HOLIDAY IN BOOKSTORES: Marking the Trees

(NOTE: Tell Kudu-Crawlin’ Red, tell Abyssinian Ned/Tell ol’ Pistol Pete, everybody gonna meet/Tonight we need no rest, we really gonna throw a mess/We gonna to break out all of the windows, we gonna kick down all the doors/We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long/All night long/All night long/All night long)

In a Paris Review interview, William Faulkner said, “…the best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it’s the perfect milieu for an artist to work in. It gives him perfect economic freedom; he’s free of fear and hunger; he has a roof over his head and nothing whatever to do except keep a few simple accounts and to go once every month and pay off the local police. The place is quiet during the morning hours, which is the best time of the day to work. There's enough social life in the evening, if he wishes to participate, to keep him from being bored…”

Even better is the bookstore, where the exchange of ideas and old stories made new by new readers happens as soon as the doors open for business. The bookseller is there to greet you with marvels: history, how-to and where-to, fantasy, literature, cookery and cooking, poems of thunder and light, foreign languages, birding, travel, great screaming novels of these here states, art, and fuzzy kittens doing funny things. Inside a bookstore are light and life, and, contrary to Faulkner’s chosen venue, less chance of getting an STD. This is important.

BLACK FRIDAY BLUES

Many Americans slump to the sales offered by the big stores on the day after or the day of Thanksgiving, in search of savings for the next round of overindulgence in December. Some regard this orgy of consumerism as a sign of the end of days. They may be right. What is bought today is landfill tomorrow, and most landfill sites are already full. Rarely does a book poke out of the pile of broken and pointless merchandise. A book lasts longer than the sweet sentiment behind its giving, and is passed down and around friends and family.

TAKE YOUR WALLET TO SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY

An alternative to Black Friday is Small Business Saturday, coming to you on November 30, 2013. Smart, good-looking, and properly groomed writers will stalk the aisles of your favorite independent bookstore to give bookish advice, giftwrap your purchases, and generally help the booksellers who help them. Poet, novelist, and short story writer Sherman Alexie (appearing at Queen Anne Book Company, Secret Garden Books, and Elliot Bay Book Company among others in Seattle, Washington) came up with this idea, and bookstores and writers have taken it from one side of the country to the other. Dave Barry will be at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida; Amy Brill and Jon Scieszka at Community Bookstore in Brooklyn, New York; Rick Bass at Fact & Fiction in Missoula, Montana; Ginny Rorby at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, California; and a whole bunch of others. Check out the website at www.indiebound.org/indies-first-stores, and let your conscience do the buying.

ALTERNATIVE TO ANOTHER DULL DAY

Faulkner grabbed the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949, and this is why he could say what he did in the interview with Jean Stein. Not so with The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). This fine book is polite, courteous, self-effacing, and can be read in front of decent people. When out on Small Business Saturday, make sure to purchase at least seven copies from your local independent bookstore. Each will come in handy as gifts to the readers and writers on your list that have been good all year long, except for the weekend in April no one talks about. Log on to www.indiebound.com to find the store near you. Now wash your hands.

NEXT: Paw Prints on the Pillow

OBSERVE AND RETORT: Tail Wagging for the Neophyte

(NOTE: Here we all are/Sittin’ in a rainbow/Hello Mrs. Jones/How’s your Bert’s lumbago?/I’ll sing you a song,/With no words and no tune/To sing at your party/While you suss out the moon/Lazy Sunday afternoon/I got no mind to worry/I close my eyes and drift away)

Mr. Detroit is back in town after recovering from Rio de Janeiro’s Carnevale last February, when he sustained several samba-related bruises and contusions. Nurses from among the city’s bathing suit models cared for the less-than-limber limbo dancer until he healed enough to travel. He read too much while in bed and not very happily.

“Some clown sent me a stack of new novels and short story collections. Most of them were like going through MFA class assignments, or failed movie scripts with a little description to break the dialogue. I mean, hey, no one with an operating brain can read this junk. Only backrubs from the nurses and the collection of novellas from Jim Harrison, Brown Dog (Grove Atlantic, $27.00), kept me from going nuts. Tell me, hot shot, where does good writing come from?”

