Reading Recommendations--Memoir & Memoir-ish

Gabriele Munter (German Expressionist painter, 1877--1962) This is not a reading recommendation. I thought you might want to look a little before thinking, reflect on what's out there. 

Gabriele Munter, Breakfast of the Birds, 1934 National Museum of Women in the Arts

Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr. 

 (I recently received this book in the mail from my friend Helen who included a postcard featuring the Gabriele Munter image above.) 

This slim volume documents Doerr's year living in Rome as a recipient of the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He moves to Rome with his wife and six-month-old twin sons and tries to write fiction, sleep through the night, and negotiate to quirks and vagaries that make Rome so alive and vivid. Four Seasons is a first-person memoir that reads as though he's written each chapter on the spot. If you've been to Rome you'll recognize the pace and amazement of the city. If you haven't, you'll feel as though you haven't ever been somewhere so compelling.

The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips, 2011. 

This smart fiction book, one of the most affecting I've read in a long time, is a novel. It's not memoir at all. But Phillips writes it as though it is pure memoir. The first person narrator is named Arthur Phillips and it's about growing up with a con artist for a father, a brilliant twin sister, and a family obsession with Shakespeare. It's written in "memoir language" that shows the narrator thinking aloud, wrestling with his subject, re-creating scenes and dialogue. He reflects about his own reflections--in a good way. The tone is very relaxed, the narrator completely at home with composing a life story. Here's the question:  Is that tone possible in authentic memoir?

"How to Write How-To" by Augusten Burroughs, a review of his own book, This Is How. 

This review reads as though it's a truncated essay rationalizing how and why Burroughs is writing a How To book. He talks about the importance of people striving to "find a deeper honesty with themselves when assessing their lives [to] resolve common psychological issues."

Illustration by Joon Mo Kang, New York Times

In the process he provides a new explanation of the source of self confidence, certainly a quality writers need. Burroughs believes that self confidence is not a quality the apparently self confident achieve. Instead it's a trait that manifests as the absence of a destructive habit of thought. Here's Burroughs explanation: 

"The typical advice for gaining confidence--being better at what you do--is wrong; one can be inept yet confident (a frightening common human condition, I've found). I theorize that confidence isn't something you feel internally, but rather a trait others ascribe to you when you're focused and comfortable with what you're doing. So you don't need more confidence. You need less of something you already have in excess: caring what other people think about you. Concentrate on the thing you're doing, not on what people are thinking as you do it and they'll perceive you as confident."

