butcher,” I used a mundane first sentence:  “The evening bus pulled away from the curb.”  I did that for several reasons.  I wanted, in a sense, to test the editorial waters, to see how this might be interpreted (if the story even would be read as it was submitted to magazines).  Second, I wanted a slow naturalistic start to take off the edge of intensity to the tale later, thus drawing in the reader more smoothly or slowly (also the opening had to foreshadow a blue-collar milieu).  I did, after publication, have a reader, who was an exceptional trial lawyer in the community, ask me about the first sentence, especially about how, “It wasn’t much of an opening line.”  I knew exactly where he was coming from (the guy was known for exceptional showmanship and eloquence in the courtroom).  My answer was noncommittal and vague, I think, because he was a friend and patron of my literary magazine.  My problem with the stuff about first lines, for short stories or novellas or novels, is that it is bunk, more academic claptrap.  Of course, one wants the tale to take off and to pull in the reader, but this teaching about first lines is just nonsense.  Who in their right mind, would pick up anything at all by Tolstoy and say, stop reading the work, because . . . “Oh, man, the first sentence here isn’t good enough.”  Or, who would not read Proust, because the next volume starts in an old-fashioned way, or who would quit reading any author at all, because of a first line?  Who?

             The point of this is that we go to various author’s works, not for the first line, not for any set piece of writing, maybe not even for that particular book of art or nonfiction, but we go to the writing and finish the reading because of the particular author involved, for his or her consciousness.  Does anyone anywhere quit listening to Mozart because some piece starts off a bit slowly (not that anything of Mozart’s is plain)?  Or Beethoven or Bach or anyone else in the arts?  Do you stop examining a painting by Picasso because you think he used pedestrian colors at the top of his canvas?

             While it’s quite important to start and end a piece of writing with intensity, some of these rules that are passed on and on are almost completely foolish.  There’s a wonderful motivational tale, by business consultant Denis Waitley, where he mentions that he watched his wife prepare a roast, and when she cut off both ends, he asked why.  His wife said, “That’s how Mom always did it.”  The next time he was at his mother-in-law’s house, they asked her and she said, “That’s how my mother always did it.”  Later, they went to the grandmother and asked her.  She said that she trimmed the roast because, “Well, my baking pan’s too small.”  The gist here is that too many “rules for writing” are passed on and on, down through the classrooms by non-practitioners to more non-practitioners, who copy the rulebook and present it in their classrooms to more would-be writers, without ever questioning the significance of such foolishness.  This isn’t a rebellious matter of questioning authority; rather it’s a matter of using incisive thinking to see through the wool pulled over one’s eyes.  The rule probably came from the newspaper world, where a news jockey’s first summary line might not be read, side-by-side with dozens of other mini-stories or daily news columns, or even in a journal where 10-12 different authors’ works might appear, and one might be ignored by reviewers.   

             A side note, by the way, with my story, “The Butcher,” is that I became so upset with many traditional rejections of that story, that I decided I would save it, to publish it myself in the literary magazine I was editing at the time, The Blue Ridge Review.  I knew, that with the printed “form rejection slips” I was receiving that none of these editors were even reading to the story’s end; it was too powerful for such a response, if read, which was confirmed by my associates and other readers of the tale.  Once published in my own magazine, I was later told by an acquaintance that grad students in the creative writing classes at UVA were stopping their classes to discuss the story.  Also, another publisher in Canada, who regularly reviewed the alternative press in America and was known usually for irascible opinions, later asked to republish “The Butcher” in his own magazine (reprinted in Samisdat).  He wrote, “This is the best short story published in the American Small Press all year.”

             The moral of that discussion, again, is to know when to break the rules, but well consider all the implications the rule-breaking might create for publishing opportunities.  America is no longer the great “individualist” nation it once was (if that were ever true); and nowadays more things are decided in Groupthink fashion, or if by a single individual, most likely one that is immersed in the cracked-brain, anti-artistic teamwork favored by educators.  I think it was the British writer, Colin Wilson, who once wrote, “The smarter you are, the harder you have to work.” The implication is that the talented writer or artist is always up against the conventions of society, always the person to bring about change, often the one who by his or her very existence (and the more intense and prolific the effort, the louder the abuse) will frighten mediocrity.  (There is the wisdom from Jesus as well, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his native place and in his own house.” Mathew 13:57.)  What you’ll quickly notice if you fall into this category is that once the mediocre realize that they will never be in your league, their only option is destruction (character assassination, actual attack, belittling your integrity of effort, or silly reviews).  It was Emerson who wrote, “To be great is to be misunderstood.”

             My story titled, “Russian Discourse” (Moments), shows a hip yet dissenting construction worker who is almost killed in a crane accident and ends up in a discussion with Ivan Ilyich (about his death bed scene, created by Tolstoy), with brief descriptive paragraphs interspersed with intense, poetic imaginings about confronting the Russian and coming to some poetic meaning through the incident.  In ways, it’s almost a near-death experience.  That was to highlight the revelation by Tolstoy in his masterful novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych.  Also, it was meant to highlight what exactly was happening in America’s work world, with so many of us countercultural types avoiding establishment jobs, then suddenly finding ourselves as laborers on construction sites.  My comment in the story was a reference to playing chess with another laborer:  “It’s surprising who you meet in the ditches these days.”  That, of course, was the reason for again working through a more experimental presentation, so that the actual event portrayed (possible construction accident) could be fragmented, opened up as it were imaginatively, to show a discussion with Tolstoy’s character, and more, to bring about a complete understanding of the protagonist to himself, as rendered by more poetic bursts of what was happening.  I think this is much more effective than a conventional representation in a naturalistic way (and makes it more of a complete reading experience).  Again, it is a much different artistic intent here, than being experimental to draw attention to the writing.

             “Incantation” was mentioned briefly, but will be the last short story of my collection Moments to be considered.  Basically, this is a story done with all narrative, and it’s a romantic rendering of a young woman receiving a letter, during a lunch break of an autumn outside, the letter from a boyfriend, met during a summer encounter.  What’s rendered here, though, is not just internal thoughts or other sorts of interior monologue; rather, there’s a sort of mystical repetition, going deeper and deeper into the heart and soul of the main protagonist and presenting that for the reader, so that the nearly overwhelming intensity of the romantic encounter is experienced by the reader.  Early lines read, “Clutched in her hand, her fingers gripping so to wander the surface of the blue paper like someone blind, his clear quiet voice spoke and she could feel it without reading as if the ink could transmit the nuances of sound,” but also proceed deeply to an inner level of almost base soul language or even one of a younger self, near baby talk of self to self with, “He was too gigantic there and it could only have worked as a vacation, only as a vacation, this man . . . . but was no good for her.”  The phraseology with the mysticism implied and mentioned throughout also reinforces the lover’s total effect upon all levels of the woman (and substantiates the title, “Incantation”) and moves to a different sort of ending, whereby, using musical phraseology the lines are repeated at the end, “. . . some men move among the living and no one could explain, she felt no hunger, this man, but was no good for her,” then stop.  Using the musicology here, I break my own rules about visual language and visual storytelling in one way.  I used musical theory and some semblance of symphonic structure in a very direct way; yet, too, the piece is even more visual in another manner, with the use of language finally, not really as music or sound or “tones,” rather as heavier brushstrokes of verbal coloration or rhetorical flourish, truly an impasto technique.  It might be easiest to understand that in “Incantation” I was painting with phraseology as an expressionist painter might on a canvas, more exactly as Vincent Van Gogh might have used his very visible, heavy, and yet wonderful colors to express some scene he was transforming from the vision in front of him to the art on his canvas, in his inimitable style.  Again though, the final form of the short story was a display of lush or mystic romanticism and the depth of romantic love, so thereby was the justification (organically from the story demands) of using an experimental technique or series of techniques to complete a new type of short story.

             Some of this, again harks back to my discussion about Faulkner, and his very effective and unforgettable masterpieces (The Sound and The Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August) where he is able to render a depth of character emotion profoundly and with a series of experimental viewpoints (15 different narrators in As I Lay Dying) which can fracture a set of events or experiences enough to completely portray per character what is happening emotionally for each of them to the reader.  By bringing up Faulkner here, I am again displaying in the new writer’s foreground a way of presenting character emotion and two differing sets of artist/writer’s styles (Faulkner’s and my own) to show some of the creativity necessary when a writer intends to present a story and a new way of approaching a particular character’s feelings or the effect of some relationship upon that character to the reader, finally, so that the reader might in his or her reading experience feel as if lived, the full power of the originating fictive event upon the fictive character (or the author).  Those circumstances will always, for me, demand the most of a writer or artist, and will always establish new ways or newly profound techniques of writing and painting, so that the creativity of the arts will remain fresh, significant, and of course, worth the effort of new generations of readers (or viewers of painted canvases or other art).

             My first novella, Of Rifles and Butterflies (published in The Blue Ridge Review, later collected into Triad, Three Novellas, still in-progress) was a another work where I went at the rendering of experience first as an experimental form.  Also, this was another fiction, where I broke my own rule about “visual writing” with using the most pronounced tenets of musicology I’ve ever used in any of my writing.  My reason for this approach, was needing some way to render the intensity of a later generation’s view of the countercultural world, this time with a more traditionally employed male character, a love affair between the main character, David, a newspaper reporter and a young woman, Marsha, who was a lead singer in a local blues band.  The reason I went to musicology was that one of the character’s was a musician (the inspiration here for the romantic involvement but later psychological and professional changes of the male character) and more importantly, for the significance music had for my own and many generations of young Americans.  Pop music was a major inspiration, vehicle of poetry, way of heightening love affairs, art affairs, traveling, reading, etc. and all activities, so avoiding it would have left something out of the rendition for not only characters rendered, but for the readers involved, and too, for my own sense of involvement with the life of the times (1970-1980’s in America), or an artist’s sense of Zeitgeist.

             I wanted to use my own insights into style from reading Hemingway, but ones that would not be noticed so much.  And too, my own involvement with music had moved totally away from listening to any pop music at all, rock music in particular, and was more involved then and now with classical work, in particular the symphonies and sonatas of Mozart, but more especially the symphonies of Beethoven.  The work took on, thereby, a layered effect, with other deeper tenets of Jungian psychology as the actual plot (male protagonist absorbing his feminine side or anima); and I realized that to achieve the effect I wanted, it would have to be written in an almost “double-entendre” fashion, only not having to do with sexual innuendos, but with psychological or spiritual, actually cosmic innuendos, so the story underneath all the fancier stylistic effects would bring about the true dénouement for the character and the reader’s final assimilation.  This sounds more complicated perhaps than it ended up. With the intellectualism of my work I’m often forced to hide the incisive theme of a story’s real meaning and use symbols or provide subliminal cues beneath the surface writing.

               For instance, the outside of the story in Of Rifles & Butterflies is a simplistic tale of guy-chases-girl, of them having a relationship, of it continuing, and of the main character proceeding to a very special outdoor summer festival or party, where besides a great musical and casual partying event, there was also what I called a “Toaster Shoot.”  By that I mean, a gathering was put together for the special age then, completely upset with the amount of insidious technology in our lives; the organizers set about to hang toasters in trees, also many TVs, or old record players or radios, or sandwich griddles and throughout the party, participants would each take turns in holding up a rifle and actually taking shots at some appliance.  It was a countercultural variation of an old “Turkey Shoot.”  Before many laugh at my imagination’s outrageous symbolism and perhaps at the “lack of veracity” or believability of such a party, I should confess that the actual event was based on similar parties I attended at a dear friend’s farm in Pennsylvania, where he created, instigated, and actually held several years’ worth of  “Toaster Shoots.”

