The Carpe Annum Interviews Year End Round Up

We declared 2013 Carpe Annum—Seize the Year! It was our way of encouraging you as an artist/writer to find your own path, listen to your inner iconoclast, and to be set free to explore your true writer/reader/human self. We invited a handful of writers and other publishing industry folks on the blog throughout the year to talk about writing, not writing, publishing, not publishing, and everything that goes on in between.

We’re thrilled to have them all back today, visiting from all over North America. It’s a bit squishy in here (next time, we’re booking a larger space!), but no one minds. Let’s eavesdrop on the conversation:

Bonnie Grove: One more seat for Don Pape, please. Could we have Lesley and Tosca scooch together? Thanks. Mind Arthur Slade’s feet. He has enormous feet. Pizza’s here! Christa Allan, could you tip the delivery person? Everyone here? Great. Let’s get started. Are books dead?

Don Pape (Publisher): We have seen through digital a real devaluing of intellectual property. Once we would buy a project with a reasonable advance and sell it for $15 in the hopes of recouping your investment. Now that consumer is wanting that same property – nah they demand – at $2.99 or heavens, free! 

Nicci Jordan Hubert (freelance editor) I suggest that although the medium may change, the relationship between authors and readers will never change. There is no “end of books.” Books will live forever, of course, whether they’re read on paper, an iPhone screen, futuristic computer-glasses, or perhaps some kind of cool osmosis process.

Bonnie Grove: With publishing changing daily, how does great fiction happen? How does the great stuff get out there into the hands of readers?

Don Pape (Publisher): Nothing changes – a Really Great story!! Whether it is historical, contemporary – a really great story well told, amazing fully developed characters. And please, not another “in the tradition of Left Behind” or “Gresham-like” – let’s be original please!!

Chris Fabry: I can have a great publishing plan, a brand people recognize, and all the “right” industry choices made, but if I don’t have a good story, I don’t have anything.

Julie Cantrell: Characters. For me…it’s all about the characters. And I do consider the setting a character. 

Nicci Jordan Hubert: If you really want to be a successful writer, there are no short cuts. Okay, if you’re related to a celebrity, you’ll have an easier time getting published, but for the rest of you… There is only one path to becoming a good writer: Reading lots of good books. Studying the craft of writing. Practicing writing a lot. Self-editing ruthlessly. And seeking out honest feedback.

Bonnie Grove: Feedback. Okay writers, dish about feedback. There’s all kinds, the helpful feedback you can get while working on a novel (and unhelpful), and then there’s the painful feedback that comes after the book releases.

Tosca Lee:  You know, I remember my first one-star review. My heart started thudding. I felt anxious, defensive, and mortified. But my anxiety has ebbed with time. A few months ago I saw a one-star review that said Demon was "written with the deftness and wit of an inebriated three year old." And I remember thinking, "Who would give alcohol to a three year-old??"

Arthur Slade: I was more concerned about reviews at the start of my career and would take them more personally. But now, with the advent of Amazon and Goodreads, I actually get a kick out of the bad reviews. Sometimes they can be quite creative (my favourite had a line that went something like “I had to drink a Coke while I was reading Dust in order to stay awake”). The only time I am frustrated by reviews is when they say something that is truly false about the book. Oh, plus my mom always says the books are good.

Bonnie Grove: How does a writer move past bad reviews/feedback? Especially in this day of Amazon and Goodreads. Everyone is a critic.

Chris Fabry: I no longer see my stories as for some mass audience out there. Each story is for an individual reader. And each story is for me.

Julie Cantrell: “Whatever you do, don’t waste your scholarship to study writing. You’ll be lucky if you ever publish a greeting card.” –  My 12^th Grade English Teacher . It took me ten years to get her voice out of my head. I didn’t write a thing for an entire decade because I was foolish enough to believe what she said as truth.

Lesley Livingston: I was an actor for years before I was a writer. I’m so very used to criticism (good and bad) and rejection (yay auditions! Bleh.) that it all pretty much just rolls off my back by now. It’s not always easy and sometimes I read a review and mutter unkind things but the truth is, if you’re going to believe the good reviews, you’ve got to believe the bad ones, too. It’s just what you said—opinions. Once the book is out there, it’s no longer just yours. And everyone who reads it has the absolute right to there opinion of it. (No matter how wrong they are!! Ha!)

Chris Bohjalian: I don’t dare read the reviews on Goodreads or Amazon or BN.com. I used to. I wrote an essay once for the Washington Post about my old addiction to reading the way anonymous people would eviscerate my work. But now, in the interest of my mental health, I give the reviews as wide a berth as I can. They can really screw up a sunny day.

Tosca Lee: I think just realizing that readers’ responses are a reflection of where they’re at. It’s not about you. It’s about what resonates—or doesn’t—with them right now. For me, I know that any time I choose to get offended, I’m the one who suffers.

Bonnie Grove: What keeps you going on rough days? None of you have thrown in the towel, and you’ve all reached wonderful success as writers. Is it going according to plan?