Read, read, read and enjoy.

~~~

There is still room in my next workshop, to be held in Sommieres, in the South of France, October 14--20.  Consider it a gift to yourself of sufficient time to devote to thought, the written word, and renewal. 

Tourist or Traveler?

After my workshop ended in Italy last month, I met my daughter and granddaughter in Rome for two weeks of further travel. I had a few ideas of things they might want to do as I'd been in Rome many times; I had guidebooks for our other destinations and figured we'd plan as we went along.

Rome, near the Vatican

My first plan was for lunch after their arrival and then a nice nap, a usually desperate need for most people who fly across six time zones. But my daughter, already in full tourist mode in the cab from Fiumicino, had other ideas. We spent the afternoon at the Coliseum, Piazza Venezia, and the Trevi Fountain. That was just the beginning. Every night she studied the Rome guidebook we found in our convent and plotted our days--mornings, afternoons and "brisk walks after dinner." With only five days allotted for Rome, we managed two day trips!

Begging off didn't work; I agreed this was a trip of a lifetime--the three of us together. Claiming to be "a cafe and cab sort of girl" didn't work either. She figured out the subway and bus system in Rome, Barcelona and Paris in no time. We rode double-decker tourist buses (I refused bike tours and even she rejected the thought of moving by Segway). We fell into our narrow convent beds nightly, completely exhausted. Admittedly, we saw much more than I ever would have in my meandering, wandering, yet-another-coffee style. And the trip was really for them, so I enjoyed it through their eyes (that, and we laughed a lot).

But the most revealing thing to me happened the day I opted out while the two of them decided to climb to the top of yet another monument. As I sat alone in a cafe after ordering, I had the oddest, nearly physical sensation--thoughts immediately rushed into my head. That's when I realized I hadn't had a single thought for eight days, hadn't processed anything I'd seen, hadn't reflected on one idea. And I hadn't documented anything in my notebook, not once.

We were surely tourists packing it all in. But to my mind we weren't yet travelling.

In a recent New Yorker "Personal History" article titled "Reporter at Odds," Jane Kramer writes about the unusual experience of being a tourist--a journalist overseas without a notebook. She had found she needed to use frequent flyer miles or lose them, so she planned an extensive trip to Southeast Asia with the intent to see sights and not take notes. After decades as a European correspondent for the magazine, she wondered: "What would I do for three weeks in Southeast Asia if I wasn't working? If you are a responsible tourist, the answer is that you fly everywhere, and see everything."


At one point in Vietnam, she notices a girl "no more than four or five, speeding alone in a tiny long-tailed boat. She was leaning over the side, scooping water into her mouth with her hands. I worried about what was in that water and where her parents were. I wanted to ask them where their parents came from. Were they dissident tribal people--Montagnards who had fought alongside the Americans against the Vietcong and, after the Americans lost, fled? Did they dream of home? There was no time for questions. We flew to Hanoi, as planned."
All along she had questions about people and places that remained unasked. "Mostly," she wrote, "I missed my notebooks. Everything was a blur without them..."


Yes, a blur. It's a challenge to discern the dance in multiple motor scooters on a busy street while you're in movement yourself. Writing things down makes them real, immediate. It grounds experience. And it requires being physically grounded in the same spot for a significant number of days or weeks. 


A few weeks ago the New York Times published "Reclaiming Travel," by Ilan Stavans and Joshua Ellison whose essay distinguishes the difference between tourists and travelers. They claim that travel reflects "our curiosity toward what isn't us, [our desire] to explore outside the confines of our own environment." And they ask, "What distinguishes meaningful, fruitful travel from mere tourism? What turns travel into a quest rather than... escapism?"


Sightseeing is too often list-checking. One has to keep a list to even remember, to distinguish one city's tallest monument or ancient cathedral from another. Tourists can learn lots about another place--from wall text, tour guides, guidebooks, the handy ear buds on the Hop On-Hop Off bus. And the guidebooks make it so easy--from how to order coffee in Rome to how to recognize the "gold" ring scam (that I encountered along the Seine). Nothing is left to chance.


It's one way to tour, to see the world. Stavans and Ellison point out how "safe, controlled and predetermined" tourism is. I hear about people who love cruises because they are so well taken care of; likewise, a resort stay--no risks, no luggage handling, no possibility for wasted time. 


But I love to waste time, to gather wool, to watch people when I travel. At times I've been unsure, unsafe and often lost. But I know that wandering and wondering is my best mode. Sometimes it's boring; sometimes it's isolating. But it provides room to be present.


I agree with Stavans and Ellison who suggest looking for "communion" in the wider world: "The kind of travel to which we aspire should tolerate uncertainty and discomfort...we need to permit ourselves to be clumsy, inexpert and even a bit lonely" to "quest for communion and, ultimately, self-knowledge."

Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux (with whom I've had a long, conflicted relationship as a reader) said it well: "Tourists don't know where they've been; travelers don't know where they're going."


Ah, that's it then, the goal to know oneself better and to do it without a set plan, to lead with curiosity. 


As writers, how do we figure out what we think unless we get far enough away from our usual comfort to see who we are?

Feel free to comment on any of these ideas, by clicking on "Comments" in the TINY print below. Also, if you are so inclined, please share this blog post to other writers. You can "like" it (if you do) on your Facebook page by clicking on the tiny blue f icon as well. Share away~~

   

If you are considering joining me in the South of France in October, contact me soon.

The enrollment deadline is right around the next bend in the river.

The Power of YOUR Place

Bruce Springsteen

The Situation

