Scott Lax

 

Non-writing advice for the day: If you can, get your flu shot. H1N1 is no picnic. Trust me on this one.

I recently read a short interview with the great novelist John Irving, author of such books as "The World According to Garp," "Cider House Rules," and "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I admire Irving for many reasons. One is that he successfully writes literary fiction and it sells. That's no small accomplishment, and no accident. Irving believes in story telling; he has as his influences Dickens, Hawthorne and Melville. Like them, Irving manages to combine wonderful language with intricately plotted stories.

Too often today, fiction may be considered literary when its language is lovely or creative, but its plot almost non-existent, muted, or small. Plot-driven fiction, of the type by masters of that craft such as James Patterson, is filled with clunky, clichéd, sometimes awful writing, though the plots may be interesting and fun for readers. I can't handle them -- the writing is just too lazy. Still, I give that kind of book (and author, or teams of writers in some cases) credit for their plots. But that's about it.

There has to be a middle ground: one that contains the flowers of literary writing and the food of plot. John Irving inhabits that middle ground, that place, that island, and I'm glad of it. He writes beautifully and weaves intricate plots; he shows there is still a market for that kind of writing.

Daniel Stashower asked Irving, in AARP magazine, "What does 'Woe to him that seeks to please rather than to appal!' -- a quote from "Moby Dick" -- mean in your own work?"

"Be serious," Irving replied. "Life hurts. Reflect what hurts. I don't mean that you can't also be funny, or have fun, but at the end of the day, stories are about what you lose."

I agree with Irving. You can be funny, but life is serious business. If you want to be a serious writer -- and this is what I tell my students -- you need to shine a light into dark corners. That means you may find some gnarly things there, things that are hard to look at, much less write about. One corner may be clean and bright, but another may be filled with loss, grief, and hurt. That's where serious writing comes in. You have to be willing to go there, to show those corners, to write from deep in your soul, and do so in a way that brings the comfort and joy of expert story telling to your readers.

Irving does that. If you read his novels, you may laugh until you cry. And then you may cry. Yet you'll come out of his novels knowing more about the human condition. I think that's the finest thing an author can do for his or her fellow human beings.  Read More 

The great actor Henry Gibson died a couple of days ago. I worked with him on THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED. Henry was funny, gracious, kind and extraordinarily talented.

On my late mom's birthday, Henry gave her a giant silk flower, the kind he used on "Laugh In." He presented it to her, then he, Martin Mull, Fred Willard, and a few family members sang Happy Birthday to Mom by the Chagrin falls. It was a joyful moment.

On days off of filming, Henry would go to antique shops around Cleveland to buy gifts. He gave me an old plate. Both Mom's giant five-foot flower, and the plate, are in my office.

I once drove Martin Mull, Fred Willard, and Henry back to their hotel. Never have I laughed so hard behind the wheel of a car. Those three were firing one-liners at each other, and Henry... well, he kept up with Fred and Martin - no small task. (I tried a few lines and dropped out...it was like trying to play on a pro football team; I caught one or two out of luck, then got crushed.)

What a gentle soul he was, too, and yet, how deeply he could delve into the human condition, to play everything from wise men to fools; from a befuddled judge on "Boston Legal" to a stern school board president and lawyer in THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED. And so much more.

Henry wrote a note to me in my book, which I asked all the actors to sign. He wrote, "For Scott - Life begets life. Your friend, Henry." He truly lived, and loved, and created.

My sincerest sympathy goes out to his family. We have all lost a giant of the acting world, and most of all, a wonderful man. May he rest in peace. Read More 

There's a new and alarming lack of civility in the country: in congress, awards shows, at so-called "Town Hall" rallies and marches, which have taken racial slurs and hate-speech to levels not seen in this country since... I don't know when, really.

Does this devolution in public behavior translate to writing? Yes. Read cleveland.com, or any number of comments sections in any number of the nation's remaining newspapers. Thoughtful (usually) articles are followed by comments, the seeming majority of which are teaming with anonymous vitriolic and hateful language.

Editors foolishly allow this. An editor of a major American daily paper sheepishly told me over lunch that it's because they need "the clicks"; they need to show advertisers that people are reading (and spewing on) their Web sites. Quality no longer counts. Only clicks; only dollars. He knows it's wrong, but his bosses demand it.

It's sad and pathetic, and it's growing. All the more reason for those of us who love language and believe in civility and honest criticism instead of rage to resist this trend.

We have a president who is civil and decent and forceful without invoking hate speech. As writers, we can join his example.  Read More 

To make a terrible pun, I think it's time I weighed in on food writing.

There's a lot of it. It's everywhere. Writing about food - tweeting about it, blogging about it, feature writing about it, writing cookbooks, you name it: if you can eat it, you can write about it. A few million of our fellow writers are doing just that. And they have the pictures of their platings to prove it.

Honey bees are disappearing at alarming rates from around the world, which would seem to warrant more attention than bacon, cupcakes and everything else we learned was bad for us, but that the hipster culture now embraces with a fervor I haven’t seen since the Beatles landed at Idlewild Airport. And who am I to ignore a trend of that stature?

Good food writing needs to be good writing, not just writing about good food. The reason people like Michael Ruhlman get book deals and have popular blogs and go on TV to judge food contests is because people like Michael Ruhlman are good writers. Michael’s current – and perhaps it will be very long running – subjects are food, chefs, restaurants, and cooking. He’s adeptly crafted and connected two things: writing and food. Make no mistake: Michael is a devoted writer; he’s not just a cook and eater. He has written about a lot of subjects, and done so well enough to have an excellent career as an author.