LOOK OUTSIDE

Harrison is a master observer, either by birth or application, and his stories, novels, and poetry are born of his unique one-eyed taking in of the world. Writing, like the sciences, comes from observation. Want to learn the phases of the moon? Watch the moon. How about fruit fly reproduction, sound waves, an orchid’s life cycle, turtle migration, or thermodynamics? Watch, read, and take notes. Most phenomena will show its true nature when observed without judgment or bias.

THE NIGHT THE BED FELL

For the writer, the subject is people in all their strange and pleasant forms. James Thurber (1894–1961) preferred staying at home for his material, while his wife, Helen, liked being sociable. One evening she convinced him to go to a party. They greeted their host and went off in different directions to talk to friends. Helen found Thurber an hour or so later by himself in a corner. He watched people talk, eat canapés, drink mid-priced cocktails, and dance when the band played. Helen stalked over to his hiding place and demanded, “When will you stop working?” (In Thurber’s defense, he worked at the New Yorker under constant deadline pressure to pay for his house in Connecticut.)

BURN YOUR SMARTPHONE

Imagination comes from inspiration and information. Anything can happen when you take out the ear buds and stop jabbering. Look at people and watch how they interact with the buildings, roadways, cafes, trees, bodies of water, and each other. Be caught up in social movements; take a stand no matter how odd. Humanity is your subject, otherwise writing becomes just a gathering of sentences to break up a white page.

An auburn haired woman walks down the street wearing a blue jean jacket and red skirt propelled by long, pale legs leads to thoughts of a disorganized French tricolor flag and Eugène Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People.” Imagination asks: Where is she going? Who will she meet? What will she do? What will be the outcome? Is she humming “La Marseillaise” while she waits for the light at the intersection? The elements can merge in a short story so compelling it would make Anton Chekov envious if he still lived.

At least recycle the ugly, self-involved, cellular brutes.

STATUS FOR THE STATUS-SEEKERS

Everyone wants to be well-loved and well known, and the best book to help you attain both is The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). In finer restaurants, waving a copy at the maître d’ guarantees preferred seating. Dentists offer free floss for readers of The Dog, and car mechanics are so fond of the book’s classy cover, inspiring pages, and squared corners they will rotate your tires. To enjoy a fuller, happier life, and learn a bunch about writing and publishing, log on to www.indiebound.com for the nearest absolutely cool independent bookstore near you.

NEXT: Marking the Trees

NECESSARY OUTLINE: Water Bugs in the Water Dish

(NOTE: Thanks to the bounteous sitter,/Who sat not at all on his seat,/Down with the beer that’s bitter,/Up with the wine that’s sweet,/And Oh that some generous “critter,”/Would give us more ducks to eat!/Carving with elbow nudges,/Lobsters we throw behind,/Vinegar nobody grudges,/Lower boys drink it blind,/Sober as so many judges,/We’ll give you a bit of our mind.)

Say you live in a small windblown town whose only bit of neon is a café sign saying “EATS,” and the eats are uniformly terrible. You want a big city’s big lights, mountains (you’ll settle for steep hills), traffic, gentlemen’s clubs, bookstores, movie theaters, and an arugula salad. One morning you decide to leave, pack a bag with essentials like clean socks, and start walking. The city you seek is in the west and that is direction of your first step. Will you get there? Most likely weekend trekkers will find your bones several years later, picked clean by varmints and critters. So much for relocation.

What you did wrong was ignore the need for a map to get you from there to here along the most direct or scenic route. Building a house without blueprints is impossible. Even assembling a table from IKEA needs plans, no matter how Swedish or incomprehensible. The same goes for telling a story: you need an outline to get where you want to go.

EASIER THAN IT SOUNDS

An outline shows all the characters, settings, plot arcs, subplots, and action of a story in point form. The initial spark of a short story or novel will only get the writer through a small amount of pages before being bogged down in what happened before and what should happen next. With an outline in hand, the writer knows where to go, and unlike the nasty math teacher demanding you show your work, the outline is private. No one except you will see that it is written in green crayon on brown Kraft paper.

