The Solitary Freelance Writer

Have I mentioned? On the morning of April 18, I'll be giving the keynote for the Triangle Area Freelancers conference on "Seven Secrets of Freelancing I Wish I'd Known from the Start." If you're in central North Carolina, I hope you'll come. I also wish there had been a TAF years ago when I was getting started in magazines and newspapers.

I remember when the feeling of solitude started to feel heavy at some point in the second half of my first year. I decided that maybe going out to lunch would help, but couldn't find anybody loose to join me that day. So I went by myself to a semi-hip restaurant where they had booths placed in odd settings within the restaurant. Mine, as it happened, was in a jail cell. So I sat there by myself looking through actual bars.

Nobody needs networking more than writers, for information, contacts, and mental health.



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Transgressive Writing

Because I (and others) consider my novel-in-progress to be a transgressive book involving transgressive sex, I was very struck when I received a comment about this sort of thing in an email conversation with my friend George. (I should mention that George, a visual artist and poet, doesn't like capital letters.)

"i consider (Updike) to be one of those who substantiate my idea that the theme for 20th century art is transgression.....perhaps it is always the operant theme....for success."

As Burger King ads have argued, "Sometimes you've gotta break the rules."

Two thoughts of my own on this subject:
*First know the rules and then break them, as needed, for good reasons. To be worthwhile the breakage must accomplish something.
*Know that there are likely to be be some costs involved.

I'm hoping that useful transgression will also be a theme of the early twenty-first century.



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Writing: Bold Characterization

When I teach character development in fiction writing, I rely on an exceedingly clever (personally assembled) acronym, TOADS.

To show what a character is experiencing from the inside, use that person's:
*Thoughts, in the ragged language of thought
*Observation, what the person notices
*Action
*Dialogue
*Sensation

What not to do: explain and summarize the person's personality.

I like to make the TOADS point clear in the most vivid, bold, and tangible way. I've done this before by bringing a live toad to class and setting the little fellow loose.

Lately I've been gathering a collection of thrift-shop toy toads, to give students or clients as memory devices.

Here are a few of them on my arts-and-crafts spot at home, irresistibly colorful and distinct, every one of them a real character.

In addiion to offering writing advice, any one of them can be a desk toy reminder to be one's own vivid self.




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Keep Balance

A writer told me today that novelist Walker Percy kept on his desk a sign that said: Wait.

Another similar piece of wisdom received second-hand this afternoon: Be Cool. A much-published novelist offered this as advice to a younger writer startled to find himself suddenly in demand and needing to make choices.

I have a bias toward hastiness. I find it hard to refrain from a quick decision, quick action. Especially if I think I have a fish on the line who might be tempted to get away.

It's hard to wait and hard to be cool. Especially when the fate of one's novel is involved.

Still it's good advice: to let a decision rest overnight, to wait a bit and reread before sending out work that has just been revised.

In any event, it's valuable to remember: boldness does not mean rushing into action too soon.

I know a boy who, when thanking his family members during his bar mitzvah, told the congregation he had learned "chillness" from his older brother.

I'm almost sixty and in the last few years, I've learned some chillness, though not a whole lot. I do have a few strategies for moments when rashness beckons:

*leave the location
*get away from computer and phone
*get physical exercise
*talk to somebody calm
*meditate
*do a routine brainless chore like weeding
*tell whoever is pushing me that I'll get back tomorrow , even when I'm the one who is pushing me.





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