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writing 1. Easy!
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Writing isone of the mos t easy, painfree, and happy ways topass
the time in all the arts. For example, right now I amsitting in my
rose garden and typing on my new computer.Eachrose represents a
story, so Imnever at a loss for what towrite. I just look deep into
the heart of the rose and read itsstory andwrite it down through
typing, which I enjoy anyway.I could be typing kjfiu joewmv jiw and
would enjoy it asmuch astyping words that actually make sense. I
simply rel~ish the movement of my fingers on the keys. Sometimes,
it istrue, agony Visits the head of a writer. At these moments,
Istop writing and relax with a coffee at my favorite
restaurant,knowing that words can bechanged, rethought, fiddled
with,and, of course, ultimately denied. Painters dont have
thatluxury. If they go to a coffee shop, their paint dries into
ahard mass.
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Location,Location, Location
I would recommend to writers that they live in
California,because here they can look up at the blue sky in
betweenthose moments of looking into the heart of a rose. I feel
sorryfor writersand there are some pretty famous oneswholive in
places likeSouthAmerica andCzechoslovakia,whereI imagine it gets
pretty dreary. These writers are easy to spot.Their books are often
depressing and filled with disease andnegativity. If youre going to
write about disease, I would sug gest that California is the place
to do it. Dwarfism is neverfunny, but look at the result when it
was dealt with out herein California. Seven happy dwarfs. Can you
imagine sevendwarfs in Czechoslovakia? You would get seven
melancholicdwarfs at best, seven melancholic dwarfs with no
handircappedvparking spaces.
Love in the Time ofCholera: why its abad title
I admit that Love in the time of . . ." isagreat title,
sofar.Youre reading along, youre happy, its about love, I like
theway the word time comes in there, something nice in
theassociation of love and time, likea newword almost,
lovetime:nice, nice feeling. Suddenly, the morbid Cholera appears.
Iwas happy till then. Love in the Time of the Oozing Soresand
Pustules is probably an earlier, rejected title of thisbook,
written in a rat-infested tree house on an old SmithCorona.This
writer, whoever he is, could have used acoupleof weeks in Pacific
Daylight Time.
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I did a little experiment. I decided to take the follow,ing
disheartening passage, which was no doubt written insome depressing
place, and attempt to rewrite it under theinfluence of
California:
Most people deceive themselves with apair of faiths:they believe
in eternal memory (of people, things,deeds, nations) and in
redressibility (of deeds,mistakes, sins, wrongs). Both are false
faiths. Inreality the opposite is true: everything will beforgotten
and nothing will be redressed. (MilanKundera)
Sitting in my garden, asthe bees glide from flower to flower,I
let the above paragraphfilter through my mind.The following new
paragraph emerged:
I feel pretty,Oh so pretty,I feel pretty and witty and
bright.
Kundera was just t o o wordy. Sometimes the delete key
isyourgreatest friend.
Writers Block: A Myth
Writers block is a fancy te rm made up by whiners so theycan
have an excuse to drink alcohol. Sure a writer can getstuck for
awhile, but when that happens to realauthors, they
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simply go out and get an as told to. The alternative is tohire
yourself ou t asan as heard from," thus taking all thecredit. It
isalso mucheasier to write when you have someoneto bounce with.
This issomeone to sit in aroom with andexchange ideas. It is good
if the last name of the person youchoose to bounce with is
Salinger. I know a certain earlytwentiethcentury French writer,
whose initials were M.P.,who could have used a good bounce person.
If he had, histitle might have been the more correct Remembering
PastThings" instead of the clumsy one he used. The other trick Iuse
when l have amomentary stoppage isvirtually foolproof,and Im happy
to pass it along. Go to an already publishednoveland find asentence
you absolutely adore. Copy it downin your manuscript. Usually that
sentence will lead you naturally to another sentence; pretty soon
your own ideas willstart to flow. If they dont, copy down the nex t
sentence.You can safely use up to three sentences of someone
else'sworkunless theyre friends; then you can use two. The oddsof
being found ou t are very slim, and even if you are, theresno jail
time.