WHO USES THE OUTLINE

Writers from Henry Miller to Elizabeth Gilbert have sworn by the outline as a vital adjunct to the writing process. For those who are burdened with a day job, the outline is a faithful companion when a manuscript is picked up after being put aside for any length of time. The human brain is unable to accurately recollect so much information, and having an outline makes sure you continue going in the right direction. As an added treat, the outline is useful when composing a synopsis for editors and agents.

FUN WITH ERASERS

Writing is discovery so the outline is elastic, able to stretch and contract at will. A character changing gender or motivation will affect the whole story. With an outline, you can follow the repercussions and make adjustments where needed. The outline is never stolid. It’s your story and you can do what you want. The outline is there for you to write better and tell a compelling story that dampens the eye and softens the hardened heart.

FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS UNSTEADY

Readers around the world have experienced increased blood circulation, hair follicle growth, greater muscle coordination, and clearer skin by reading The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). This sparkling gem is full of the neatest writing advice and publishing wisdom available without a prescription. For the sake of your health, get down to your local independent bookstore today and buy multiple copies before the Food and Drug Administration bans this cure-all. Click over to www.indiebound.com to find the store nearest you.

NEXT: Tail Wagging for the Neophyte

READING FOR SUCCESS: You Call That a Collar

(NOTE: Why do they have the gold/Why do they have the power/Why why why/Do they have the friends at the top?/Why do they have the jobs at the top?/We’ve got nothing/Always had nothing/Nothing but holes and millions of them/Living in holes, dying in holes/Holes in our bellies and holes in our clothes/Marat we’re poor/And the poor stay poor/Marat don’t make us wait anymore)

The middle of autumn has a snotty attitude and nasty weather, so any young writer thinks about reading since wind surfing is really out of the question. New books crowd store windows, along with reading lights, Joyce Carol Oates coffee mugs, more Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings boxed sets, e-readers, refrigerator magnets of classic Penguin covers, pens, pencils, and Dante toddler hoodies. With so many choices ready for the frenzy known as the holiday season, the young writer stumbles in finding the right ones for their work.

OLD VERSUS THE NEW

The novels you read when younger have changed on account of you have changed, read more, traveled more, written more, and these activities add to what you can get out of a book. Alexandre Dumas’ tales of hashish in The Count of Monte Cristo were missed when you read them at age twelve, but now you know what he was going on about from readings in French literature on Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, and the Club des Hachichins. Education should always be fun. Along with this revelation, the young writer can also look at Dumas’ use of direct address and other flourishes that make the story a great read.

Start with Anne Fadiman’s Rereadings: Seventeen writers revisit books they love (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), especially the essay by Luc Sante on Arthur Rimbaud.

GOOD QUESTION IN SEARCH OF BETTER THAN A FLIP ANSWER

Writers read in their own areas of expertise: novels for novelists, and nonfiction for nonfiction writers. The crossovers occur when novelists need fact for their fiction, and nonfiction writers need emotional depth in making an event come alive for the reader. Philip Roth said in a 2011 Financial Times interview: “I’ve stopped reading fiction. I don’t read it at all. I read other things: history, biography. I don’t have the same interest in fiction that I once did.” This was a sign not to read his. Dedication to the craft means always reading in your field. No one has read everything, except for Harold Bloom.

GOOD OR BAD

What about quality? Reading badly written or admittedly cheap trash books is used as a tonic for many writers. Characters, settings, and themes are the last considerations when flipping through the pages. Bad books are the literary equivalent of reality television shows, and rarely worth the effort except to shut down the brain for a needed jolt of the blank space. An overwhelmed writer is better with a bad book where thinking is discouraged than with Virginia Woolf. Save To the Lighthouse until the energy returns and you can roll into the non-linear plot of big thoughts.

GET DOWN TO GEAR UP

The line outside your local independent bookstore is for The Dog Walked Down the Street: An Outspoken Guide for Writers Who Want to Publish (Cypress House, $13.95). Jump right in and stake your place, meet interesting people who want to know as much about publishing and writing and editing as you do, and warm up with hot coffee at the nearest café afterward. Live and love longer with The Dog on your night table. Log on to www.indiebound.com for directions to the store nearest you. Dress appropriately.

NEXT: Water Bugs in the Water Dish