Andi Gregory Pearson

The more risks you take, the luckier you become.

If I read one more blog/website on writing where the author begins with, “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about…..” I might scream.  You’re a reader and a writer, you fill in the dots.  It could be “….dialogue and how to make it sound more realistic.”  Or maybe it’s “…how plot is developed through use of flashback.”  Or the dots could be followed by any number of discussions on topics, many of which I am interested in and/or could profit from reading about.

So if you are writing about writing, use some of those writerly skills and figure out a sentence structure and some vocabulary that grabs me.  If you’ve been thinking a lot lately, let some of those thoughts meander over into the “fresh, new vocabulary” section and figure out a way to hook me with a more interesting opening. Then I’ll read what you’ve written and I’ll appreciate both your hook and your content.

Golden, following Denver’s lead, has created a city-wide book club and the first selection is Growing Up True by Craig Barnes who grew up on a farm in wide open spaces in Arapahoe County (now called Littleton), Colorado.  Last night, as part of the program that encourages Goldenites to read and discuss, Craig Barnes appeared at the American Mountaineering Center.  As I spoke to Peg Hooper, manager of the Golden Library, he was standing next to her and he stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Craig.”  He’s a charming, unassuming man and I was happy to meet him.

For the program, he read several passages from the book.  His voice is perfect for oral reading, deep, rhythmic and sonorous.  And even though I’d read the book, I found myself thinking, “Oh, I wonder how this will turn out.”  Then I reminded mentally reminded myself that I’d read the work and I knew how it would turn out.  So my immersion is a tribute to his presentation skills.

Author Barnes did not discuss any additional details of his growing up years nor was there a questions & answers period which was too bad because I expect the crowd of 100+ had some questions for him.  Maybe the format is something the library staff will think about for the next One Book, One Golden program.

Every year, I make it a point to read the work of fiction that wins the Pulitzer Prize.  But according to today’s Denver Post, there is no clear winner in 2012.  Wow.  I guess that means that there were so many outstanding works of fiction that the committee just could not come to any agreement on a winner.

Turns out there is a great hue and outcry in the literary community because none of the three nominees was chosen to receive the prize.  The three works of fiction up for the award were “Swamplandia!” by Karen Russell, “The Pale King” by David Foster Wallace and “Train Dreams” by Denis Johnson. The Pulitzer Prize board members decided that none of the three finalists would receive the award.

Now I have three works of fiction to read. I think I’ll start with Denis Johnson, and I have to say that while I haven’t read “Train Dreams”, I have read Denis Johnson’s short stories and I find his work raw and gritty and totally readable.

I’ll get back to you.

In some of my meanderings at Read, Write & Brew, I came across a book entitled The Delights of Reading by Otto L. Bettmann.  I brought it home and flip through it on a regular basis.  Now that I am a writer, as well as a reader, I find that Mr. Bettmann includes a section called Advice and Solace from the Masters.  Herewith some of the nuggets of wisdom from the Masters.

If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts. Thomas Carlyle

To write well, express yourself like the common people, but think like a wise man. Aristotle

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.  Samuel Johnson

The best style is the style you don’t notice.  Somerset Maugham

No book is born entire and uncrippled as it was conceived.  Virginia Woolf

I’ll be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Last night, at the Tattered Cover in LoDo, Denver author Nick Arvin talked about his latest novel, The Reconstructionist. He was introduced by David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle) who said he thought Tattered Cover is way too modest and should bill itself as one of the best bookstores in the US – that brought applause from the crowd.

It seemed to me that Nick Arvin spoke on the premise that everyone in the room was a close friend and had read the book.  Well, I didn’t qualify in either area and when he sort of jumped right into it, I felt like I lagged a little.  I did finally figure out most of it (I’d read the 3/4 page review in the Denver Post last Sunday) but it took me several minutes.  The story is that Ellis wants to work with Boggs who reconstructs traffic accidents and Ellis may or may not still be in love with Boggs’ wife.  Arvin read an except where the two men are trying to reconstruct a scene in which hogs were hit on the road as they crossed in the dark.  To do this, they take the hide of a hog and stretch it over a wooden frame which they have constructed and mounted on a piece of plywood on wheels.  The dialogue for this weird, possibly gruesome project is human, contemporary and humorous.  Arvin then talked about how traffic accidents often bring out “dark humor” and how reconstructionists (Arvin once was one himself) often laugh at what you and I might think of as “uugh.”

A local company uses computer graphics to re-create auto accidents and Arvin shared several of those with us….again, ugh.  Then he showed a film of a man crossing the street in a crosswalk, actually being struck at quite a speed by an on-coming car.  Ohmigosh, I found that jarring.  Then the author introduced the man who was sitting in the front row with his wife…..none the worse for the wear, we are supposed to think, and an item in the research for the book so obviously everything turned out fine.