CreatingMemorable Characters
Nothingwill make your writing soar more than
amemorablecharacter. If there is a memorable character, the reader
willkeep going back to the book, picking it up, turning it over
inhis hands, hefting i t , and tossing it into the air. Here is
anexample of the jazzy uplift that vivid characters can offer:
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Some guys were standing around when in camethis guy.
You are n o w on your way to creating a memorablecharacter. You
have set him up asbeing aguy, and with thatcome all the readers
ideas of what a guy is. Soon you willliven your character by using
an adjective:
But this guy was no ordinary guy, he was ared guy.
This character, the red guy, has n o w popped into thereaders
imagination. He is a fullblown person, with hopesand dreams, just
like the reader. Especially if the reader is ared guy. Now you
might w a n t to give the character a trait.You can inform the
reader of the character trait in one of t w oways. First, simply
say what that trait isfor example, butthis red guy was different
from most red guys, this red guyliked frapps. The other is rooted
in actionhave the redguy walk up to abar and order afrapp,
asin:
Whatll you have, red guy?Ill have afrapp.
Once you have mastered these t w o concepts, vividcharacter
writing combined with adjectives, you are on yourway to becoming
the n e x t Shakespeares brother. And dontforget to copyright any
ideas you have that might beoriginal.You dont w a n t to be caught
standing by helplessly while
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your familiar red guy steps up to abar in afrapp c o mm e r
cial.
WritingDialogue
Many very fine writers are intimidated when they have towrite
the way people really talk. Actually it's quite easy. Simvply lower
your IQ by fifty and start typing!
Subject Matter
Because topics are in such short supply, I have providedafewfor
writers who may be suffering in the darker climes. Filesome of
these away, and look through them during the suicidal winter
months:
Naked Belligerent Panties:This isagood sexy titlewith a lot of
promise.
How about a diet book that suggests your free radicals don't
enter ketosis unless your insulin levels have
beencarbovcharged.7
Something about how waves at the beach just keepcoming and
coming and how amazing it is (I smell a bestseller here).
Visions of Melancholy from aFast-MovingTrain":Some foreign
writer is right now rushing to his keyboard,ready to pound on it
like Horowitz. However, this title is aphony string of words with
no meaning and would send yourpoor book to the Artsy section of
Barnes and Noble,
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whereguess what i t would languish, be remaindered, anddie.
A Word to Avoid
Dagnabbit will never get you anywhere with the BookerPrize
people. Lose it.
Getting Published
1have t w o observations about publishers:
I. Nowadays, they can be either male or female.2. They love to
be referred to by the appropriate
pronoun. If your publisher is male, refer to him ashe. If your
publisher is female, she isconsidered more correct. Once you
haveestablished arapport, Babe is also acceptablefor either
sex.
Once you have determined your pronoun usage, youare ready to
schmooze your publisher. Lets say your favorvite author is Dante.
Call Dantes publisher and say youd liketo invite them both to
lunch. If the assistant says somethinglike But Dantes dead, be
sympathetic and say, Please a c ;cept mycondolences. Once at lunch,
remember never to bemoody. Publishers like up, happy writers,
although its impressive to suddenly sweep your arm slowly across
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table, dumping all the plates and food on t o the floor,
whileshouting Sic Semper Tyrannis!
A Demonstrationof Actual Writing
Itseasy to talk about writing and even easier to do
it.Watch:
Call meIshmael. It was cold, very cold, here in themountain t
own of Kilimanjaroville. I could hear abell. It was tolling. I knew
exactly for who it wastolling, too. It was tolling for me,
IshmaelTwist,o ared guy who likes frapp. [Authors no te : I
amnowstuck. I walk over to a rose and look into its heart.]Thats
right, lshmael Twist.
Finally, I cant overstress the importance of having apowerful
closing sentence.