I’m grieving the loss of dictionaries, thick, massive volumes that I used to get lost in. I would open a page and find hundreds of words, all of them demanding my attention, each a miniature world to explore. But now I’ve become a victim of on-line lexicons because they are handier than putting aside my laptop computer and marching into the other room to unload the Oxford from a bookshelf where it resides. (more…)
Foghorns blast through the 7 AM San Francisco overcast. The only woman in the place, I saunter into the longshoreman’s union hall, trying to appear as if I did this every day. A few cigarette-scarred wooden tables offer a place for the men to gather and talk while waiting to be called to work. Billowing clouds of cigarette smoke hang ominously over everyone. 
Like detectives, writers need to be constantly observant, picking up clues from what people are wearing, how they gesture, the words they speak, the way they interact with others. They study people’s facial expressions and what they might suggest about the person, storing away the data in their memory banks. Or they’ll take notes in a writer’s journal that they’ll refer to later. 
Memoir writing blurs the line between truth and imagination in this revealing conversation with Lily Iona MacKenzie. We explore how creative writing techniques shape both fiction narrative and personal stories, as Lily explains her unique approach: “you lie in service of the truth.”
Yesterday, I had to kill time (terrible metaphor) while waiting to hear a friend of mine do a reading of his newly published memoir at a Corte Madera bookstore. So I hung out at Marin County’s Corte Madera Library. 
For years I felt guilty about breaking the heirloom toys my stepfather’s mother had preserved, relics of another era. I can still remember the excitement of lifting each object out of the boxes where they had been stored and bringing them to life again: tiny china dishes with hand-painted flowers; a miniature stagecoach carrying riders and pulled by horses; dolls with porcelain faces and hands, features frozen in smiles, dressed in stylish Victorian gowns; a doll house with elegant furniture and a family. 
Editing writing requires tremendous restraint. I was reminded of this recently when a poem I had submitted to an anthology was accepted providing I approved of the editor’s changes. I’m open to thoughtful revision suggestions—a text can always be improved—but I assume the recommendations will be just that, insightful observations that cause me to re-think my work. In that light, I can re-enter a poem or story and see if any of the ideas resonate enough for me to make changes. Yet since I’m the poem’s creator, I expect to revise it myself and have the last word on its content. 
I’ve been thinking about how loosely we use abstract words like love, happiness, and truth as if they had concrete, observable meaning. I tend to revolt from using love to close my email or other exchanges unless I really feel love for the person I’m corresponding with. It bothers me when people sign their correspondence “love” without considering whether or not the emotion really applies to the recipient. Maybe you feel loving towards someone on most days, but not every day. Isn’t it deceitful to say “love” if you aren’t feeling it at the moment? Wouldn’t such a response seem confusing? It leads the reader to believe that the writer actually has such strong feelings, that somehow we’re part of the writer’s inner circle. Often that isn’t true. 
Being a first-rate writer requires the same kind of training that an architect receives. A typical program includes courses in architectural history and theory, building design, construction methods, professional practice, math, physical sciences, and liberal arts. Writers may not need to study math or the physical sciences, but they do need to give themselves the best liberal arts education they can find, both formal and informal. And like architects, in order to be successful in their field, writers need not only vision and a rich imagination but also a strong foundation. 
Thank you, Zackary Vernon, for taking the time to share your professional writing journey with me and my readers. 
Being part of an on-line writing group for several years has provided many benefits. But with the positives come a few negatives.
Until recently, if I had wanted a restful getaway, I would not have chosen San Francisco or any big city. Getting away meant heading out of town, usually for a coastal inn. I wanted the leisurely pace and ocean views of Mendocino, Pacific Grove, Carmel, or Big Sur. 
Onyx wind chimes shaped like birds hang outside my bedroom. Each time a breeze stirs them, their music reminds me of the first trip I took to Mexico. While there, I was hoping to discover a part of the country that photographs can’t capture—the spirit of the place. Lawrence Durrell claims that landscape communicates this aspect. He says, “All landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper, ‘I am watching you—are you watching yourself in me’?” 
I recently reread Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady and have mixed feelings about the era and the characters. It’s difficult to read about Victorian morés from a 21st Century perspective. Not only do I need lenses that will give me a bi-cultural perspective, but I also feel squashed between a culture clash. Not long after I finished with Portrait, I read a review of A. M. Homes’ book May We Be Forgiven in The New York Review of Books. One of her main characters says, 
I’m remembering a fascinating article I read in the New York Review of Books some time ago about Joseph Cornell. In many ways, he feels like my spiritual father. I love his quirkiness, his living on the periphery, his unique vision. Reading about him makes me want to go out and haunt junk shops for interesting memorabilia to make things with, to start a collection that I can draw from. I had an image of turning an old radio into a kind of Cornell box. The Many Layers of Editing
September 26, 2016
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Small presses don’t have the reputation that larger presses do of having high editorial standards. But my experience with these presses, especially the one that is publishing Curva Peligrosa, my second novel, has been revelatory.
Before submitting the manuscript to the press for its consideration. I had been through it numerous times on my own, seeking to strengthen it. I also had hired two different “professional” editors to read and review it. They made valuable suggestions, many of which I used as a basis for additional rewrites.
But I’m discovering a whole new level of revising in my interaction with my publisher/editor. She has done one read through where she looked at overarching problems that should be addressed. Now I’m going through her second review that consists largely of line editing. She has found many inconsistencies that are unavoidable in a 350-page work. She also has made numerous suggestions that have helped me to add important detail or to deepen/streamline the narrative. It’s an invaluable experience to have this kind of attentive and intelligent questioning of passages that I thought were complete.
Of course, I resist some of her comments, and I don’t act on all of her recommendations—maybe two thirds. Though she is deeply involved in the characters and action, it is my creation, and she doesn’t know the book in the same way that I do. But, then, that’s my role as the author. Even so, the work is much stronger because of her involvement in it.
From this experience, I’ve discovered how valuable this kind of intensive editing can be. While I gave birth to the world I’ve created, it helps enormously to have a sensitive eye that can assist in the midwifery. I feel I’m receiving an even higher caliber of help in this process than I might have if a large publishing house had purchased the book. Not only is there more clarity, but seeing the characters/situations/settings through a sensitive reader’s eyes gives deeper insight into the work in general.
This won’t be the final edit (a copyeditor will look closely at grammatical/typographical errors next after I go through it again on my own), but it has been more than illuminating. My publisher/editor’s reading has raised the novel to another level, something not all published authors achieve.
My resistance to the writer initially colored my reaction to the story’s main character, Aaliya Sohbia, a 72 year-old Lebanese woman who lives an isolated life in Beirut. Books are her primary companions. Though I was pleased to see a contemporary work that featured an older person, I continued to resist this author and the idea of a male portraying a woman in the first person. I thought he would falter. Yet I ended up being amazed at how he inhabited Aaliya’s personality and created an eccentric type who has a wonderful wit and perspective on life in a war-town city I haven’t visited.
A strange thing happened. While I know some of the people outside of the FB world that I have become friends with there, many aren’t part of my everyday life, and I don’t interact with them outside of FB. However, I’ve discovered that even strangers from that milieu have become a peripheral part of my life. It’s a little like reading a novel where you engage with various characters as you read. They don’t actually exist outside of the narrative, but they take on significance as you learn more about them, lingering in your unconscious when you finish the book.