Nick Arvin is a young author and his wife and young son were in the audience.  I’m glad I was.  Now I need to read the book.  Maybe I’ll even find a little humor in some of it!

The final speaker for the Pen & Podium series was Elizabeth Strout.  You remember her – she wrote Olive Kitteridge which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2009 and has been a non-stop hit with readers since it appeared in the book store or on the e-reader.  Elizabeth Strout began keeping a journal at an early age, wrote her first short story at the age of 16 and had her work published when she was 26.

Her theory is that fiction “gives us a chance to inhabit somebody else’s life.  It helps create compassion and helps us live the life we want to live.”  While we can only view the world from our own eyes, and never see things through the eyes of others, fiction writers “get to be in someone else’s head.”  What does it feel like to be another person?  Most of us don’t know, we don’t really even know what our spouses, friends or children are thinking and feeling – we’d like to know but really we don’t.

As life progresses, “some people become bigger and some people become bitter,” Strout observes.  ”Fiction shows us how others stumble along.”  And isn’t that how most of us live – by stumbling along, doing our best?  Strout says the inability to understand each other is really “a limitation of language.”  Writers want to “give voice to the complexities of life.”  ”I feel responsible to the reader,” she says, “and I want to use the right word and express natural emotion.  I want to show it’s ok to be human.”

As she wrapped up, Strout said, “I want to write so people feel connected.  Reading is a celebration of our human selves.”

Ok, she convinced me.  Fiction matters.

We spent Sunday in Nederland, CO, population 1400, at Frozen Dead Guy Days.  The backstory is that in 1989, a resident died and wanted to be cryogenically frozen.  His family complied but used dry ice.  The body is now in a freezer in a Tuff Shed in Nederland and every year the town celebrates with Frozen Dead Guy Days.  We missed the frozen salmon toss but watched snow beach volleyball, plunging into the frozen lake and the coffin races.  Teams can choose their costumes and names – Pink Socks, Even in the End, Bone Breakers and my favorite, Not Dead Yet.  A team carries the coffin over a snow-pack track and there are rules, yes, even in Nederland, there are rules.  The ‘dead guy’ must remain in the coffin at all times, members must be at a different spot after the rotation (also called the Chinese fire drill) and no member of the team may be left on the track, especially not on Dead Man’s Curve.  It’s good clean, cold fun.

Knowing of her fascination with the subject, I sent some photos and most of the above information to Antonya Nelson who was my instructor at the Taos Writers’ Conference last summer and will be my teacher for this year’s master class in novel writing.

Her reply?  ”I hope you took notes because there is a story in here somewhere.”  Hmmm….she’s right.  I hadn’t thought of it but there is bound to be a story here…and it’s not the obvious one…hmmmm…..I think I’ll jot down some notes.  My hands have thawed out from Sunday’s cold fun and maybe if I sit at the keyboard and type out my notes, the story will begin to unravel itself.  There is a story here somewhere and I’m going to look for it. I’ll keep you posted.

I don’t know if people keep journals anymore (when I was a girl, we called it a diary).  Maybe blogs have replaced journals, I don’t know.  But in any case, I was researching journal writing recently and came across this.

“Write the journal entry for that future day you would most like to live.”  Kurton

I don’t know Mr/Ms Kurton but what a great idea.  Now, you might think this would work only for a young person but I think all of us can find encouragement and positive support by actually writing down the day we’d most like to live.  And I think this requires some thought.  Do you want to spend a morning lying on your back in the grass, looking at the clouds?  Do you want to spend an afternoon in a dusty book store where leather bound volumes are lined up on the shelves and a purring cat rubs up against your ankles?  Do you want to lie on a beach with a cool drink in your hand?  Do you see yourself in the green blazer after winning the Masters?  Do you want to …..well, whatever it is, I encourage you to write it down, embed the desire in words, imprint the chosen day on your mind and psyche.  See what happens.

Recently, I received a handwritten note from my daughter-in-law thanking me for the birthday gifts I had sent.  It was a very sweet note and knowing how many hours she works, I was touched that she had taken the time to write.  Then, last week my dear 93 year-old friend invited me to lunch at the retirement community where she lives.  I took a stunning cyclamen to her and this week, I received a note in the mail.  In her shaky hand, she wrote that everyone who sees the plant, tells her how pretty it is.  On Monday of this week, I had lunch with a writer friend, just back from the San Francisco Writers Conference.  She related her experiences in “speed dating” agents and shared some tips with me.  One of them was to write a thank-you note to each agent, whether or not any interest was shown by them in her work.

What do all these things have in common?  Well, to me they spotlight one thing that matters, and matters a great deal to me – kindness.  Each of these individuals pointed out how thoughtfulness and kindness add to the quality of our lives.   I am grateful to each of you for reminding me that, “in the end, only kindness matters.”  I am glad to be reminded.