I think it’s fine that there are so many blogs and articles about food. But if you’re serious about being published beyond a blog, you need to learn to write well. “Yum…cupcakes!” and “Yay…bacon!” and “…mmm…pig’s ear” aren’t going to get you book deals. Writing is very hard work, and takes practice, the same as being a great chef takes practice.

Learn to write first. Know your subject and try to write about it in ways that haven’t been done before. And while you’re at it, hipster friends, it wouldn’t kill you to eat an apple, carrot or a handful of almonds to go along with your bacon-wrapped cupcake drenched in duck fat and dipped in a bowl of sea salt and fennel.

Oh, and I highly recommend “Julie & Julia.” It’s a terrific movie, and a good example of food and excellent writing blending beautifully.

Bon appetit, and happy writing.  Read More 

One of the things that strikes me about Ted Kennedy's life and how he approached it, was that he believed that even with failings and flaws and tragedy, we can still attempt and sometimes do good works.

In view of writing, this holds true. I'm working on a book of short stories right now. One that I'm working on now, a 25-pager, calls me to edit it every day. I've made, I don't know, dozens, maybe a hundred plus changes. And I know that it will never be perfect, maybe never even be good, but I'll edit it until I think it's the best it can be. Then I'll let it go.

Even then, I'll know it could have been better. The publisher of THE YEAR THAT TREMBLED, Paul S. Eriksson, may he rest in peace, told me as my first novel was going to press, and I was begging for more changes, "There comes a time you have to let it go!"

Except Paul didn't exactly "say" it. He sort of yelled it. He was a grand and good man, with a passion for books, and he taught me a lot. So: my advice is to work and work on a project, and then let it go.

A work of literature is like being human: It will never be perfect.  Read More 

I met Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who passed away today, on a few occasions, mostly at the home of his sister-in-law, Ethel Kennedy, widow of Ted's late brother, Robert F. Kennedy. The senator was larger than life, with a big, booming voice, a welcoming smile, and whatever tragedy he carried inside him -and he had had more than his share - he seemed to have put into compartments in his soul. I sensed that he had faith that he would be reunited with his loved ones: his brothers and sisters, among others, who went before him. He was a close friend of a close friend of mine, and though I didn't know Ted well, I was then, and remain now, in awe of his political skills and accomplishments. He cared about regular people - people without privilege, and the means that he had; people without inherent power, and those who just plain fell on hard times. He fought for human rights in many ways throughout his career, building bridges with Democratic and Republican senators, and moved his causes forward, inch by inch at times, and, sometimes, with bold action.

My friend Ron Powers (he was not the friend of Ted Kennedy's I mentioned) helped the Senator write his memoir, which will be out September 14. That pairing was fitting: Ron is one of the most brilliant nonfiction writers of our time.

I can't wait to read this book. I hope it helps people understand the man, and realize that Senator Kennedy's ambitions -- universal health care being at the top of the list -- were noble, even if the senator himself had his flaws and troubles, which were both freighted upon him and self-inflicted, which he acknowledged.

I'm glad I met him. Passing universal health care, I am certain, would be the legacy most important to Edward M. Kennedy. Andrew Young commented today that universal health care was, for Ted, a human right. I agree with that view.

May Edward M. Kennedy, a great, if flawed American, rest in peace.
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When it comes to teaching, I like what James Baldwin said: "If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you're not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know that the effort is real."

That's all I try to do in my teaching: let students know that their effort is real. Sometimes they realize they don't want to make the effort. That's okay, too.

Most of a student's success comes because he or she has some talent, works hard, stays humble, takes some advice and throws out the rest. Creative writing teachers should guide their students' efforts; they should helping students find their stories, and find their voices in order to translate and shape those stories into the written form.  Read More 

I just read "War Dances," by Sherman Alexie, a short story in The New Yorker. I thought it was a pretty good story, and then it sneaked up on me and landed as a very good story. Such was the ease of his writing - he allowed the story and theme to unfold.

I reviewed his book of stories, TEN LITTLE INDIANS, for The Plain Dealer years ago, and gave it a rave review, which Alexie has used on his site and when the paperback came out. My editor at the time had me temper the review. I wrote, "Alexie has dipped a big toe into Ray Carver and John Cheever and Tim O'Brien territory," or something to that effect. She thought that was over-the-top, and asked me to cut it. Then about a dozen other newspaper reviews said basically the same thing. Still, I was able to write about what a great book it was.

He's an outstanding writer. He often writes about his vision of the modern American Indian experience in ways that are far from precious. He uses clichés sometimes, in the way that Cheever used clichés about WASPS or Roth about Jews or Baldwin about African Americans. That's what the great ones do: they turn the clichés inside out, and they don't care about being socially or academically correct, which I suppose is another way of using that old chestnut, "politically correct," which is out of style, even if it is a good phrase.

Don’t worry about being correct in that way, or precious. Make your characters honest, even if a particular character is dishonest. To try to manipulate characters to be what they’re not demeans your fiction and corrodes the truthfulness of what you write.  Read More 

You've heard it before, I know: but for writers, reading is so important. It exercises your literary brain cells. It gives you ideas. It expands your world far beyond your house and garden, place of work, and the places you go, from the grocery store to the park. I'm reading - with great fascination - Ian Frazier's New Yorker account of traveling through Siberia. I'm seeing Siberia through his eyes, and learning a lot about a mysterious part of the world, one that covers more land than the U.S. and Europe combined.

For writers: I suggest you try to sink your mind into substantial works, be they fiction, nonfiction, long essays, features, short stories or novels. Think about how the author has worked to put so many facts and impressions and narrative story lines together. Read actively (not stressfully); ask yourself how he or she was able to weave together such a magnificent story - or, if you don't like what you read, why that doesn't work for you, and what it lacks. That alone can help you get into the rhythm of writing longer pieces, and doing so with the same kind of satisfaction you get (I hope) from reading such pieces.  Read More