For years of my adolescence and young adulthood, while I devoured fiction and biographies of writers, I was convinced that my personal experience--growing up in a suburb of Los Angeles during the 1960s--would hold no appeal to a reader. My place was so familiar to me that I was sure it wasn't exciting or interesting enough to ever use as writing material. 


Then, when I started to think seriously about writing, I read a novel about a teen's life in a suburb of Los Angeles. (I'd love to provide a link to that novel here; however, after racking my brain and the brains of two close friends, I cannot come up with the title or author.) The point is that I did not value where I came from, but someone else did and wrote my story into a successful novel. 

Consider This

In a recent issue, New York Times columnist David Brooks', "The Power of the Particular," elucidates a paradox. He opens by talking about Bruce Springsteen's very American appeal abroad and analyzes why "audiences in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula [sing along with Springsteen] word for word about Highway 9 or Greasy Lake or some other exotic locale on the Jersey Shore."

Brooks' column is a model of the essay form--a clear and well-crafted documentation of his train of thought. He opens with intriguing anecdotal evidence of Springsteen's fervent audience beyond the U. S. Then Brooks analyzes Springsteen's appeal abroad, introducing a theory about a child's narrative world. Next, he makes meaning of that idea in a larger, more universal perspective.

David Brooks

In his analysis Brooks says, "My best theory is this: When we are children, we invent these detailed imaginary worlds that the child psychologists call 'paracosms.' These landscapes, sometimes complete with imaginary beasts, heroes and laws, help us orient ourselves in reality. They are structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world." 


Very Personal Narratives
According to Brooks' theory, although we carry these personal worlds into adulthood, we too frequently ignore our own particularity.  He implies that we resort instead to more general narratives, stories we think we should write. He points out the contradiction inherent in the dance between the personal and the universal: "It's a paradox that the artists who have the widest global purchase are also the ones who have created the most local and distinctive story landscapes."


Many writers of "local and distinctive story landscapes" consistently enjoy international appeal. One of these is Eugene O'Neill whose somber Irish-American plays are regularly produced and appreciated in Russia. And I'm reminded of an interview I heard with John Steinbeck's widow who reported that the Chinese told her why they love Steinbeck's fiction--"because he's so Chinese!" 

Amy Tan

I've referred (more than once) to Amy Tan's succinct declaration: "This is the paradox of writing and of life: By capturing your own individuality, you often capture what is universally true."


Brook's advice, as though he's writing to memoirists in particular: "Go deeper into your own tradition. Call more upon the geography of your own past. Be distinct and credible. People will come."

Risks and Benefits of Getting Feedback

Dorothy Parker

I hate writing. I love having written.

                                                    Dorothy Parker

The Situation

Writers usually crave large expanses of solitude to think and reflect. To feel grounded, they require regular retreat from the public sphere in order to access the private. However, effective writing necessitates public input because it takes a reader to complete the writing process. And a reader's response is most effective during the drafting process, not after publication.

The Risks

Experienced writers know the enormous difficulty of composing effectively--or of getting to a zone that enables it. We all want our writing to ring true, to reach readers on emotional and intellectual levels. The challenge is to find reliable, informed first readers and to manage their feedback. That process sometimes challenges writers accustomed to depending on their own instincts for writing decisions.

Writers seeking feedback are sometimes challenged with:

• learning to expose themselves to others' input, to show the vulnerability that's essential to the workshop process, 
• finding a group of writers trained and practiced in responding to drafts,
• reading their work aloud without qualifying it first and without defending the writing after getting feedback,
• sorting through commentary, knowing what to follow, what to ignore, what to make of a reader's comments.

It takes courage and humility. But once a writer realizes its value, especially from a group of other writers, feedback becomes a critical and necessary part of the writing process. 

One tip for writers that has helped me get perspective: Treat each draft as an artifact, as something you've accomplished, an object you've made. Your writing, even memoir writing, does not represent who you are in your entirety; it likely represents a part of who you have been and are becoming.  It's a thing, a product of your hours.

Invest your writing with love as you compose; practice tough love as you listen and learn from your readers. 

Some Benefits of Reader Responses

• Collaborating with other writers can prompt useful and reciprocal practice.
• Others' questions can cultivate memory, push your thinking, offer other angles, or confirm nagging doubts.
• A reader can tease out the germ of a story that might otherwise be buried in tangential writing.
• Other writers can identify self-indulgent writing (we all do it) or help you see where to cut and where to develop.

Writing Workshop, Italy, 2012

In my recent workshop in Italy, one writer who makes business presentations nationwide told the group that her fear had kept her from ever reading the regular evaluations submitted by her audience members. 

Yet she was amazed that week to hear the insightful comments offered by others after reading her draft aloud. She later wrote: Learning to listen to and understand the critiques of the other writers has been an important life-learning experience for me.

Here are some responses from four other writers in the group (submitted anonymously):

• The technique of having the writers listen [without speaking] while others gave feedback was good. 
• I liked that there was no room for nasty critical criticism. That made the tone very good.
• Great feedback from classmates. The work-shopping system was an excellent classroom procedure.