             That said, I transposed the gathering, replaced real individuals with created characters, used the current Virginia countryside where I then lived (Charlottesville, Virginia), and proceeded apparently to present an uproariously melodramatic story of boy after girl, complete with lusting for her “big boobs” and lyrics from pop rock songs and blues songs (the female character was a blues singer), and also kept the action quick-paced, forward moving, the narrative filled with plenty of quotation marks, “to learn the ropes and grow a bit,” to maintain the language of the era and fill the story with a documentary feel.  The story would have a repeating-sentence motif, “What did I remember?,” and though again apparently presented as a raucous blues song/adventure/love story in progress it actually moved through other, deeper dimensions.  I followed more thoroughly some insights from Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth symphonies (favorites of mine). 

             The first, however, was an oblique insight, from listening to older recordings (conducted by Otto Klemperer) of Beethoven’s that I had, next to more modern renditions (Carlos Kleiber), in which suddenly, I realized I didn’t care for the modern renditions so much, mostly because the symphony productions were “speeded up” to my ear, not so much out of classical guidelines, but quickened to put a sort of modernistic, almost “glib spin” on current renditions.  The older, slightly slower productions, it seemed, suddenly were perceived to be “too ponderous” for the modern ear—or so that was how I interpreted the moderns.  I felt, however, with the forever heroics of a magnificent idiosyncratic genius like Beethoven that he meant every ponderous effect he could achieve.  But again, the speeding up of art, for a modern ear!  What I realized, in the first draft of the novella, was that I would have to speed up the prose.  (Also, at the time, I had been reading and writing book reviews about the work of Saul Bellow, especially his Humboldt’s Gift, where his prose appeared with a faster rhythm, often using long series of non sequiturs, filled with lots of urban details about Chicago.)  I went through my draft, then, and made the action and rhythm faster paced, added more specific details and more melodramatic effects, if that might be the term. 

             Again, from the Beethoven, I combined elements of the Fifth Symphony and the Ninth, and went ahead for my novella to break the finished writing into five sections, each introduced by a line from the previous section to tie them together, and with the reverberating “What did I remember?” as a choral repetition or as Wagner might indicate, a leitmotif (the character remembered early childhood visions of feeling inside his own nobility, his greatness).  The story goes on to detail the chasing of the woman, Marsha, who finally vanishes, as the male character in the ending “. . . rested the rifle barrel over his left shoulder, stood erect . . . his skin grew velvety” suggesting Michelangelo’s “David” or a new butterfly (symbols of renaissance and rebirth).  The main character realizes what the female character brought to him, that it was time to “refuse to get up for a regular job” and go about to confront his own fuller self (absorbing his anima figure or feminine side), finally to decide creatively to change his life.  David shoots an alarm clock.

             The tale would’ve been impossible to relate in such depth, by doing it in any other way.  Again, on the outside, the general reader would be following a lush or melodramatic story about guy-gets-girl (or in this case “fails” to get girl), and would go through all the details to a fun sort of “crazy” ending.  On a deeper level, and this for the subliminal portion of the reading experience, the story would encompass all the creative “unconscious” elements to make it more complete, using the classical elements of Beethoven, some elements of Hemingway (a lush or opposite style from what he uses, “hotter” in its purpose or intensity as Marshall McLuhan might suggest, versus Hemingway’s classical “coolness” or objectivity), and finally the Jungian elements of “individuation” with masculine and feminine sides, and more, with Archetypal symbols, such as David as a name and the woman like a feminine muse or oracle and Michelangelo, thus projecting renaissance themes with the awakening power of butterflies.  The title seems obvious now after the fact, but in the beginning I infused a final element, harking back to the Renaissance essays of Sir Francis Bacon, titling the novella, Of Rifles & Butterflies.

             I’ll proceed out of chronological order (for my own works) to stay with the continuation of discussing experimentalism with prose.  My latest work is the third in the series of my novellas for the book, Triad (Of Rifles and Butterflies, The Collected Letters of Sol O. Senden, and the novella still in-progress, The Casting Out).  Because the last novella is still being worked upon, I don’t want to go into much detail.  The overall format is interesting and instructive, I think, and might show others how to proceed.  Again, this third novella has a working title, The Casting Out.  It deals with a protagonist, who unbeknownst to his usual perceptions, suddenly realizes that people who appear in his world, especially in an intimate way, are not what they seem.  The point of the tale is metaphysical in one part and deeply religious in another.  Basically, there’s a person in my main character’s life, who eventually reveals herself to be a demonized entity and part of a foreign pantheon that is trying to destroy the main character.  The tale is about the discovery and the actual exorcism of the demon.  What makes it a challenge and of interest for me and the discussion with experimentalism, is that I needed a way to go deeper with the story, rather than continue with a regular, lengthy narrative.  I am interposing the tale with diary entries, though more scholarly or insightful in a metaphysical sense, as the story by its own organic function must call into question New Age assumptions or abilities of manifested characters to manipulate what we all call “usual reality.”  The interposed diary entries chart the appearance of events, what is causing the events, and the actual need to get this entity out of the main character’s life, and to arrive at some resolution that obviously transcends in a spiritual sense what the character is going through.  To be effective, the novella must combine or meld what the character and reader will experience, in moving through the story.

             Also, I have been working at a longer project, off and on, which is a book of experimental short stories, actually with basic ideas that I first sketched out twenty years ago.  It seems whenever I get back to the project, something always interrupts, and this current blog is another example.  The book has an ironic title, good for a shorter set of specialty sketches, and ones that I thought might irritate a literary agent (whom I’ve worked with from time to time).  The book’s name is, A Title That Sells.  I thought that finally my agent could turn to an associate when asked, “Well, what are you working on now?” with the answer, “A Title That Sells,” and say that with a smirk, knowing the other person would think him on the trail of a pop bestseller, instead of a quirky book of short fiction, so creative that the author felt the need of mocking the entire bookselling/publishing business.  The stories inside are more serious, most of which I’ll have to speak about in generalities, so as not to give away too many of my creative notes.  There’s a tale told with photographs used for a story, which is done often these days (twenty years ago that was not considered so much), but the point is to play on having actual photographs of potential characters, so as to incorporate the almost “if it’s in print with a photograph it must be real” syndrome that most newspapers experience all the time.  There’s also a tale that satirizes the detective story, a much needed service these days for the mass publication of so many worthless tomes, a tale in the fashion of Boccaccio’s Decameron, and several others done as cross examples with other theatrical arts, and finally some distinguishing styles of conceptual art.  Again, I’ll refrain from details as all this is in-progress and will probably alter as the stories are completed and the book readied for publication.

             I’ve done another set of experimental works that employ shorter writing styles and other sorts of conceptual situations, including a short book of very small plays, called A Tension Span.  It’s a set of very brief plays (with the title as an appropriate pun), shorter than one-acts, that I felt I could send out to various theatrical companies, with the idea that people could on purpose either read them or perform them.  They all are conceptual pieces, with brief one-page sets of dialogue and silly titles.  This entire group of work for me, is what I refer to off-handedly, as my set of “Anti-Art Pieces.”  Basically, it’s a satirical response to the difficulty of working in the arts in America, which too often only pays attention to industrial or mercantile concerns.  That’s an old dilemma in America (the usual and constant philistinism here makes one feel like a grand response), but still, I feel it’s so prevalent a theme that it deserves direct confrontation with diverse, mostly experimental works.  Another project, in this vein, is to take a very cheaply printed paper edition of one of my novels, and before sending it out to reviewers, make sure the cover is bent, maybe dogged-eared, and with a well-soiled shoe, step directly on top of the cover, so that the shoeprint shows over the cover and maybe the first page.  I call it, the “stepped on” effect; and the point being, that since America so regularly only publishes and prints and distributes absolute garbage, why not make the product look exactly like that, Garbage.  Another project within this vein, though more positive, is to work conceptually with the printing of a conventional article and show it in a completely different layout (no more details).  Other ideas include some satirical, absurdist style projects.  Where are the Dadaists, when you really need them?

             The other focus for my discussion about experimentalism is with drama.  I want to discuss my forays into theatre work.  While I will withhold my greater discussion about this for a further post about drama, the experimental portion should be noted.  Although I have been quite serious about theatre (writing five one-acts, one longer three act, plus semi-professional acting stints, arranging readings of my plays in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, casual understudy with play directing and actual performances of a few shorter works in Pittsburgh, as well as serving as a Playwright-in-Residence for a small theater company in Pennsylvania) my experience in the last few years has been mostly with publishing and editing, writing nonfiction (lengthy autobiography), some prose (novella), and several screenplays.  The plays I want to work with here are the five one-acts, collected into my volume, Tauromenium.  The plays include:  “The Catalyst,” “Mystery,” “Rally!,” “Sunisa Suuqe,” and “Tauromenium.”

             Two things first about theatre, especially for those trying to “be creative”:  One, if you have no experience with the wealth of Ancient Greek Drama, you need to first encounter that (not only reading, but listening to or watching recorded versions and seeing live; it will be impossible to describe the wonder of experience with works so rich, creative, and refreshing that are almost two and a half millennia old); and Two, with theatre today, again with the renaissance emphasis (for we who live in an English language culture with roots to British History), it’s important to be conversant with Shakespearean Drama.  Now that experimentalism is significant, one needs to be versed in that also, to get your own work noticed.  I’ve already mentioned the wealth of exceptional drama in the early Modernist’s vein with Beckett, Brecht, Sartre, Ionesco, Pirandello, sharing both in absurdist mythic and existentialist modern tradition as well as direct crossovers with graphic fields in Dadaist and Surrealist, Expressionist, Abstractionist work.  Existentialism.  As one indicator of tremendous influence here, consider only Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and the impact of such work across many media, even to fostering the fun caricatures on “Sesame Street,” with large furry children’s characters, that is humorous eccentrics living on the street in garbage cans (based on Beckett).  And if one thinks that experimental works in print suffer in any way from an abbreviation in style, quality, or quite profound writing, look briefly again at the work of Samuel Beckett, for a surprising education.  His writing is excellent, bleak but beautiful.

             Again, with my one-act plays, I wanted a good set of smaller works to show or demonstrate to the theatrical world exactly what my own range and capabilities were.  So I set about to do some exceptional short pieces that might attract attention (unfortunately, because of other pressures in my life, these are still to be published together in a book).  With my first one-act, “The Catalyst,” I choose a traditional form, showing a teacher returning from a sabbatical and working within a high school setting long enough again, to get himself into trouble, for (and this done with irony) “being too good,” or working in “too creative a fashion” and being “industrious,” so that his tenure is in jeopardy, if he doesn’t change his work habits.  His wife leaves him, many of his friends run off, and others try to talk him into changing, “Just give in, John.  Who cares about all those little projects and the trips and essays the kids are writing?”  He is left at the end, however, without a conventional job, but winning an honorary doctorate; the old friends lie and say, “I never doubted . . .”  The point is that the creative at odds with society are often attacked, and the harder they work—the more creative, the more exceptional—the greater the possibility of mediocrity attacking those exact individuals.  My main character is called, “The Catalyst” of course, because he and his story become an agent for change (the first play went through a playwright’s reading symposium in Pittsburgh, later was read in public in Uniontown, PA, and was nearly made, twice, into brief films with an independent director and later with a commercial group in Akron, Ohio).

             My second play, “Mystery,” is more experimental and is subtitled as “A Metaphysical Drama.”  My intent here is to show on stage a more cosmic, time-honed approach to creative activity for the individual, and also to show on stage (as Tolstoy had done in a previous century in prose) an actual death-bed scene, where the main character faces what he was able to achieve or failed to achieve, “I was there for some brevity that I feel like a vagueness within dream time now.”  The play opens with a scene of almost sacred drama (in the Wagnerian sense) with monks dressed in robes and chanting as they move through, and a birthing scene, then on to another scene of aging quickly, and a scene as an architect at work trying to do more creative projects, and finally, the deathbed scene.  The drama is packed with symbols, obvious and not so obvious, and also with enough detailed dramaturgy to make the story interesting, the characters vivid, and the full-scale cosmic drama, even with the experimentalism, worthy of performance.