Christa Allan: In the beginning of my writing life, my path reflected the opening of Genesis. It was without form and full of darkness. I doubt I knew a path existed or even cared. So delirious with joy over my first contract, I didn't think beyond it. Sort of like being more prepared for the wedding than the marriage, you know?

Chris Bohjalian: I was simply hoping to write a novel after (finally) selling a short story. I amassed 250 rejection slips before I sold a single word.

Arthur Slade: Long ago, a fellow writer said it’d take about ten years to get published. She was wrong. It took me twelve. 

Ariel Lawhon: The only things that matter right now, today, are the words on the page in front of me. That’s what I can control. And I will never find joy in this profession—much less write another book—if I can’t enjoy the actual process of writing. So I have to touch the story every day. Even if it’s just a word or two. The only way to stay sane is to write.

Bonnie Grove: Share a bit about your writing process.

Chris Fabry: Writing was the path to freedom. If I could write through this devastation, if I could allow the pain I was going through to inform the story, my readers would connect with the character on an even deeper level. And I would find a measure of solace in the process.

Christa Allan: My process: Hooray! NYT Bestseller idea, write reams of brain urp on yellow legal pads, write three chapters, call my BFF and scream, "I don't have a novel, and why the hell did I ever believe I was a writer?"; go back to legal pads, write to the middle, make charts and graphs and index cards while consuming coffee, Coke Zero, chocolate, popcorn, Mike&Ikes ; write, stop and make more notes and consume any combination or all of the above foods, write...continue until "The End." I doubt that process has a name or that I'll be able to turn it into a writing book.

Bonnie Grove: Advice to writers?

Christa Allan: If I didn't pursue my dream, regret would pursue me.

Julie Cantrell: I’m begging you… write as if no one will ever read it. That’s the only way you’ll find your true, original voice and feel free enough to reach the level of honesty readers really crave.

Lesley Livingston: That’s the whole thing with carpe-ing. The act of seizing is a willful act. You pretty much just have to do it. Write. You can’t edit a blank page. You can’t revise an empty screen. The lion’s share of writing is re-writing. Get the words down. Then put them in the right order. For me, it comes down to writing every day. As much or as little as I can, but every day. If I’m away from the story for a day, it takes me twice as long to get my head back into the game.

Ariel Lawhon: Everything changed for me when I realized that if I wanted to have this job—and I did, I still DO—then I had to sit down and write a novel. I knew that if anything were to come of this dream it would spring from a finished novel and nothing else.

Arthur Slade:  Don’t expect it all to happen overnight. It’s such a cliché, but write every day and always look for ways to improve your craft. Writing is like working out for a Triathlon. I’ve never done one, but they look hard and you have to train hard. Writing is the same. It takes training. And tea breaks.

Bonnie Grove: Thanks so much, everyone for sharing your wisdom with us this Carpe Annum year. Let’s all crowd in for a group picture! Mind Arthur Slade’s enormous feet.

Writing Opposite-Gender Characters

I think it's safe to say very few of us have written/will write a novel populated exclusively with characters of our own gender. So that means most of us have written characters of the opposite sex. But writing primary characters of the opposite sex is different than writing secondary characters of the opposite sex, because primary characters are so much more complex. The danger is that we resort to cliché, and cliché is never good, no matter what. Men writing women protagonists tend to make them more sexual than what is reasonable, more physically perfect than what is reasonable (okay, we women make our female characters a little too perfect as well, and our male characters too), and either uber-competent or uber-dependent, depending on the plot. In short, they're characters with whom we can't sympathize. Women writing male protagonists tend to make them overly sensitive, way too in touch with their feminine side, in a way that doesn't ring true. I realize I'm painting with a wide brush, but I think this generally holds true.

So how do we create primary characters of the opposite sex who are real and relatable? Is it even possible? Yes, of course it is. Margaret Mitchell did a pretty darn good job with Rhett Butler, but, well, quite truthfully a good example of a male novelist writing a true and honest female protagonist doesn't come as readily to mind. I will say, however, that Tennessee Williams did an excellent job of creating Amanda and Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie. My husband Rick and I had the great pleasure of seeing Sally Field play the part of Amanda a few years ago at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. This 4-person play was outstanding.

Most of the novels I write have female protagonists, and multiple secondary characters who are female. It's not that I intentionally avoid writing male characters; it's just the nature of the stories I write. However, I have written a novel, as yet unpublished, where the protagonist is a nine year old boy. His story came to me one day as I was cooking dinner, when this young guy said this to me:

I decided long ago if I was ever to write a story, it would be about Annie. And Mama. And all of us. I'm Annie's brother Charlie, and it's my fault she died.

Well, I just had to follow up on that, which resulted a year later in a novel.

So how do we as women get inside the head of a man, and vice versa? Because it's getting inside the head of our characters that make them come alive. I've been married to Rick for 42 years as of two weeks ago. And as well as I know him, I can't say I honestly know how he thinks. I can usually predict what his response will be in any given situation---as he can me---but responses and thought processes are two different things. Chris Bohjalian, our guest author on July 22, talks about writing opposite-gender characters in an audio interview on Pen on Fire/Writers on Writing. It's worth listening to.

