I imagine in some alternate universe there is a place where kids who say they want to grow up and be a doctor or lawyer are given a talk about how that would be a nice hobby but they need to major in something serious when they go to college, like drama or creative writing. While everyone supported my desire to be a writer, and gave me all those "great job" compliments on poems and stories when I was in elementary school, no one ever thought seriously enough of it to suggest that I actually try to learn how to become a professional writer. It's not that I needed someone else to tell me I was good enough; I needed direction on how to figure that out on my own. I stood in the writing section of a thousand bookstores over the years, bought way too many copies of Writers Market and tried to find some plan or path that would tell me how one goes about learning the writing craft.
I have degrees in aviation management, history and northern studies. You can see how the whole "figure it out on your own" thing worked out in terms of college.
Slowly, over the years, I have found bits of pieces of information that showed me not necessarily the direct steps to become a writer (there is no road map I'm afraid), but stories from those who made it. I'm not interested in how to write a novel in six months or some kind of weird novel formula, but more just what the writing life is like. I want to know how people who work in the profession that I aspire to think and act and get the job done. It's reasonable to have this sort of interest I think and unreasonable to assume that anything a person is passionate about should ever be relegated to "hobby" or "after the real work is done" status.
Do what you love, love what you do. It might come from a t-shirt company, but it's a way of life I aspire to. (And I can vouch for the shirts - make sure you dry them as they shrink to fit and are awesome!) So without further ado, books that I think writers will want to read:
Zen & the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. There are actually several Bradbury items that I think aspiring writers would enjoy, even if they have no interest in his fiction. (Crazy fools!) Zen is a collection of essays on the craft that Bradbury published over the years in various magazines and they run the gamut from how he came to write certain stories (or types of stories) to why he thinks the act of writing matters so much. It's a great collection to dip into and what makes it really worth the money is that there will something in here that will appeal to anyone - so no worries that it will tossed aside unread. Would someone please reissue this book with a decent cover though? The current design is so so bad - it hurts to look at it.)
Sam Weller wrote a biography of the author, The Bradbury Chronicles, that I found to be really well done, as it shows how he worked at his craft - relentlessly - and got better and better at it over time. There was no silver bullet to the author's success and Weller's book (which is very well written) shows that. Combine these two with the DVD, Ray Bradbury: An American Icon and you get an excellent inside look at one of America's greatest storytellers. The part where Bradbury shows the library that he "graduated from" was especially significant to me - I value those portions of my college courses where I was allowed to pursue my own interests but so much of it was pointless filler in many ways I think I would be right where I am today if I had just gone and read my way through the library.
But onward! No regrets!
Nicola Griffith's Always was a book I raved about earlier this year and I also wrote about her incredibly (dare I say brutally) honest memoir from Payseur and Schmidt, And Now We Are Going to Have a Party. This story of how a writer finds herself (in more ways than one) is quite impressive. It includes a big section on Nicola's experiences at Clarion which offers some insights to workshop life, but for my purposes it was the way Nicola bumped, banged and brooded her way along as she became a polished writer that has stuck with me. She did it - she didn't do any of it the easy way, but she did it the biggest way possible - the only way possible for her. I love that when she finally decided to write this book she went to a publisher that let her do it in in such an offbeat manner that it doubles as a work of performance art (even with a music CD!). Just seeing that this was the way she wanted to write this book - that she could even conceive of this kind of project - puts it over the top. Nothing boring about this writer, not the books she writes or the vision she has of the world.
Sarah Vowell really broke through with her last essay collection, Assassination Vacation (it didn't hurt that she did a star turn on The Incredibles either) but it is her first book, Take the Cannoli that reveals the most about her as a writer I think. It shows her journey to NYC and the readers follows the quirky development of this unique view and voice on America nearly from the beginning. Honestly when I saw that Vowell had carved out a career based on her innate American history geekiness it was a little hard for me to breathe for awhile. I knew you could write about American history but those were people with PhD's and years in academia, right? It's foolish that I ever thought you needed four degrees and a million years at Harvard to get anyone to care about your opinions on the country you live in, but that's what I was always told - that's the way the world was presented to me. Vowell just unleashes herself on the world and sits back to see if anyone listens. Reading her essays was a revelation to me as a writer. I can do this, I thought. Not write like her but take a chance like her - be bold like her.
Sarah Vowell taught me what it meant to be smart and fearless; invaluable lessons for any writer.
And finally, a subscription to a literary magazine or two is an excellent choice for a budding author. Try to tailor the magazine to their interests, but be sure to get one like Tin House or The Paris Review that regularly interviews author. (In fact a copy of The Paris Review Interviews would be a great gift idea.) I like author interviews just because I'm curious about how books come together - especially nonfiction titles that require a ton of research - but writers need to read about other writers to believe that it is all possible. They need to read about how crazy, complicated and confusing the profession can be and most importantly they need to read that a lot of very smart and talented people believe that writing is worthy of their time - significant time. You can be a part time writer, you can write late at night or on the way to your desk job or while your kids are at soccer practice, but you need to write with the belief that it matters. All too often we are taught from the very beginning that writing is not serious work and that is a lie. It is the work of a lifetime and in more ways than one, it is work that can change the very world we live in.
Go read, and go write.
[See Dan Wickett's wonderful Emerging Writers Network for the most complete list of literary journals out there.]