             The third play is in some ways my most creative venture, “Rally!”  This on the outset is a one-act, and has been created to be performed as a “Community Festival Play” or street performance or at a rural fair.  The story is simple; young adolescents try to stop a new kid from crossing the street, and in the midst of a tussle, realize the new kid is trying to get to the police, so as to report that his mother’s apartment has been burglarized and that they’ve lost all their goods. The other youngsters decide to help the new kid, and end up, setting up a small musical band on the corner, with kazoos and harmonicas, to collect money to help the new kid.  It’s meant to be fun, vivacious, and bring across a “let’s-help-the-community” feeling.  The creative part with the one-act, is that I went on to write one complete version of the one-act in regular urban street language, then I recast the entire play to be set in a rural community, with more rural and farm-style language, and finally, I added a full “puppet theatre” script, for “Rally!” to be acted with Punch & Judy style puppets doing a similar but shorter script, obviously for much younger children.  The experimental part is having the language change per urban or rural scenes, and also for the actual age categories, with finally the puppet script.  All three script adaptations together, with further descriptions, comprise the full text of my one-act, “Rally!”  (The urban version of Rally! went through a live reading at a Playwright’s festival in Los Angeles, complete with a video recording; and another public reading took place in Pittsburgh, PA.)

             Sunisa Suuqe (Ass Backwards) is subtitled, “An Intellectual Burlesque.”  This probably will be the most difficult of my experimental works to imagine, without seeing a viable, dramatic script.  It’s long, in two or three acts actually, and is presented basically to demonstrate dramatically, again the Nietzschean premise of Transvaluation of Core Values, what in other essays I have also called a “shift differentiation” in the base or foundation levels of values in a society.  That sounds obtuse but the farcical play is not, and treats in most “realistic fashion” a complete dramaturgy of the potential for a “reversal of values” in society.  I took this theme so seriously, that I actually wrote the play “backwards.”  The last scene is first, the middle in the center, and the first last; only observers don’t realize it, of course, as it plays both ways (the language, of course, is always moving forwards, or left to right in regular fashion).  The meanings switch, however, and even the title with the spelling of the genus and species of a donkey (Equus Asinus) is spelled backwards.  Other things are absurdist or heightened as well, with a stage manager or director doing grand directions, and other sight and concept gags taking place.  The director even shoots the main character outright as a satiric act on stage and there are other outrageous behaviors.  It is actually an intellectual burlesque (with equal emphasis on both words).  This sort of thing I don’t suggest for others, as the experimental capacity of form and function are pushed completely to the breaking point, yet are coherent and funny enough to bring about a lively rendition.

             My final play was not so much “experimental,” but was a distinct challenge, and I think it is out of the ordinary.  Tauromenium is the actual Ancient Greek name for the city of Taormina, Sicily—the origin of my own surname.  I visited Taormina, Sicily, some years before writing this special one-act. There are grand ruins there, of an ancient Greco-Roman theatre, and a gorgeous mountain vista overlooking the blue Ionian Sea (Mediterranean) with Mt. Etna, the oldest active volcano in Europe, smoldering in the distance.  The city of Taormina has a history going back at least to 300-400 BC, including being the birthplace of Timaeus, an ancient Greek historian; the city with its theatre and vistas and beaches became known as the “playground of the Roman senate,” during the Ancient Roman Empire.  Today, Taormina is known for its European film festival.  In addition, the watery caves on the shores beneath Taormina are rumored to be the location for the confrontation of Ulysses with the Cyclops, from the Greek tale of Homer’s Odyssey.  Other history buffs might note that it was Virgil in his writing of The Aeneid, the national epic of Rome, who solidified the myths of refugees from burning Troy having escaped the Greek pillage, sailed near Sicily, and finally traveled up along the Italian boot to found ancient Rome.

            The history is important and provides a heady foundation; it is a way to understand the reasons I chose to compose a special mythic play, about refugees from Ancient Troy landing at Taormina and being sheltered there.  The play was composed with the intention of having it premiered in the ruins of the Greco-Roman theatre in Taormina, Sicily.  The premiere still has to take place.  It was meant also, to combine the mythic elements of storytelling, and the conjuring as it were, of ancient semi-ancestral spirits with a combination of heightened poetical language, something for me, approaching the power of Elizabethan rhetoric.  I had to do months of full-time research before writing the play, and too, create in a fashion the drama that would honor the history, myth, and mystery of all that Taormina might conjure.  It’s a central creative event for me; it’s a namesake project, so to speak.  This was a way with theatre, also, of blending the heights and depths of my own writing career, especially with the renaissance theorizing and creativity, to produce a short drama that might encapsulate in mythic fashion the horror of escaping Troy and that inner knowledge or revealed wisdom (as Virgil so suggests, with Christ’s foreshadowing) of chosen refugees migrating to a foreign land, for universal achievement.  Eventually they were to found an empire whose organization and might over the course of centuries would overshadow the tiny Greek cities who so destroyed Troy.  Ancient propaganda!

             Also I was influenced by Bertolt Brecht’s dramaturgy in his ambition to “distance” the actors from the audience, yet still draw them in, as that might apply to a more mythic drama.  The distance for me would represent the millennia between the myth’s origin and the performance for a modern audience.  Also, with research I discovered an old Greek folk song, a recording even, which featured the mythic ferryman of the dead, Charon, and I used that music as an opening and closing motif for the play.  The entire book, Tauromenium, also includes an introduction, a theatre essay, the working theatre scripts, and final notes on production suggestions.  The book is completed in rough draft; yet it still needs to go through rewrites.  It is a project that remains very close to my heart and which I want to complete soon.  What else to dramatize?

EXPERIMENTAL ENDING # 1 

             Going over here many personal examples of experimentalism should provide the new or aspiring author or playwright with enough grist, ways to do one’s own projects, ways to expand one’s vision or expand one’s art or magnify one’s attempts at verbal creativity with different approaches.  Again, the experimental for me grows creatively and organically from the meaning and themes and characters of the stories I’m composing.  Experimentalism is an attempt at not necessarily providing a new vehicle for new tales, as it is a new way within the classical lexicon of all our usual choices, to produce fully creative endeavors.  Effective artistry.  As long as men and women write, think, dream, project to entertain and enlighten, we will continue to be creative.  We will use forces of experimentalism to convey ever more effectively the power within our inspirational resources and render that power into the outside world for readers, observers, audiences of different art forms.  Harness the past for the experiments of the future.  Create.

EXPERIMENTAL ENDING # 2

             “It’s okay if you don’t understand this guy,” Karl Ottoman says.  He looks around in furtive fashion and whispers.  “It’s okay, I’ve worked with Mr. Taormina for a couple decades and I never pay attention to . . . Well, you know, he thinks he’s cool.  An author, an artist, playwright, a world traveler, scholar, etcetera, etc.  But I’ve got to put up with this guy, inside.  I mean, can you imagine if he heard that I had driven back, all the way from Connecticut, after that last fiasco of mine, the escape from his short story, ‘Before This Story Gets Rolling.’  I mean, he’d never let me go.” 

             Karl takes a whiff of his cigarette.  “You got to see it this way, I do a few things for him, like showing everyone how he works deep down; his other characters (he’d say “personae”) can intrude and suddenly dramatize too little; or, you know, make a sort of circular trip out of my own case.  But maybe . . .” 

             Karl stands up, pulls at his shirt collar to spruce it up.  He speaks in a dramatic tone, “I just want you to know, that I’m around; Karl’s back.  And even if you don’t know what to do with me, at least I can help all of you, well, with a different way to close this essay.  Already, I’ve shown how to use a bit of fictional technique for nonfiction.  Now, I’m running out for a sandwich, just leaving; and the rest of you will have to put up with it, find your own snack.  In a way it works, too; see, I got to return tonight, and probably help him put together the roles for another big tale.  A little grub before the next fiction!  Gotta run.” 

EXPERMINENTAL ENDING # 3

            [Scene of book-filled study quiets.  Computer is turned off, lights go out.  Author saunters away from desk, looks outside a window.  There’s an entire world animated there, some sunlight still, vision of a large lake, pale blue water everywhere, many geese and ducks and even sea gulls.  Everything’s experimental.  Swimmers walk nearby.  Noise of cars on road abounds, then further off behind him, echoes the call of birds and splash of fish.  Lake recedes.  Stagehands enter to dismantle scenery.  Author steps outside of older theater, leaves door ajar.  Along the sidewalk sound some mingled voices, a few footsteps.  Silence.]

                                                            Curtain

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Saturday, Aug 15 2009

ARCHIVE

“Creativity,” August 15, 2009

“Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn,” July 25, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part II),” July 7, 2009

“Self-Editing For Authors (Part I),” June 26, 2009

“Acceptance of Individual Authors,” June 6, 2009

“Our Rebirth of Writing,” May 25, 2009

“10 Ways For Writers To Survive The Great Recession,” May 25, 2009

  

The following fifth article, “Creativity,” will be reprinted as a chapter in my new book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Earlier lengthy posts originally appeared on “TheAkroCentric” literary blog.  Further articles, as writing chapters, will appear here at WordPress.  The end of this article displays a list of Resources.  All my material from these sites again, is Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina.

  

CREATIVITY

by

Charles A. Taormina

Copyright © 2009 by Charles A. Taormina

 

            Central to one’s writing production, achievement, and accomplishment is creativity.  For authors of fiction and writers of varied nonfiction, poetry, memoirs, plays, one must first come to the writing board with some inspiration.  It seems best to tackle this vague nebulous topic, the way to the Muses, wholeheartedly, so that all further productivity might be enhanced. 

            Key to one’s creativity, I believe, is one’s inner belief, not necessarily in one’s self, the ego is important for any artist, but how one considers going about creating, why should one, how can one,  how to foster the talent, what might inspire one.  The center for me, since my early youth has been at first a sense of general creativity, the fun and inspiration of it; and soon arrived a youthful sense of trying to complete oneself.  I mention this most seriously, because such an approach unlocks all the doors.  By the time these notes are completed, the reader never again should have any blocks or problems creating—the only challenge will come with harnessing one’s talents, harvesting a vast inner and God-given volume of continuous and varied projects. 

            From the early beginnings of completing oneself, my later study for creative writing centered on psychology; I felt that to write about humankind, one had to master most currents of modern psychology.  My favorites quickly became that of the Human Potential Movement, most from the humanistic psychiatry of Carl Jung, Carl Rogers, and Abraham Maslow (founder).  It is from Maslow, that we learn about a “hierarchy of human needs,” which might be defined further within the psychological self as choosing to fulfill a set of Lower Needs and Higher Needs.  The Lower Needs are those of sustenance, security, love, etc; the Higher Needs include those of connection to the world, spiritual fulfillment, achievement at something beyond self.  Self-Actualization.  Often a pyramid is displayed that shows Physiological Needs on the bottom, then Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, and at the top, Self-Actualization (Wikipedia).  We quickly see the scenario of the typical starving artist, the obsessive or passionate individual, as a case study of one who forgoes most of the Lower Needs, to complete first his or her Higher Needs.  This progresses into Self-transcendence.  Also I have corresponded with British author, Colin Wilson, who wrote The Outsiders and also New Pathways In Psychology: Maslow & The Post-Freudian Revolution (showing Maslow’s impact).  Jung would call the complete process, “Individuation.”  That, I also believe is tied to spiritual understandings from religion, in that God provides us with gifts and it is for us to nurture those gifts in a positive way, to expand them into everything we might become (Jesus’ “Parable of the Talents,” Matthew 25:14-30, comes to mind).  Last with this section, I want to add one of my own overall, driving motifs—what has been for me a very serious way of living for decades, the understanding of our potential truly to become Renaissance Beings.