I also came across an article written by author K.M. Weiland with some good points to consider when writing opposite-gender characters. (I sought permission to reprint, but didn't hear back. But follow the link for the specific points.)

For fun, try this exercise: Take a scene from a novel you love that includes both a male and female character, and that's written from the POV of a character who's the same gender as you. Rewrite that scene from the POV of the opposite-sex character, then tell us about it.

The Carpe Annum Interviews: Chris Bohjalian

Lincoln’s Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of 16 books, including eight New York Times bestsellers.  His work has been translated into over 25 languages and three times become movies.

His epic novel of the Armenian Genocide, The Sandcastle Girls, was published in paperback this month. This July his new novel, a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet set in Tuscany at the end of the Second World War, The Light in the Ruins, arrives. 
 His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.
 His awards include the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for The Sandcastle Girls, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for The Night Strangers; the New England Book Award; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; and the Anahid Literary Award. His novel, Midwives, was a number one New York Times bestseller, a selection of Oprah's Book Club, and a New England Booksellers Association Discovery pick. 
 He has written for a wide variety of magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest, and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.  He has been a weekly columnist right here in Vermont for the Burlington Free Press since February 1992. 

Chris graduated  Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College, and lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer, and their daughter Grace Experience.  They are passionate supporters of Homeward Bound (the Addison County Humane Society), Burlington’s Committee on Temporary Shelter, Concord Academy, the United Church of Lincoln, and a small elementary school in rural Armenia, where this year they are funding a new fresh water and plumbing system. 

Novel Matters: Tell us about your newest novel.  

Chris Bohjalian: “The Light in the Ruins” began as a re-imagining of ‘Romeo & Juliet,’ this time set

in Tuscany at the end of the Second World War.  I have always savored love stories – especially epic love stories set in war.  Books such as ‘Atonement’ and ‘The English Patient.’

            And while the love story is instrumental to the novel, the tale grew beyond that.  Now it’s the story of two young women, one of whom was a partisan battling the Nazis and Blackshirts. The other is a Tuscan nobleman’s daughter who falls in love with a German lieutenant.  The book moves back and forth in time between the cataclysm that was Tuscany in 1944 and Florence in 1955 – when a serial killer is murdering one-by-one the remnants of the nobleman’s family.

            It’s set in one of my favorite parts of the world: That part of Italy called the Crete Senesi – the hills and woods and the eerily lunar-like landscape south of Siena. I bike there and do some of my best writing in a medieval granary that figures prominently in the tale.

            The novel goes on sale on July 9. To purchase the novel or learn more about it, click here:  

NM: Some authors write one book a year and others write a handful over a lifetime. In the beginning, did you consciously choose one of these paths over the other, and are you happy with that choice today? 

CB: No. I was simply hoping to write a novel after (finally) selling a short story. I amassed 250 rejection slips before I sold a single word.

            That first short story is called “Sparks” and it appeared in Cosmopolitan Magazine in 1988.

NM: Writing careers ebb and flow—one day you’re an Amazon 5-star, the next you’re on your way to the bargain table. Always, every day, however, you’re an artist. The story must be written. How do you—do you?—separate yourself from opinions to give your creative self for another day of writing?

CB: I don’t dare read the reviews on Goodreads or Amazon or BN.com. I used to. I wrote an essay once for the Washington Post about my old addiction to reading the way anonymous people would eviscerate my work. But now, in the interest of my mental health, I give the reviews as wide a berth as I can. They can really screw up a sunny day.

Here is that essay I wrote for the WashingtonPost.

NM: If tomorrow were the first day of your career, what advice would you give yourself?

CB: Write what you love; write what moves you and makes you proud.

NM: Writers debate whether to write a novel using a detailed outline vs. no outline, just go with the gut. Which do you prefer? What role does epiphany play while planning or writing?

CB: I never have an outline. I depend upon my characters to take me by the hand and lead me through the dark of the story. I begin with only a vague premise of what the novel is about.

NM: What's the one thing (be it a technology, a notebook, a wristwatch, or pen) that you can't be without as a writer?

CB: Sugar Free Red Bull.

NM: Who do you turn to for advice when things are rocky on your writing journey?

CB: My editor and my literary agent.

NM: What advice do you give to writers who are looking to seize the year and take control of their writing career?

CB: I don’t. I’m not presumptuous.

NM: The theme this year on Novel Matters is Carpe Annum: Seize the Year! Tell us about a turning-point time in your journey as a writer when you took hold of your career. What did that look like? How did that moment change you as a writer?

CB: In 1992, I finally wrote a pretty decent novel: “Water Witches.” The voice felt authentic and the story felt original. It was my fourth book. I wished my previous three books had never been published. I still keep them all out of print.

Thanks so much, Chris, for sharing a part of your writing journey with us. We're excited about your latest!