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Did you miss this event?
If you couldn't attend our conversation about The Irish Girl, you can listen to it at this link with passcode .6.2T+@^
My friends are getting this book in their stockings :-)
Happy Holiday dear friends,
Through the last week I've been wrestling with an idea in my writing and in my life, the idea that "attention is devotion."
The wrestling part derived first from listening to Jeanine Ouellette's ideas on using externality (clear-eyed, truthful observations of the outside world we all experience) in our writing, as a better grounding for finding “true organic metaphors" that sing for readers.
The idea “attention is devotion” comes more easily than the one on externality.
We all know that paying full attention to a partner, child, or friend, is essential for growing deep, intimate, and real relationships. I get that. But how did that apply to my writing and how did it apply to attention = devotion?
Then last week a very stressful problem dropped in my lap from someone I had admired (of course it was also the holiday) and I became entirely stuck, or at least stalled, on Chapter 11 of my new book. And presto, no writing for ten days, the longest streak since I started my book. I'd had such good momentum going and I didn't want it to stop.
After mulling over Ouellette’s ideas, things started coming together. We need full attention to external observations of the world, that when strung together in our writing, will spark true metaphor. In doing so, we come close to devotion. We are devoting our attention to the way we play with words; to our reader's experience of those words; to illuminating or propelling action or change (through understanding, humility, and grace).
This got me thinking about the notion of how little we really know of the world around us despite the stories we tell ourselves. This led me to think about the world I’m building in this book. My usual approach is to start by opening a blank page and typing. But that, suddenly, wasn’t working. But it made me think of an exercise I used to use with business clients when they felt stuck about direction, or vision, or goals. Some of them wouldn’t do it, but most love it.
They were to turn off all distractions, close the door, close their eyes, and focus on the world they wanted to build through their company. If they got 10 minutes it was often enough but 20 was better. That simple exercise always broke through barriers (especially the barrier of time which for execs is entirely consumed all day long), provided space for deep contemplation, and humility about how to get from where their company was then to where they wanted it to be.
A few days ago I gave myself that exercise. I closed the door, sat at my desk, and closed my eyes.
I placed my two characters on the beach of this scene. I set my timer for 15 minutes (a compromise) and let them move around as they wished, listening to the gulls squawking and the geckos chirping, the water lapping the shore, the bystanders sunbathing, swimming, and talking loudly. I thought of myself as a director with her pieces in place and calling "Action!"
For whatever reason, I'd never really used this exercise in my writing.
What I found was profound. As soon as the timer went back to my chapter in process and restarted it with a more cinematic view. What came was richer, more nuanced, and with greater detail. There was a twist in the characters’ conversation I hadn’t thought of before and they moved around each other differently. Then, I discovered an object in the “movie” I’d created in my mind, that might, with more work, become closer to a “true organic metaphor.”
I went back to Ouelette. On this podcast, she had read a quote from Maria Papova in The Marginalian that slayed me.
Here it is:
"Nothing, not one thing, hurts us more or causes us to hurt others more, than our certainties. The stories we tell ourselves about the world and the forgone conclusions with which we cork the font of possibility are the supreme downfall of our consciousness. They're also the inevitable cost of survival, of navigating a vast and complex reality, most of which remains forever beyond our control and comprehension. and yet in our effort to parse the world, we sever ourselves from the full range of its beauty, tensing against the tenderness of life."
Feel free to read twice!
As a human, these words rang so true to me. Apropos of our country, our politics, and our communities. I hadn’t seen this quote before, but I know that through the twenty years I was working at writing Poetic License, they could have been my true organic metaphor.
We change, we grow, we get knocked down, we hurt, but it’s the tenderness of life that I hold dear.
Hasty Book List
Books Set in the 1920s
I'm thrilled that The Butcher, The Embezzler, and The Fall Guy is included in Ashley Hasty’s must-read books set in the 1920s! Great gift idea for anyone who enjoys a true crime investigative memoir!
From My Stack
I'm in a period of reading six books at the same time! Does this happen to you? The first two are climate-related and I'm about 1/4 way through each of them, so just a few words for now in case they spark holiday interest:
Our son sent us The Heat Will Kill You First—Life and Death on a Scorched Planet by Jeff Goodell—a searing portrait of what's going on around us, with terrific human stories for hooks.
Our daughter sent us What if We Get it Right—Visions of Climate Future by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who lives in Maine. A positive look at all that's possible if only we'll allow for it. We heard Ayana speak recently and she was fantastic. This one would be great under any tree (of which she writes quite a bit!).
I'm nearly through Aftermath by Rachel Cusk, a beautiful meditation on the end of her marriage and the beginning of new life for herself and her daughters.
I've barely started Knife—Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie, which I picked up and put down, but will pick up again next week.
I'm a third of the way through How to Read a Book, Monica Wood's wonderful story of three characters brought together in a bookstore who must reconcile their pasts. Can't wait to dig in again!
And, finally, if you don't want climate, (real) attempted murder, an awakening after divorce, my sixth book-in-process is The Grey Wolf by the miraculous Louise Penny, who we also saw recently, the latest cozy murder in her charmingly cozy Quebec village. Michael's finished it and wants me to hurry up so we can compare notes!
May your stretch of holidays, whichever and however you celebrate them, bring good reading time, and much attention to the world we all love and the people in it. And if either of my books suits your fancy, feel free to gift to a friend.
All best,
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