            I bring all this up not to discuss metaphysics or the axes of psychology or art history, but to display the power upon one’s inner process that one’s entire mindset might have.  It is often stated, that “We become what we think about all day long.” (Emerson), and more, whatever you input into your inner self, is what will manifest eventually in your outward behavior. “Garbage in, Garbage out” or GIGO (from Fuechsel in computer science) is the popular saw (Wikipedia). Some, like business expert Brian Tracy, see this as a variation on the Law of Sowing and Reaping.  St. Paul wrote “. . . for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap . . .” (Galatians, 6:7).  We must sow good seed.  For me, I have taken to a lifelong study of Renaissance—in the historical context of the popular Italian Renaissance (1500 AD), and to a broader approach of other golden ages for humanity, including Charlemagne’s Carolingian Renaissance (800 AD) and too, the Golden Age of Ancient Greece (400 BC), as well as more current times such as with our country’s Founding Fathers in America (1776 AD). 

            Suddenly, with these historical periods before us, and the magnificent achievers in every field of endeavor displayed by history, we find ourselves upon an entirely new plane of existence.  There is an entirely new expanse, understanding, and acceptance of creative work now, compared with the true Titans of history.  Some years ago I traveled to Florence, Italy and witnessed that wondrous colossus, the statue marking our awakening in the West, Michelangelo’s David.  The age was full of masterpieces!  Why put anything else into our own daily lives, into our inner minds, except this?  Renaissance Consciousness promotes the key:  Rebirth.  Constant Renewal.  When the inevitable shocks of life bust upon us, demolish our plans and mundane lifestyles, we can be set to rebuild once more, to climb upwards again, over and over . . . just as the history of civilization through humankind constantly renews itself.  A critic about historical events some years ago offered a further insight here, worthy of note.  He mentioned that while we generally think of these glorified ages of mankind as established by generations or nations of peoples in certain areas, that the real truth of the matter is that each period often is created and magnified and accomplished by a small handful of individuals.  Ancient Greece, upon which the entire culture of the West grew, science, philosophy, mathematics, politics, arts, literature and theatre, architecture, the Olympic games—all that (perhaps excepting the Olympics) was generated by a small handful of men, some would even argue that it was focused solely by the triumvirate:  Socrates, Plato, Aristotle.  It is an astonishing insight; but once I read the critic’s work, I recognized quickly the same was true for Italy (and for our American Revolution). One might easily say the Italian Renaissance was created historically by the writing triad:  Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch.  The High Renaissance, while peopled by an incredible display of accomplished professional artists, promotes the same insight.  Two individuals stand even above that group of Titans, as if on their shoulders, to display the true height and breadth of achievement in the High Renaissance:  Michelangelo and Leonardo.

            So, with that in mind, we can return to our own projects, our own daily life schedules, our own personal ambitions—and suddenly put all of that into a very different context.  We complete ourselves with Higher Needs psychologically; we nurture our God-given gifts for The Kingdom; and too, we must, we truly have to understand exactly what the long-term effect is for humanity of one individual’s accomplishment, the art of one productive man or woman.

            Long ago, I finally decided, that there wasn’t any other feasible way to continue within the world; what could be more exciting, more demanding, more significant for myself and others?  What?  Only the ministry of a pastorate with Christianity for my understanding of the world could signal more—and often, at least since Charlemagne, the church and the renaissance have been singular partners and produced creative liaisons with great souls for great historical periods.  But again, if we look about us now, in the early part of the Twenty-first Century, we must with all honesty recognize yet another Renaissance Age (the turbulence, wars, indecision, stress, and immense technical and artistic creativity, plus social and economic distress all are part of it).  We must recognize what is going on and jump into the swim of time, to take an active role.  Two things stand before us with this decision:  We confront the maximum opportunity of altering history and actually expanding the reach of humanity; and We confront the maximum opportunity of altering ourselves and actually expanding the breadth, reach, and totality of our own inner selves, talents, and artistic projects.  With the goal of Renaissance Man, everything is the domain; and suddenly, we are challenged to achieve the grandest accomplishments of imagined life, all art and science once again become our domain.  When we set about to expand our talents, what we find (even with failures, even with delays, even with daily challenges) is that our worlds expand and our selves expand, until there is no problem about creativity, save exactly how we might harvest all the inspiration.

            For the writer, then, this defines a different means of continuous, ongoing, and long-term production.  I work with extensive day journals and notebooks (patterned after Leonardo), where I keep track of projects, ideas, questions.  Also, I maintain a “Manager’s Log” at my computer, so that I can chronicle work on simultaneous projects, and thereby not lose my place.  The ongoing part is interesting, because as one sees from the earlier extensive notes about editing for creative writing, the learning to wear another hat, that of editor and publisher, expands one’s creativity.  Often, projects from earlier days, ones for which I wish I had a creative editor or wise mentor, are suddenly there before me, all ready for completion.  Now, I am that creative editor.  And I complete them!  Also, with the Renaissance Being ideal before one, I have inspired myself to try a multitude of writing forms, studying where need be, and accomplishing the writing, one project after another, until without boasting, but to demonstrate the veracity of this argument, I have completed many works. 

            My list includes six novels, three books of short stories, a book of short plays, a longer dramatic play; I have collected my nonfiction together into book form, written a book on metaphysics, planned and am working on a special tome of psychology, written a short writer’s manual, written a volume of literary criticism, a small book of essays, published an e-book about our modern renaissance, Quintessence:  Five Essays From Today’s Renaissance, published a chapbook of my poetry, Rain Folio (with a second chapbook in progress), am completing a larger book of essays about writing and publishing in modern times (of which this blog essay is a chapter), finished a lengthy autobiography, in-progress with a spiritual memoir, penned one film script and started another, written two novellas (one more in progress), completed and recorded one audio tape of a set about “Renaissance Awareness,” published a newspaper (as Contributing Editor), a literary journal, a newsletter, books (printed/paper and e-books), posted articles as mentioned, and kept up with a personal writer’s blog.  While I do not yet have a standard of outward success in my life, I do have an inner awareness that I can be proud of what I have achieved so far in my artistic life (Briefly, if I had read of the same achievement from any other human being, I would be astonished by his or her output—so I feel I’m on the right track).

            I want to continue, to show where this leads, beyond the writerly or literary ambitions.  At the risk of appearing overreaching I’ll mention that I’ve also done some acrylic painting (self-portraits) and sketches, publication design, much photography, some music attempts (keyboard ballads), architectural designs, invention design and marketing, and have conducted continual decades-long research on certain master projects still in-progress:  Alternative Healing, Cosmology, Historical and Archaeological Research, Studies in Parapsychology, Religious Research, Futuristic Inventions, and other projects which I continue (Environmentalism—especially Solar Energy, Experimental Film, Opera).  Several times I have delivered formal speeches about my work, twice in Washington, DC, to the General Assembly of The World Future Society.  Also, in addition to visiting the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance in Florence, Italy, I’ve studied Leonardo’s Mona Lisa in the Paris Louvre and closely examined some of Leonardo’s actual notebook pages during a UK traveling exhibition held in San Francisco, CA.  I did get a chance to experience a production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Stratford-on-Avon, England.  That is meant to display the total unfolding of an individual’s creativity and to demonstrate by example, how others might grow.  Each project adds to one’s other projects and accelerates the breadth and depth of growth; each project completes one’s individual self further, and best perhaps, leaves a pathway for new, younger, yet unborn artists to tread someday, to discover the worth of their own inner selves, just as I have done following past masters.  That is, we must leave enough detailed evidence, so that others might study our efforts and perhaps, find inspiration here for their own artistic ambitions.

            Returning to hints for creativity, we might consider first, one’s sensibility not only to one’s art (and one’s individual growth as a writer through study, practice, inspiration) but also the way one connects to one’s world—the actual mental connection both in positive appealing ways and negative polarities, so that one’s work becomes involved with one’s time period, expresses the grand themes, contradictions, challenges of men and women as one lives in the world. (If one feels “indifference” during certain eras, then that too, is an honest reaction—and probably, a sensation that many other creative individuals are feeling.)   One must stay passionately connected with history to become a part of it and for one’s work to become a vital part of the future.  It’s a sense of the Zeitgeist, the World Spirit (Hegel).  One must come to feel it, hear it, argue about or love it, dream about it over and over, till those themes and events and the key sorts of personages, the Jungian Archetypes of our times, are expressed in one’s dramatic art.

            The practice of keeping regular notebook entries, I find, again to be most valuable.  I keep several sorts, one a larger Day Journal (9 x 11, 200 pages) for longer, more detailed daily entries (these include ideas, remembered dreams, persons met, some diary entries of personal events that seem of import, book lists to read, study, purchase or sometimes review, lists of films watched, magazine entries or notes from online, snippets of overhead dialogue, random entries for fascinating titles [sometimes a poetic line can inspire the entire writing of the story, novella, or novel]).  Also, I carry with me everywhere a smaller, hand-sized notebook (4 x 5, 200 pages) in which I make nearly daily entries, of latest projects, sudden ideas, additions and deletions to articles or stories, notations about people, trends, daily occurrences.  I keep several other forms of similar notebooks (9 x 6, 150 pages), one just for detailed notes about Films Watched (mostly for study of my writing of film scripts), and again a Manager’s Log (9 x 6, 150 pages) near my computer, where I chronicle especially for longer projects (writing new novella, editing novel or book of short stories, blog entries) exactly what was accomplished, maybe where trouble spots were, what needs to be done, and of course, dates for each entry.  That allows one a detailed and orderly method to work at simultaneous projects, without losing continuity or valuable effort at each project.  One starts back on the project, reviews the last entry, and heads off to completion.  These notebooks are in addition to other sorts of important writerly files I keep constantly (paper files, so all sorts of handwritten notes, magazine articles, printed research can be kept organized), one for The Renaissance, another for Inventions and Ongoing Studies, another for Cosmology, another for Spiritual Studies, Notes on Films, Photography. 

            There’s an important author’s file (paper file) of just “Story Beginnings” (this started in my youth after reading, I think, that F. Scott Fitzgerald kept such a file).  That can be startling, in an amazing way:  sometimes I’ll start a story for instance, write several pages into it, and find for some reason (not necessarily time constraints), that there is no forward movement or inspiration, or that the story just doesn’t work . . . but “doesn’t work” is qualified; it should read, “doesn’t work now.”  Years ago, I was reviewing this file and came across a few paragraphs I had started, about a post-modern story where the characters jump out of the fiction, and suddenly, I reviewed my place and quickly, within a few days, completed a full twenty-page, detailed story, one of my best.  It was accepted and published at the first magazine to view the submission, The William and Mary Review, and was later collected into my book, Moments.  That fiction, “Before This Story Gets Rolling,” is unique and one of my most accomplished.  This might never have happened without some conscientious way again of harvesting, planning to harvest, and holding onto one’s early creative output.  