• Getting the feedback of others is invaluable, especially from people I respect. 

Most of all, seek feedback from others who know and appreciate the entire process--writers. They are people, according to Thomas Mann, for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.


I'd love some feedback! Let me and other readers know what you make of these ideas--in "Comments" at the end of the post.

NOTE: Enrollment for France, in Other Words is just around the corner. I'm eager to gather a group of supportive, focused writers--or writers who want to learn those skills!

Italy Workshop on YouTube

Daniele Kihlgren
photo source: HERE

Serendipity
One of the many happy surprises during the week in Santo Stefano di Sessanio in May was our encounter with a Swedish TV film crew who were in the burgh documenting small European hotels. They came to interview the developer of Sextantio Albergo Diffuso, Daniele Kihlgren, a man of Swedish and Italian lineage, and captured some of the workshop. 
Daniele Kihlgren
About a decade ago on a motorcycle ride through the Italian countryside, Kihlgren encountered and fell deeply for the nearly abandoned medieval village of Santo Stefano di Sessanio in the Abruzzo region of Italy, 90 miles east of Rome.
He subsequently bought many homes in the town and worked to preserve their ancient simplicity as he turned them into charming hotel rooms that feature antique iron beds, mattresses filled with the wool of local sheep, hand-woven linen sheets and locally loomed bedspreads. Scattered about each room are intriguing antiques acquired locally--a child's tricycle in one, religious artifacts and blanket trunks in others, all containing modern Phillipe Starck bathroom fixtures that stand in marked contrast to the candle-lit interiors.

Bedroom at Sextantio Albergo Diffuso

Kilghren joined us at dinner one evening to talk about his love for the Italian countryside as well as other projects. Accompanied by his large bulldog, Carmello, he spoke with a faraway wistfulness as he conjured the "dignity" of people from centuries ago. He told us he had bought many other abandoned villages in the Italian countryside and hoped to restore them as he worked to keep the landscape free of new construction.

Kihlgren talking to us after dinner 

YouTube Video
Click HERE to see and hear Kihlgren explaining his vision and to see our workshop in action. Within days of their filming, Sveriges Television AB broadcast their program on TV in Sweden. Although some of the conversation is in Swedish and some in Italian, Kihlgren and Richard Billoti, one of the workshop writers, speak English. Notice the artist's hands near the opening. They belong to Cynthia Parry, one of our participants who made art in oil pastels outdoors while the rest of us made art in words inside.

Creating a Writing Life

Finding the Way in Abruzzo~~photo credit: Helen Free

I've finally surfaced after my trip--spent mostly in Italy. What a wonderful opportunity to enjoy time wandering around Rome and "working" in Abruzzo where my writing workshop was held in May. It was our third annual Italy, in Other Words memoir writing workshop and very rewarding.

The Group

Our group of eleven adults, all curious and appreciative writers and adventurers, spent an intense week together. We made literature in the mornings, explored Abruzzese cultural traditions in the afternoons, and indulged in great communal meals in the evenings.

The writers held, or recently retired from, a variety of day jobs: journalist, publisher, editor, real estate professional, anesthesia nurse, oral historian, librarian, writing and literature professor, high school English teacher. They arrived with writing experience that ranged widely--from years of filling personal journals, to blogging, to collecting rejection letters, to publishing essays in professional journals.

Writers, May 2012, Italy, in Other Words
Photo credit: Ciao Chow Linda

Why They Came
All the writers came to the workshop looking for a way into their life stories. They wanted to make meaning and literature of their memories. The group united from the beginning, and the week flew by. Amazed at their enthusiasm and serious approach to their writing, I've since thought a lot about the possible reasons for the event's success.


Why did the writers of this workshop show such sustained devotion to their writing? Why did they work so assiduously drafting and revising? Granted they were a group of wonderful people, yet all my workshops have been comprised of really solid, thoughtful writers. What made this different?
Why It Worked
I think one answer lies in the participants' intentions before arriving. Most arrived ready to jump start particular writing--whether based on the germ of an idea, something already drafted, or a work in progress. That intention, linked with the actual atmosphere of the stone burgh of Santo Stefano di Sessanio, worked well.
The Qualities of Place

Barbara at work in her room

The town exudes solitude, independence and timelessness. It's easy to focus there. No one complained of writer's block or frustration; most savored time to write. Everyone enjoyed a private room in the sparsely populated, medieval village. Despite small antique desks and chairs, the rustic rooms seemed to contribute to the industry as well. The location of the burgh high in the Gran Sasso National Park with its expansive views for miles somehow offered a perspective useful for introspection and reflection.
Working at Home
These qualities of place, perhaps, parallel what writers need at home in order to create: a place free of outside distractions, an opportunity to focus, the intention to create. And we all need to be taken outside ourselves to figure out who we are. It's not easy to provide that for ourselves within the scope of our hectic lives. It requires respect for our personal goals, strong intention to make meaning of our experiences, space and time devoted to our work.

a street in Santo Stefano di Sessanio
photo credit: Barbara Roppolo

It was easy to enjoy all that in Santo Stefano, but the challenge will be replicating it at home, finding a way to create a genuine writing life for ourselves when we are alone in the room.

~~~

Note: Another critical influence, this one recounted by the writers, was the opportunity to read their work aloud and receive direct, thoughtful response from the other writers. I'll report that next Monday.


In the meantime, consider joining me at the France, in Other Words writing workshop in October as we create a community of writers hoping to strengthen their writing and experience meaningful travel.

Sommieres, France