Re-Awakening of Spring - Er, Fall

The signs of fall are unmistakeable.  Outside my bedroom window, the Japanese maple is chartreuse, on its way to gold, and the giant cherry tree is tinged with yellow and orange as a prelude to its flaming red glory; the mornings and evenings have turned cool and the days are pleasantly warmed by the slanting sun - and the 2014-2015 PEN/Faulkner Reading Series began last night!

While I have attended the readings for many years, this may have been the first time I went to the season kickoff, and I found myself more excited than usual.  I suddenly realized that for me it was like finally getting to a concert on time instead of arriving late.  And how fitting that the first reading featured four emerging writers hosted by an established name, nascent careers serving as a metaphor for a reading series at the beginning of a season, and vice versa.

Each of the writers read an excerpt of a story just published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, and Ann Beattie, the moderator, then asked each a question about their work.  It was an enjoyable evening, and it whet my appetite both for reading the rest of each story and for attending more of the reading series.

As I was starting to think about these things while walking back to the Metro after the reading, I was struck by the luminous quality of the quiet autumn night on Capitol Hill.  

The Hill takes on a different character at night, one not seen by camera-toting, t-shirt clad people spilling out of a caravan of buses.  The brick sidewalks in deep shadow and streetlight, the quiet streets of Victorian and Federal row houses, the dramatic spotlighting of churches and Government buildings, are all starkly on display when the only sound is one's footsteps.

It was also nice to not feel such a bifurcation between my writer self and my photographer self and to sense an easier fluidity between the two.  They may be different, but they're not oil and water.

 

Having picked up a copy of the VQR at the reception, I did read more of the writers' work before going to bed and again this morning, and I was impressed and inspired.  It was just the charge I needed to jump-start my own writing (starting with this piece) after taking several months off!  Part of this was re-engaging with the literary community and being reminded that even though writing itself is a solitary pursuit, telling stories is not - in fact, it's very much the opposite.

It was a night of great expectations - for these four talented writers, for the reading series ahead, and for my own development in this new year.  Thanks to PEN/Faulkner for doing so much to feed the literary community in D.C.!

Whether He Would or Wouldn't Is Up to Me

Last night at his PEN/Faulkner reading on Capitol Hill, Richard Ford quoted Lewis Lapham as saying, "Nothing necessarily follows anything."  He and Washington Post book critic Ron Charles were "onstage" (in a church) in conversation about whether a character's action can rightly be deemed believable or not.  Ford's position was basically that he was the writer, so he could make the character do whatever he wanted him to do.

What a freeing moment for me as a writer.

At the reception afterwards, standing in front of him at the book-signing table, I said, "It was great to hear you say that, because at the summer writing workshops I attend, someone always says, 'Well, I don't believe the character would do that.'"

Ford looked up and said, "Well, now you know the answer!"

(Allow me a brief digression to share this with you: I'm shaking hands with celebrated novelist Richard Ford, yes, that Richard Ford, who wrote Independence Day, the book that won both the Pulitzer Prize AND the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction - the first time any book had won both - and he is signing that same lauded book, writing a personal greeting to me...and I am nervous, tripping over my tongue, telling him I write fiction, too - how embarrassing, did I just tell him that?! - and he looks up at me and asks where I go for my summer workshops, and I say, "Provincetown, the Fine Arts Work Center," and he says, "Oh, yes!" and then goes back to finishing my inscription.  (He lives in New England, after all.)  He is somewhat intimidating, tall and grey-haired, such a literary luminary, but it's mostly his eyes - those blue-grey eyes that are so pale you can almost see into his head, like maybe you could catch a glimpse of some of his ideas, some of the magic and style of his writing, though it's almost frightening to look.  But I'm completely won over by his warmth, so genuine and patient, the way he looks right at you when he's talking to you, the way he takes his time with you, even though he's never seen you before, and when he says, "It's nice to meet you" and "thank you for coming," he takes his time, and you get the strong feeling he really means it - as if he hasn't already said it to the twenty people before you and as if he isn't going to say it to the fifty people behind you...as if he's not a 70 year-old famous writer who could probably use the rest more than you but won't get to bed until long after you.  Despite his austere publicity photos, Richard Ford is one very nice man.)

Why do writers always challenge other writers in questioning the behavior of their characters?  Sure, actions usually need the support of motivation, but sometimes people do stuff seemingly out of left field.  Would anyone have thought the following plausible?

• A young boy considered a "normal kid" by the neighbors goes on a slashing spree one day at school, severely injuring many, and gets charged as an adult
• A young couple takes their baby and toddler child on a boat into the open ocean, intending to sail around the world
• A grad student waiting for his wife to travel cross-country to join him in married student housing drops out of grad school and returns home to help her raise the child fathered by his (former) best friend

Though none of these seems particularly likely, all of them did happen in real life.  But workshop people would tear plots like these to shreds, claiming he/they "wouldn't do that."  Is human behavior that predictable?  Do we always know what people are or are not going to do?

And do we want to write or read only stories in which everyone behaves as expected and no one does anything surprising?  ZZZZZZZZZ  Not me!

Thanks, Richard Ford, for giving me the freedom to let my characters do strange, inappropriate, fascinating things that keep the reader turning pages!

PHOTO CREDIT:  Amazon.com