            What one must understand is to trust the inner self, or inner mental processes, particularly the mind’s ability to remember that which it deems important, and the ability for one’s inner self to return to an exact place in an unfinished manuscript, even years later, and continue to complete the work.  Part of the human memory acts like a hard drive or DVD, where portions of fictions are stored in set locations, only to be accessed at that same location once needed.  (I have stood in disbelief at this, at times too in long-range terms I felt some sort of supernatural destiny, almost as if I could access spiritually the next volume in Heaven from the shelf of my Completed Works, then pull down an early draft from those works, just “download it” wirelessly and start completing it.)  There needs to be a trust or sense of inner spirit with all that, in the continuation and knowledge of how one’s inner processes keep track of important projects.  (If this seems too obtuse, consider the authors who throw out an entire first draft of say a novel, actually destroy the writing, then sit down to redo, beginning at page one, maybe in a slightly new or revised version, the entire book.  One’s inner self will cooperate!) 

            The notebooks I speak of here for me, are of the physical paper variety (some again 9 x 11, some 9 x 6, some 4 x 5, in hardback or spiral binding or paperback), in which I enter notes longhand, usually with a pen.  I use with some frequency two other methods for note taking, brainstorming, and manual composition.  When composing longhand, I always use blank typing paper with a Pilot pen; the paper usually is stacked onto a stainless steel clipboard—an interesting and sturdy “writing board.” Also, both for cosmology brainstorming and early theatre compositions, I’ve used a large 17 x 22 blank pad, the same some use as a desk “blotter paper pad.”  Years ago I encountered that sort of pad, which contained the notes and sketches formulating an about-to-be-published novel, while interviewing the later National Book Award winner, Mary Lee Settle.  Also, such large pads allow creative sketching, mind mapping techniques, and unique associations, often seen first with Leonardo da Vinci.  During especially creative periods, I often use such large pads.  For special cases the large space fits ongoing and varied drawings, calculations, obtuse notes; and for the playwrighting, it allows me to complete scenes in prescribed time or performance lengths, while being able to view many scenes or parts of scenes alongside each other, keeping everything organized visually, sometimes with stage setting sketches, props, or character notations.  With longer projects, like the cosmology, if notes were kept otherwise, I might have compiled thousands of miscellaneous pages, without keeping associated ideas together.  That is especially true for revisions, or going back over original creative sessions and adding notes, for whole sections which were ignored, or some special research calculation.  However, remember, with such unusual notepads there’s the excessive time for keying into the computer those original drafts, especially when finishing plays.

             Notebooks can take any variety, and many authors use online tools or special software or even Blackberries to inscribe notes on the go or digital recorders to dictate notes and impressions.  I like the physical kind or bound-book style, because I’m old enough, to know you have to short-circuit the technology sometimes, for creativity and security reasons—that is, I want to use the notebooks anywhere, and I don’t want the files misplaced, erased, lost in a crash, unused or unnoticed when buried in a hard drive, or away from view because portable devices are without fresh batteries.  Also, because I usually organize visually, recordings on digital or tape recorders or computers might go ignored.  Some use the blogosphere on a daily basis to record a web log as his or her own personal journal, an online diary.  My only suggestion for the serious writer is to keep a continuous hard copy after each entry—for later editing, collating, creative harvesting.  Each artist must make his or her choice (and sometimes a combination of the above suggestions) for his own working practice.

            Two other considerations are important for such notebook production.  First, remember to review your entries, regularly if possible (of course, as entries apply to each work-in-progress); at worst, I set aside part of a holiday afternoon, around each New Year’s Day, to review completely the previous year’s Day Journal, also making further notes for the new year.  (My daily small notebook I review weekly.)  This allows one to avoid missing some inspiration temporarily displaced or forgotten, allows follow-through from year to year, and creates an inner demonstration that the journal writing is valuable and important to one’s self.  One only needs to annotate a continual listing of “Books To Complete,” to motivate constantly and inspire one’s daily writing focus and keep active.  Second, after extensive notebook writing, one even can take to using that as a creative project in itself.  After completing a lengthy Autobiography (using many segments of earlier notebooks for fact checking and quotations), I saw the depth and value of such projects.  What I then planned on doing, and am in the process of completing, is transcribing my Day Journals, or the more significant parts of them, into a distinct book-length collection of Further Notebooks, as I see it.  This might seem at first too narcissistic; yet, if one studies even a few of the grand notebooks of past creative people, one sees in them a genre of memoir significant and important until itself, The Notebook.  For myself, the practice of studying Leonardo Da Vinci’s master notebooks is my own inspiration, but there are many literary examples of great interest, as well; those of Virginia Woolf, her diaries all published now in handsome volumes particularly come to mind. Writers known for journal keeping include:  James Boswell, Anaïs Nin, Allen Ginsberg, Victor Hugo, Katherine Mansfield, The Goncourt Brothers.  (Other artists and creative inventors also kept detailed daily chronicles:  Andy Warhol, R. Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Frida Kahlo.)

            It’s an interesting aside, that by studying the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, and many tomes about his life and works, it was easy to see that he had planned for the printing of his notebooks, and for putting together various collections of his thoughts and research, Treatise on Painting, On light, On Water, On The Flight of Birds, Geology, Anatomy, etc.  With his expansive mental abilities and perhaps creative faults, he never achieved the publication goal (or even compiling the separate volumes). Treatise On Painting was published posthumously, but from a compilation of Leonardo’s notes, probably by an assistant. That’s one direct inspiration for my chronicling and making certain I complete these essays and collect them into my future book, The Writing Arts:  An Author’s Perspective.  Again, the insight is that journaling and studying the diaries of others leads to one’s own creative ventures. 

            I think today, also, that with the advent of technology, our writers are at a particular advantage, as regard’s creativity and especially, one’s inner turmoil through the creative process.  In my early years, before publication of much nonfiction and shorter fiction, the only block I sometimes encountered, was the possibility of a great output of creative energy for some particular project, then a fear of not witnessing the publication of the project.  This is especially the case, again, with longer works, such as a novel or perhaps a specialized nonfiction book (where America’s unconscious censorship, fashion, or vagaries of for-profit publishing demolish much opportunity for publication).  The difference today again, as mentioned in earlier chapters or article posts, is with the advent of POD, or Print On Demand publishing, and direct e-book publishing.  In years past, for an author to self-publish a book took a minimum of several thousand dollars per book project (with the book sometimes languishing in boxes in one’s garage, as one had to print 500-1000 or more of even a small volume, due to older print processes).  Today, one can publish a book almost for nothing, and print as few as one copy at a time, or hundreds, if one so desires.  That radically changes the creative challenge for an individual author; today, one can simply guarantee one’s self of publishing—if larger presses won’t see to it, then the individual author will.  Now, when one works at any creative project, you know at the end it will see print, and the work will endure, possibly for a wide, future audience.

            Interesting to this self-publishing option today and worthy of the notes on creativity here, is the innovation from author and promoter, Dan Poynter, creator and publisher of the industry standard, The Self-Publishing Manual.  In further missives (available  at his website http://www.ParaPublishing.com), Dan suggests to forgo all the usual ruts and vagaries of standard authorship:  that is, on usual computer composition, editing and rewriting, print out of hard copy, shopping the book first to agents, then to publishers, and maybe continuing to do all that (including composition of cover letters, query letters, synopses, often full chapter outlines, author background sheets, plus postage and keeping up with replies to such agencies) sometimes for years, till one is worn out with the process.  What suffers in the traditional sense is several fold:  rejection cramps one’s confidence and inner creativity, the time and dollar expense gets to be a great burden, one unfortunately learns of the base level of sensibility and intelligence of these goofy middlemen, and the public fails to interact, that is, to read your work (as well as the effects it might have on the culture at large, both now and in the future).  You’re not invited for a TV interview, for further submissions to lit-mags, and you’re not given a larger advance for your next work.  In fact, all this time and effort and expense has completely taken the place of what you should be doing as a creative writer and artist, that is, passionately producing and continuing to produce your next and ongoing writing projects. 

            I’ve gone on with this to detail and give the background for Mr. Dan Poynter, because his suggestions might seem almost too simple, if not understood with the full implications.  Poynter calls it, “The New ‘Book’ Model” or “New Book Publishing Model,” and suggests that one should take notes and outline one’s creative writing project or next book, and that’s it.  The very next thing to do is to set up one’s actual layout page on screen for the printed book (exactly as it will appear on your printed page in your printed book), and then compose or write your tome, in process.  That is, you create your finished book, page-by-page-by-page—no paper manuscripts, no query letters to see if an agent or publisher will even consider the first three chapters, no sending of final manuscript if that works, no nothing.  As you proceed through your new and continuing book, you change it to appear EXACTLY as you, the author, want it on the page.  You still go through all the revision, editing, rewriting, and proofreading processes—but when your “manuscript” is completed, it’s not a manuscript, it’s your finished book (text file).  You then upload the book files to a conventional printer (as he suggests for a first printing of 500 books—for reviewers, book clubs, experts) or with my idea, directly to a POD printer. You complete the cover and background information and immediately order the finished book (probably a prototype, so you can examine it for typos and final changes).  The process is nearly instant.  What’s more, it’s almost fully integrated not with a publisher, not with a team of unknown or sometimes abusive editors, not with a marketing department asking you to cut references to some maligned group because its members buy books, but the process is integrated directly with you, the author, creator.  Poynter’s “New ‘Book’ Model” is brilliant and a real boon to the future of writing and the creative process.  It reminds me of the remark by the inventor of instant photography with Polaroid Cameras, Edwin H. Land:  “Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.”

            This process might be akin in older days (maybe only a decade ago) where writers usually wrote with a pen or pencil in longhand, then had to give the jumble of scribbled pages to a stenographer or secretary to type up, then go over the corrections, get yet another typed version, then more rewrites, and more retyping.  (Lest this seem like offhand whining, consider that Leo Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, is said to have handwritten the rewrites of Leo’s masterpiece, War And Peace, 8-9 times, before it went to the printer. Many today can’t even finish reading the book once, let alone handwriting the preliminary drafts!  Count Tolstoy’s War And Peace also, by the way, was self-published.)  Today, the modern creative scribe quickly learns, that if at all possible, he or she must adapt to composing directly at the computer (or laptop or more portable word processor that transfers files), so that all editing is done afterwards from same files, as well as being fully word-processed (in the best sense of that term) into a finished “professionally-typed” manuscript.  This short-circuits the entire entry or keying in of original manuscripts, also giving the author more control with originals and revisions, and allows one to make multiple, excellent copies, both on DVD’s and hard drives, or for sending to publishers via e-mail.  Lest more archaic writers think this an unnecessary advance to our hurried lifestyles, it might be best to suggest, that there are many creative writing consultants (in columns and print) who are leapfrogging even direct typing by computer, with the suggestion of using Voice Activated or Voice-to-Text software and a microphone, to dictate the entire manuscript without doing any keying or typing whatsoever (until final drafts).  This also, can follow the publishing form of Poynter’s “The New Book Model,” of course. (One might consider here my earlier mention, again, of Platonic Forms.) 

            Let it be said, that even with all these modern “luxuries” (unnecessary only to those not attempting regular professional productions of written works), that I still often write in longhand and go through the tediousness of all the typing and transcribing (all done by myself because of need for saving costs).  My fourth novel, Gratuity, was all written longhand, all of my plays were first handwritten, and so were even many early drafts of these computer posts.  Personally, the microphone or oral composition is not an option; for me, part of the writing process is inherently at the keyboard (or composing by hand), using it more as one might think of a musical instrument, the keyboard of a piano or synthesizer, or as a multi-keyed movie camera.  I like that interaction with my own body, and over the years have developed those idiosyncratic habits.  Also, the typing (or even the handwriting) goes along more with earlier discussions of my perceptual process with writing being much more involved with a visual/communication process, than with an oral procedure.  I don’t know if this internalized process of transcribing thoughts could be vocalized with the same efficiency, depth or detail, as is now done by keyboard.  Basically, I don’t want to talk about these subjects, I want to write about them!  I want to communicate from mind to mind.  Each writer will have to make his or her decision—or combination of processes, for each project and perhaps each time frame within one’s individual life.

            Probably, the next key or center to a discussion of real creativity is Time Management.  This, for me, takes two approaches:  long blocks of uninterrupted time (probably the obvious solution), and ways to be creative in small increments, but on a regular basis (I call this “The Chinese Method,” harking back to the Chinese proverb, “Constant dripping wears away a stone.”).  For Time Management, though, I want to mention two other important thoughts:  With our busy schedules, if one is continuing a day job, then never underestimate what a constructive person can accomplish in one full day allotted to a project; and Also never underestimate, what a regular daily practice of contributing 15-minute to one-hour blocks of time can accomplish, again with a regular, methodical approach. 

            Briefly here we might mention another obvious insight that many might not first consider.  If your projects are too numerous and too complex, or you feel overwhelmed with massive creative insights, learn the second management rule:  delegate.  This too sounds more modern than the actual fact; consider again, the magnificent and complete accomplishments of the Italian Renaissance.  It is simplistic to examine all that Michelangelo achieved (in his later decades he was known more fully as a constant, professional architect and construction expert), without realizing that he had talents of crew management almost as prodigious as his own poetry writing, painting, and sculpting talents—that is, Workshops.  Most of those achieving artists all started and completed apprenticeships begun in medieval-styled workshops, and when they grew up into their prime, once again they either started and led workshops for decades (Leonardo in Milan) or continually supervised construction and artistic crews, as did Michelangelo (in Rome and elsewhere).  So, consider your own writing or work crew, as another possible solution for those forbidding challenges of time management.  (For several decades my writing and editing and publishing ventures have been organized under the business name, The Renaissance Workshop.)

            After working through all these methods, even knowing them well (I still cannot support economically my own crew, though that is my personal situation currently), I am faced with challenges of a day job and working or eking out the time I can afterwards, for creative projects.  The problem with this is losing momentum, as creative work (productivity and energy) all feeds upon itself; the more expended, the more received or possible. It’s easy to get completely worn out with a regular job and years and years of eking away the small moments for one’s creativity.  Remember, you need a vacation from your true vocation, just as much as from dreary daily duties.  “Sharpen the saw,” as Steven Covey of management fame, would say.  But continuing is important, and even fifteen minutes each day, every day, adding notes, reviewing your list of projects, doing a bit more research, can compel or forward one’s book.  Evenings can be difficult, because of fatigue or weariness from a workday.  Many authors choose to write creatively early in the morning, an hour or so before starting their day, to add new output when one is fresh. Evenings can be saved for revisions, research, rewrites.  Once continuing even with the small-increment approach, however, never forget what devoting one full day might achieve for a project.  If your research is done, if you’ve gone on with a first draft, if a second draft is nearing completion, one full day will allow a tremendous boost to your creativity.  No interruptions, no daily errands, no phone calls, TV, Internet, or the million modern distractions, but do 8 or 10 or 12 hours of continuous, concentrated, focused effort.  You’ll never be the same.

            The small increments also might need to be managed more effectively.  If one can write those business letters for one’s writing project ahead of time, that’ll save creative effort; if one can follow through the work from the previous day, one’s inner self often creates more viable solutions or additions the following day (once you signal your inner self that this project is important by constant, small incremental work).  You can also perhaps develop new or distinct writing Forms from what you’re used to . . . maybe incorporate lists into your writing, short bursts, more creative or impressionistic writing lengths or other styled sentences or sentence fragments, try prose poems instead of stories, or short-short stories instead of long tales, try haiku poetry instead of sonnets, try linked kinds of ideas or characters to see maybe where new potential fiction might lead, take notes on some favorite Concept that’s been bothering your inner mind for years, like Jung’s Synchronicity or Archetypes, or some idea of your own original creation (My research on the entropy of cultures eventually led to completing a long novel, The Entropy Wars).  Try writing a novel in short bursts, notebook-style, letter-style (expository), or maybe with collections of e-mails; turn around the entire problem of “no time” to a creative advantage, make it the center of some new work.  Cell-phone novels?  Believe me, you’ll only be one of millions of people going through the same sensation these days of effort overload!  Again, though, if nothing else works or is available, move forward always.  Continue.  Eventually the small efforts will build true momentum and allow for your projects’ completion.  Many years ago, in my short book, Keystone, Notes for Apprentice Authors, I gave the pertinent advice I learned from studying European writers:  write 10 pages per day, every day, and you’ll constantly produce books.  In one month alone, you’ll have 300 some pages, the approximate amount of a finished, lengthy novel.  Whatever you can do each day, write that amount and keep writing.

            Of the long blocks of time, I’d like to give a personal example, which others might be able to copy.  Obviously, if you can set aside a few weeks or a month or so to achieve the completion of a book project, full time, that will serve your productivity the most effectively.  You might also reach levels, as I did years ago, where I had so much material completed (several novels, scattered short stories, nonfiction) and notebooks upon notebooks of further work to finish, that I had to make a grand decision:  either set aside many months to achieve that, or face never having a professional oeuvre completed.  I therefore planned to pay off my bills, saved an extended amount of funds, and got all ready in my life to spend a year at full-time writing, with no distractions.  I did this by working six days a week at a management job I disliked, but that allowed me some extra cash; also I sold off nearly all my belongings or what I felt was unnecessary because I needed to move to “my cabin in the woods” (to borrow from Thoreau), plus at the time, I bought my first portable, state-of-the-art word processing computer.  I eliminated most other relationships in my life, sold off my final belongings, quit my job . . . and without any further fanfare packed what remained and drove from Virginia out west, to a small town in Montana, Kalispell (north of the gorgeous Flathead Lake).  There I lived in an uninterrupted fashion for over eleven months.  I had never been there or ever heard of that small town in Montana.

            Pessimists are awaiting some note of failing to achieve what I set out to do, but it was the opposite; and I suggest anyone of more serious vein to do the same.  That was the most glorious, creative year in my entire life.  I call it my “Van Gogh Year” (named after a favorite painter, who in his last year on earth painted over 300 masterpiece canvases, nearly one a day!).  What I was able to achieve also was supplemented by my first professional use of a portable computer, decades ago.  I quickly discovered I could telescope years and years of conventional work time, maybe even several assistants’ efforts (if I had them) to the robotic efficiency with which we are now blessed.  In that time, I completed or revised, with completely printed word-processed manuscripts ready for market (and copies made, each with synopsis and cover letter for publishers), more than eleven books.  To be fair, some were rewrites of my earlier work (three full novels), plus two books of revised short stories and a new book of short fiction (brief books of 13 tales, but book-length none the less), a concise writer’s text, a book of literary criticism, a book on metaphysics and psychology, a small book of essays about the world.  I also collected together all my earlier published nonfiction (what might seem of significance for later readers), and did revision experiments and research for rewriting a long, completed novel (still in-progress).  Earlier in Virginia with the study of Francis Petrarch, the Italian Poet Laureate and scholar (1304-74) who helped initiate the Italian Renaissance, I had learned of his collecting together all his poetry, letters, other writings into coherent books.  I recognized I needed to do the same.

            I did that by working nearly nonstop, 12 hours per day, every day, six or seven days per week, month in and month out (I did make a one-week marketing trip to publishers in San Francisco).  Usually, I would take a midday library break in the afternoon, after rewrites in the morning, with a list of questions or terms or names for research, proceed to the library, return later to input the corrections into the morning’s work.  Then I’d continue at the next day’s pages.  I did that so that my writing would be completed, and too, so that I would have a body of work, in a variety of genres, to offer publishers.  I would not be called, “a one-book author.” 

            The year was exhilarating and so ecstatic, that I remember after several months there in Montana, of going out in the spring and flatly resting my hands down upon the newly greening grass, just to ensure that I had not passed on to heaven!  Almost a continuous year of what Maslow called, “Peak Experiences.” Also, early on, I had gone so many years then, working at conventional jobs, instead of writing off and on as was my practice (usually taking off two months per novel creation), that by the time I arrived in Montana I was completely ready, in an internal and external sense.  Those were years, too, after many early starts at writing and publishing (having written already before then four novels, stories, poetry, nonfiction); plus there were many years of more intense study of modern writers and literary currents, including publishing efforts with a community newspaper and a literary journal.  Those years also contained interviewing and contact with published authors, editors, and filmmakers.  Once in Montana, and upon writing in earnest, I suddenly realized there that my literary apprenticeship was over . . . every style, genre, every sort of varied or creative twist I needed to do with older manuscripts, I could achieve, professionally.  (One instance, my difficult second novel, Endgames, had so many stylistic variations that I remember with the original draft of hoping an editor might instruct me or advise or mentor me, so as to make sure all the modern stylistic scenes were accurate.  Now, years later, I had become that editor.)

            A side note to that creative year, my Van Gogh Year, is that after returning back east, catching up with family and friends, marketing manuscripts, and kind of getting a perspective on my approach to writing and the arts, I realized that I had changed drastically inside. I was much more mature and complex and seasoned as an artist (listening now exclusively to classical music, reading more source material with the ancients, seeing through with original insights into many social problems, and having moved through again an inner, emotional maturation—this is difficult to describe to non-writers, without sounding pompous, but if you work through many different characters’ lives and many diverse life options, the psychologies of stories and plots, with much of that, especially as a creative author where you must take on or enact those characters in scenes as a true actor, then you mature yourself internally, and we must hope with a kind of life and world wisdom that is perhaps unobtainable any other way).  The final side note, with these other changes was that now, I had written a great deal of prose, had my full taste of it, so to speak (4 novels, 3 books of stories, nonfiction), and that as I moved through those other works, more and more I came to center on dialogue.  I had, too, as inner preparation in Montana, studied the entire opus of the Greek Dramatists from Ancient Greece, and of course, studied in many ways earlier concepts and timelines for the Italian Renaissance. 

            Upon returning east, however, what I realized I had done, was moved through that creative phase with prose (though I still write prose today) and moved on to writing plays.  Afterward, back east I set about to do an intense study then of modern and ancient plays, I attended more live performances and took notes (as I always did before); I not only borrowed library texts of favorite Playwrights—G.B. Shaw, Thornton Wilder, Arthur Miller, Bertolt Brecht, Ibsen, Eugene O’Neill, Pirandello, Shakespeare, and others—but also borrowed and studied a great many live performances on video cassettes and recorded audio productions (of which our library system had an extensive, sophisticated selection).  I was living in Akron, Ohio at that time, because my young daughter lived nearby and it was in that same year, the Van Gogh Year, though now toward winter in Akron, Ohio that I wrote my first one-act play, “The Catalyst.”  It was nearly filmed the following year, had dramatic readings at another theater outing in PA, and is collected now with 4 other one acts into my book titled, Tauromenium.  The point of the final note, however, is that with a massive creative project (my earlier writings) now taken care of, rewritten and edited and word processed professionally, I suddenly realized I could move ahead creatively, to playwrighting.  I later served as a playwright-in-residence with a small acting company in Uniontown, PA, Theatrix, Unlimited (also a paid actor in several performances, as well as spending part of a year, as a part-time casual understudy for directing, at Scottdale Theater in Pennsylvania). 

            I went on with all this to show other writers partly where they might end up with such dedicated involvement, to show also, what we might not realize so consciously (my intent and love of theatre) without enough creative space to “clear the air” or inkwell or writing chest of other creative work, and perhaps something which might prove more important.  I realized quickly, with my interest in Renaissance Art and suddenly theatre, that especially in English Literature, this was the only natural place to be—it had to be!  The center of the written arts in English is theatre, not novels, not stories, not nonfiction or poetry (England had Shakespeare for theatre; Spain had Cervantes with the first “modern” novel, Don Quixote, for prose, Lope de Vega for theatre, Teresa of Avila for poetry and autobiography; Italy had Boccaccio for short fiction, Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto for poetry, Machiavelli for plays and nonfiction).  I couldn’t get all my scripts performed until further playwriting and attempts at getting plays produced (some skits were enacted on stage in Pittsburgh; other public readings were done in Pittsburgh, PA and Los Angeles, CA). Yet I couldn’t get the many one acts or a later three-act play fully produced.  What I didn’t recognize at the time, especially with my love of theatre (and the historical center of live drama in Renaissance Consciousness) was that this was a new age and a different sort of time for the American Public, a very different sort of Global Renaissance. 

            Today, of course, such theatrical success is not for live stage yet, but rather for the celluloid or digital variety:  films.  Today we have a rush of junk and excellent films, fictional and documentary, and now too, from many different indigenous centers, Hollywood and Bollywood, and much from Europe and South America; but the renaissance these days is with the popular mind, and that is centered completely on film (and TV).  I, of course, have moved on also, to write one full film script (adaptation of my novel, The Entropy Wars), and am in process of adapting my fourth novel, Gratuity, for the screen (in progress), with plans of adapting my other novels and doing original screenplays, as well.  Thus, the ties of creativity, accomplishment, and intertwining growth for the artist today depend upon continuing with creativity, maturing with it, growing in experience and skills, and of course, producing the final work.  Without my creative year, however, I might not have proceeded as far or achieved so much or envisioned so high.  We must continue.

            Another insight here, considered from a different perspective than Time Management is the concept of Saturation or Intensity.  There’s an interesting theory offered by Malcolm Gladwell in his Outliers about a “10,000 Hour Rule” to world class mastery in any field—he gives examples such as Bill Gates of Microsoft fame and even The Beatles.  He claims those individuals in youth invested an obsessive, continuous total involvement of over 10,000 hours, with computers or guitars before reaching a level of world achievement (translates into 10 years of effort at 20 hrs/week, or if full time, 5 complete years).  It’s easy to see in my own case (before the Montana year) that same amount of time, and I’m sure for others, it would prove similar.  Often in one’s reading of creative people, one will see the same style of intensity or immersion; and people outside of creative endeavors probably would think the people involved were unusual, if not ill.  I remember reading of the filmmaker Roman Polanski (Chinatown, The Pianist) mentioning in an interview that he not only watched a lot of movies in his youth, but often watched the same movie dozens of times.  If that’s a practice of exceptional achievers, perhaps more of us can take note.  And if one considers the intensity necessary, especially when younger (or even in later years when completing a task), the mention of such repetitions to a non-participant most certainly would sound neurotic.  But, if as a youth you wanted to create movies, how else would you learn the detail, every sound and sight and shot and edited effect, unless you saw the same film over and over?  Again, if Tolstoy went through 8-9 rewrites of his great lengthy novel, War and Peace, who are we as beginning authors to balk at such dedication?

            The intensity follows through also with assigned projects, an obsessiveness to complete them properly (Beethoven working over minor musical themes for many years to achieve exquisite symphonies), or how Edwin H. Land (a prolific inventor for the U.S. Armed Services, besides his Polaroid Camera) often refused to stop or even pause with a project, until its absolute solution (Wikipedia).  The stories of Edison refusing to sleep and working constantly in his lab are legendary; often he would sit on a desk, so if he did fall asleep, he would fall off and wake up, then return to work.  Michelangelo was reputed to sleep on an average of 5 hours per day.  The discipline and creativity over a long period of tortuous imprisonment for political remarks by Alexander Solzhenitsyn is another case.  He memorized 7,000 poetic verses he created while doing forced labor in the Soviet Union, and early on had to burn original prose drafts, so they were not confiscated.  His output at the end of his life was prolific, professional, and enduring for world literature (see my previous article, “A Retrospective of Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn”).  For those thinking that this is out of the ordinary, consider the insight by science fiction author, Ray Bradbury, “The history of literature is the history of prolific people.”

            Hemingway’s indirect advice about creativity was simply a note about his own work processes.  He always thought it best to stop each day’s writing when he was in the midst of an inspired passage, rather than after its completion.  That way, he felt, the next day he could start writing again immediately.  (He often worked standing up, mostly writing longhand.)  Also, he had a habit when looking for book titles of going over English poetry or even The Bible.  Who could top his title, For Whom The Bell Tolls (from John Donne) or even The Sun Also Rises (Ecclesiastes 1:5)?  For myself, I’ve always liked shorter one or two-word titles and often with original composition will have the exact title in mind as I am writing.  If that doesn’t work, or in the case of a set of short stories written all during one creative period (Shared Lives), I took a blank page and brainstormed a list of ten-twenty or so titles per story and chose the most appropriate.  Sometimes for a book title, I will scribble down twenty or thirty or more and then choose perhaps five of the best, then narrow those down.  Finally, of course, the title must fit the volume, so it has to be “tried on” with each new book.

            With book composition, I think each author will develop his or her own technique, and that may change actually, with the style and theme of each project.  With novels, I started out as a new author with a detailed outline (actually for a smaller novella), covered details for chapters as well as the entire story or book overview, so I knew where I was going (first novel, Abbas & Mehrdad).  The next (Endgames) was more experimental and had to be plotted out per character/chapter or sequence, then I used that experimental mold, to be filled in as I composed each character’s part.  I did another novel with only vague outlines, and after that usually would work out a book’s structure for the entire book on set sheets or notebooks; then I would proceed through to outline each chapter, right before I wrote each chapter.  The problem here for the creative author, different from other kinds of writing, is that if there’s too formal of a structured outline to begin with, the writing can go stale.  Also, there’s a good chance the writer will attempt conscientiously to hit every plot point on the pre-arranged outline, which makes it complete for the planning, yet again often the book will not grow organically from the story.  That’s especially true with the characters who tend to surprise an author (and hopefully the readers) as the characters “come alive” through the created drama.  If half way through the novel one has a character who demands to leave town, and the outline says he’s staying, the story’s stuck.  The challenge of having no formal outline at all can be an inspiration in itself (others, though, might fear that unknown).

            Some might want to consider the inspiration of doing research for a novel or other book project.  That’s a great preparation for the actual writing, with as much gleaned or learned subconsciously as in a conscious manner from notes and one’s reading or viewing of background films.  But remember for fiction, a novelist does a different sort of research than one might expect.  You’re not looking so much for the usual analytical facts for character, setting, or even theme, the “such and such happened in 1950” sorts of things, as much as what did the place, setting, or locale look like, how did the survivors of some disaster or war actually feel, what sorts of personalities were involved, how did those personalities change or evolve, how did they change through the entire experience (with a war or storm season, for instance)?  An author wants to see through the time period as a participant might have viewed or experienced the events, not as a later researcher, historian, or even journalist might now record it.  Good research can be diverse say for an actual war novel (what I had to do for months before writing The Entropy Wars), studying actual war documentaries of the Civil War and World War II (those by Ken Burns are decisive), as wall as diaries or letters of the participants, biopics of leaders at the time, songs and dances of the time period, “costumes” or clothes of the era, geographical research including maps and history of the area, other books or period documents.  A novelist should consider the expertise of an author like Tolstoy, who did much research.  Tolstoy also never forgot human frailty (or nobility for that matter), and always presented scenes where one character misunderstood the other, scenes where regardless of how much organization there seemed to be, rarely did events proceed as planned.  It’s that sense of realism and consciousness that makes Tolstoy a giant of World Literature.

            Don’t forget to trust your subconscious or the unconscious in your entire creative process.  You’ll remember more than you expect, you’ll solve more problems instantly or within a short period than you could imagine; and once you begin, your inner self will organize your finished story in the exact manner you expect.  It’s best if stuck at some point or a challenge arises in the book’s composition, to review all your analytical notes and then just “sleep on it.”  Keep a notebook by your bed.  Often, you’ll wake from a dream with the exact answer, some better solution, or a perfect symbol which will expand your entire story.

            Again, with saturation techniques use those to concentrate on one specific project, as that gets going for you, then every day add to your manuscript and work on the book, until the forward momentum propels the work on its own.  Once writing at this level the problem will be to find any time to do anything else except write, write, write.  On an opposite tack, if you feel stuck, don’t be afraid to back away from the project—often one needs to grow through or with some intense theme, or maybe a piece of the narrative puzzle is missing, unbeknownst to your conscious mind; then weeks later, everything suddenly will fall into place.  Off you’ll go with a natural narrative flow!  Again, if stuck, try a different project, maybe some poetry, or a film script, or letters or journaling, or for many, try some activity completely divorced from creative writing, say walking or sailing or gardening or traveling or visiting with a friend.

            Many who are unused to the creative process often ask the question, “Where do writing ideas come from?”  Most writers keep an eye on newsprint and magazines of interest to them, whether that be a daily newspaper (as Dostoevsky so followed, taking one crime or another of minor incidents, and extrapolating on them with his own characters and insights) or periodicals.  For five years in Akron, Ohio, I saved boxes of newspaper clippings, harvested mostly on Sundays, about events and personalities to consider for research.  Also, I regularly subscribe to many print magazines and journals.  Some authors read People Magazine for telling details and different personalities; others observe and take directly from their personal surroundings (the derogatory comment about characters direct from life is naïve—Tolstoy often held aristocratic parties in his parlor to read portions of his novels; the guests were expected to guess the identity of his characters from Russian society.  Others, like Kerouac, unabashedly only changed the names of friends and associates to relate what he later called the “Duluoz Legend” in his many fictional tomes).  Most authors use facets of reality, add other fictionalized characteristics, and use parts of themselves to create composite characters. 

            Reading other books gives one many ideas, as well, not in the obvious way so much, for direct things to write about, as maybe what some author missed or forgot, or the other side to the tale, or an insight into how a different level of society reacts, or even completely different worldviews clashing, as with works of Thomas Pynchon.  Others when writing their own stories consciously distance themselves from all media, so as not to be influenced or affected.  I once visited friends of in-laws in West Virginia, who were poor coal miners; I did tape recordings and took pictures and notes.  Later, though the characters were changed, I developed all that into an interesting short story, “Retribution” (Collected into Early Tales).  Sometimes folk tales will interest authors (see Italo Calvino).  I did a variation on a family folk tale myself, for one of my best short stories, “Cup a Dreams” (Collected also in Early Tales), where I took a tale told in my family and used it as a basis for a more complicated story.  Emile Zola in France (1840-1902), started the Naturalist Movement with his own practice of choosing one particular subject, coal mines or inner city markets or taverns (Germinal, The Belly of Paris, The Dram Shop), then setting about to do library research, research with experts and interviews, and research in person at the locale and with participants, until he could put all that together into a documentary-styled fiction.

            There’s also the case of regular inner and outer preparation for writing, once one has started upon the creative path.  Often there will be a period of years once a writer has decided on one or two subjects, before the novel develops from his or her inner self.  Kerouac used to take a pen and pad and do verbal sketches of people, events, locales as a regular sort of writing practice, almost as a painter might work through practice sketches in a painterly notebook.  Others do the same through a journal or diary; Virginia Woolf would develop as a “testing ground” her major themes or a character or two in some short story.  Later, she developed those into a fuller treatment in her novels (Susan Dick, Woolf editor).  The ideas here are meant as a prompt for others working through their projects.  Part of the curiosity, as one gets involved, too, is with the larger creativity process and what all that entails and how others in the arts and even sciences have progressed.  Techniques from other realms often can directly assist the creative writer.

            It will come as no surprise that with my own creative endeavors I have made a life-long study of creativity, from a psychological perspective of the creative individual as well as with Csikszentmihalyi’s Creativity:  Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention about creative flow, other exceptional guides, Aha!, and books such as  Freeing Your Creativity: A Writer’s Guide and Mega Creativity from Writers Digest, Greatness: Who Makes History and Why, a study of creative historical periods, many of my own interviews with the creative and reading such (if you’re unfamiliar with the superb collection of Paris Review Interviews with writers, you are missing a treasure), plus many biographies. I have corresponded with Win Wenger co-author with Richard Poe of The Einstein Factor, and can recommend Wenger’s instructive Project Renaissance site: www.WinWenger.com.  Among his many strategies for creativity, I’ve found his insights about creating keyboard music, without extensive training, an inspiration.  Many who feel inundated with lists of reading material should check the course, “PhotoReading,” by Paul R. Scheele (The Einstein Factor).  Some years ago a motivational expert, perhaps Brian Tracy, mentioned that often it is only 12-14 books that separate a person from gaining an expertise in any one field, a wise comment for achievement.  A distinguished owner of a Virginia beverage company, once answered my question about his expertise with fine wines with the phrase, “Each day I read about wines for one hour.”  So, consider your research and continue to study.  (For more detail and other sources please see the end of this article, Resources.)

              Some note in passing that Einstein when a youth (a biographer, Isaacson in his Einstein, His Life and Universe, thinks inspiration came from a children’s popular illustrated series, People’s Books on Natural Sciences) imagined a series of mind games or intuitive, totally imaginative experiments, including riding alongside a light beam through space. Einstein didn’t set out with math and physics, but the visual imagination, then used rational tools to describe a more complete understanding of his Relativity.  It is described how Carl Jung, as a youth carved a small mannequin, which he kept in an attic, later taking secret inscriptions to it in a ritualistic way.  Years later he learned of indigenous Australian tribes, who had a similar totemic ceremony.  The experience led the professional psychiatrist to develop his theory of Psychological Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Wikipedia).  Mendeleyev designed his entire periodic table of elements, after awaking from a dream where he saw the chart on a wall.  Mozart was said to have transcribed even his most complicated scores immediately, from the complete vision of theme and sound in his imagination, copying them almost as quickly as he could write—with perfect, masterful musicality.  Beethoven worked in an opposite fashion, often fussing over tiny notes on a musical theme for months, till developed full-blown in graphic notebooks years later—also, at that point, when all was silent for him, with deafness.  (The horror of deafness plagued other creative individuals, including Helen Keller, Thomas Edison, and Howard Hughes.)  Kerouac wrote his bestselling book, On The Road, complete in three weeks, on a continuous roll of paper, a true scroll, run through his manual typewriter (this in 1957 before we thought much of teletype paper).  It was totally “spontaneous,” but after several years of actually being on the road.  Also, after inner preparation in Montana I, too, sat down to write a group of short stories, linked only by general theme, but a book-length collection of some 35,000 words. I finished the manuscript in five 12-hr days (of course, there were later, minor rewrites), Shared Lives.

            Tesla, the engineering and visionary inventor, was known to completely design his entire machines (first electrical AC generators and transformers for which he obtained commercial patents) in his imagination, often changing some small part and “watching it work in his imagination” as the visionary machine operated.  Only after completion in his mind or mental laboratory, would he work with a commercial draftsman actually to put the designs on paper, build models, and obtain patents.  (Tesla’s style of dynamic imagination, shared we think by William Blake, the poet, is called “eidetic”—it is the form or inspiration for much 3-D design or modeling software now used exclusively by architects, designers, landscape engineers).  One can, I believe, also train one’s imagination for such eidetic processes; at least, I have been able to, when after much reading and studying and attending live theater, once I came to create plays, I found myself with a complete inner stage inside my imagination.  I could produce my new plays, watch character interaction, dialogue, and change parts that didn’t work, even adjust lighting and props—all upon a tiny, glowing, inner stage, a facet of God’s gifts of imagination.  I learned how effective this was, too, at a small theatre in Pittsburgh, not only for composing the plays, but after finally getting to see my complicated dialogue put through the acid test of actors and actresses actually performing the lines in real time before an audience—I was shocked and pleased that the live performance was exactly as I imagined it, or better!

            Development of the inner self is important and again, one should trust the creative process, to bring one along, into such accessory talents and mental “adaptations.”  In my early years, when doing small sketches and designs in grade school, I often played a little game, of taking any squiggle, note, or offhand pencil mark on a sheet of paper, and proceeding to keep sketching until I made some recognizable and visible design from the dot or scribble.  I kept at this off and on, for the fun and imaginary practice of it.  Later, when out and about at restaurants or when having a few moments, my young daughter, Angela, and I continually would play the same game. We would each take turns, of scribbling some obscure design or note, and then the other would have to complete the picture.  I’m happy to say that today, with much other work of course, that my daughter is a successful art director in Chicago.  Later, in my studies, I also found that the same little game was a regular pursuit of Leonardo da Vinci’s; he was often noted for walking by some obscure design on a wall, maybe from natural water marks or dirt, and stopping to complete the drawing with chalk to the bemusement of himself and any accompanying friends.  Even doodles build the mind!  Others work at crossroad puzzles, geometric mind games, chess, or language or music learning and drawing practice.  When other inspiration is lacking for me, I can always pick up a large format book on painting, photography, or architecture and within minutes grow enthusiastic.

            There is some talk these days about Chaos Theory, and one might research that, to discover more scientific aspects (popularized by a 1972 scientific paper by Lorenz, about how a butterfly flapping tiny wings in Brazil eventually could create a tornado in Texas, or how a tiny far off event could affect the destiny of everyone everywhere).  Many creative individuals seek out the random or chaotic consciously, so as to input differing stimulus into their environment.  Some writing educators will regularly mention not only to read widely, but outside your professional discipline or creative field of interest; read outside it to see what’s happening and often to find direct answers to problems you never thought to consult that material for (this is often called Serendipity or follows Jung’s theory of Synchronicity, clusters of similar events).  One small approach, which I have found interesting, is from the modern “Renaissance Man,” R. Buckminster Fuller, popularizer of the Geodesic Dome, inventor of Dymaxion House and Car and the concept “Spaceship Earth,” and the inspiration for the naming of the new element posthumously in his honor, Buckminsterfullerene.  (Buckminster Fuller, by the way, had a great aunt, Margaret Fuller, who was an editor of the The Dial Magazine, author of Women in the Nineteenth Century, and an associate of Thoreau and Emerson during New England’s 1890 Renaissance in America, one of our early feminists and creative individuals).  R. Buckminster Fuller had a habit, whenever traveling anywhere, in airport, hotel reading room, or bus station or turnpike kiosk, of always buying the magazine that appeared in the far, upper right-hand corner of whatever rack he examined.  He never questioned what it was; he only purchased it and made himself go through the entire magazine.  It’s a fascinating process even to play with; one stop is Rolling Stone, the next, Time Magazine, the next Bicycling, the next, Forbes or People, the next, who knows?  But adding the random, the chaotic often inputs entirely new, diverse, unusual events and people and ideas into your own daily perceptual reality.  Today, of course, the global ideational smorgasbord of the Internet offers even grander options.  

            One similar idea of chaotic, creative input is the concept of “White Noise,” in a certain sense of there being randomness or signal dysfunction within our environment.  I came across the concept with Don Delillo’s novel, White Noise, as applies to media saturation and consumerism (The Great Courses, “Twentieth-Century American Fiction,” Arnold Weinstein).  A quick exercise for the creative is to open your journal, switch on the TV, and with remote in hand, switch from station to station, for five minutes.  Note in your journal the list of details with the constant barrage of ideas, products, sounds, visuals, music, art, vulgarity, hype, sublimity.  It might read:  Wall Street, shooting deaths, auto wrecks, typhoon, golf tournament, Chevrolets, women’s shampoo, men’s dye, revolving earth, wildfires in California, Baghdad bombs, African soldiers, stand up jokes, laugh tracks, bad jazz, man on street, audience faces, hamburgers, pizzas, more hamburgers, Hondas, singles’ phone line, gym equipment, more hamburgers, weight loss secrets, prayer.  The creative part is to have some list of all the “white noise” in our culture, from just one medium at one segment of a day in ordinary America.  The list could become a poem, a takeoff for a story, or in the case of Delillo, the novel White Noise (1987), which won the National Book Award.  The exercise is a way of editing almost, the incoming perceptions, to see what our senses have to deal with in a detailed, analytical manner.  Any correspondence between the randomness is open to another discussion entirely.

            The final mention about creativity, might be the most obvious, but often overlooked or perhaps least followed.  Frequently, we toss up in our lives sudden urges to check something, a play, a new ball field, a new city park, a different film, a book, some painting, new museum, new channel for programming, some time to actually listen to one’s enemy (what do these people really believe?), some examination of a distinct and foreign culture, some new friend, some new food or restaurant, some new device or magazine subscription or, intuitively, something crazy at the moment—yet once done or interacted with, we realize we are following some inner urge, intuition, imaginative ploy for refreshing ourselves, our projects, our environments, and that such creativity is absolutely necessary.  Also necessary as mentioned, are deep spiritual exercises like understanding one’s enemy; there’s the comment by Tolstoy that when characters argue in your fiction, show both sides to the best of your ability (so a reader can’t discern which side is the author’s); writing exercises by instructors to do a story from an enemy’s point of view are the same; of course, there’s “Love your enemies . . . ” from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Luke 6:27); and there’s the example of Ancient Greece, where theater sometimes dramatized sympathy with an enemy of some recent war (The Persians by Aeschylus) or the regular practice of glib rhetoricians then, who often debated each opposing side of one argument, to demonstrate their mastery of eloquence and persuasion. 

            Searching other fields can be incisive.  My own interest in architecture led me early on to co-author a book about experimental Virginia architecture, In The Shape of a Soul, but also to my own drawings of original architecture and a new theory of building solar designs.  Part of this interest too, is a fun cross-study for me, for instance just meditating on the building designs from ancient Greek theater  automatically puts me into a playwrighting mood, the form of the performance vehicle excites me that much; and often the study of painters will do the same for some conceptual fictional framework.  Other writers such as Emile Zola, in Nineteenth Century France, of course did much the same, with his championing of the then misunderstood and despised group of French painters, whom we later called Impressionists.  Graphic art can be a wonderful stimulus and inspiration for our writing modes—and even a brief sampling of early drafts, such as the original manuscript for Dostoevsky’s grand masterpiece novel, Brothers Karamazov, shows all kinds of sketches, scribbles of faces for his characters, doodles of Christian symbols, sketches even of seminaries or cathedrals.  These illustrations are no accident, but are thrown off by the creative mind, to hold more information, subliminally and unconsciously, than even copious notes might suggest.  Many writers were involved with visual painting itself as painters (D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, e.e. cummings, sketches by Kerouac, Dos Passos) or other graphic arts such as photography (Zola, Allen Ginsburg, Wright Morris).  We must nurture this, nurture ourselves, and not be too obsessively structured so as to miss out on some of life’s most extraordinary adventures. 

            That’s also a reminder of the many varieties of creativity and of the success of our most far-flung projects.  Best is the remark from Walt Disney, “It’s kind of fun doing the impossible.” 

            The final note is to understand that creativity is a process, a process that we must value, learn to expand, and take part in if we are to survive and if our art is to become grand for the future of writing and literature and if we are to continue with creative eras for history and humanity.

            I believe that artists and writers serve as the digesters of the culture for more ordinary humankind, almost acting as the inner resources or mental apparatuses for the entire civilization (Ezra Pound stated that “Artists are the antennae of the race . . .” ABC of Reading).  We are the dreaming function for society, one might suggest, and that is absolutely necessary for the culture to survive physically.  It’s