Master Class

Zestful Blog Post #121

When you work at home it’s important to get out of the house now and then. Yesterday Marcia and I went to the Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg to see the special M.C. Escher exhibit. As I posted on Facebook and Twitter (yeah, cripe, I actually sent out a couple of real-time tweets), Escher was one of my artistic heroes in college. Indeed, I’m sure his precise methods and mind-blowing illusions are still popular with lots of college kids. Anybody else remember that black-light poster version of ‘Three Spheres’?

The exhibit, on loan through Jan. 3 from the Herakleidon in Greece (yeah, I wonder too) shed more light on Escher for me. I hadn’t known or remembered that he’d been born (1898) into a rich Dutch family, who helped support him as he worked to develop his skills and market his work. He married, had kids, and kept working.

Yesterday I learned that it took him THIRTY YEARS to get his income high enough to support his family adequately. During this time he was frequently depressed due to his lack of financial success. One might expect that he shouldn’t have gotten downhearted, because hey, his parents were behind him, and his kids were assured of food, school shoes, and summer camp.

But I can relate. Anyone who has tried to earn an independent living from art can relate. (Anybody else thinking of Van Gogh right now?) You want to succeed, and income is a sign that your art is making the full circle it’s supposed to make: from you to the consumer, then back to you to make more. Serious artists the world over feel this urgency.

So don’t ever feel greedy or shabby if you yearn for your art to pay off. It means you care.

[I always attempt to copy something whenever I go to a museum. My efforts pale in comparison, but I learn something every time. Here I tried to represent the subtle difference of light: It’s falling on the upper edges of the leaf, making them slightly brighter, and leaving the lower edges darker.]

Another thing. Escher loved Italy; he met his wife there, had a child, and found great inspiration in the country’s landscapes. But things got bad under Mussolini. In 1935 Escher moved his family to Switzerland, where his kids wouldn’t be forced to march around in quasi-military uniforms carrying dummy guns. The wintry Swiss landscape felt desolate to him, and his art withered. Until, that is, he decided he’d better stop mourning Italy and look within for inspiration. This triggered his work with plane division, tessellation, and dimensional illusion. And that is what made him a rock star in his own lifetime.

A profound lesson.

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Stuff That Bugs Me, Vol. II

Zestful Blog Post #120

Point 1:

When I was little and just developing my powers of reason, I’d try to argue with my mother over some abominable requirement, like bedtime at seven-thirty. As all children do, I pointed out that she didn’t have to follow the rule.

“An exception proves the rule,” she’d say smugly, and that was the end of it.

I’d stand there uneasy and baffled, not yet able to express that what she said didn’t make sense. I figured it was some adult, mystical wisdom I’d eventually get the combo to someday.

But here I am, knowing better, yet I keep hearing people use that phrase to excuse or justify whatever contradiction they prefer. God damn it.

[This is me, busily tilting at sloppy usage.]

The real roots of the phrase are ancient. In Roman law, the phrase meant that an exception demonstrates that a rule exists. It did not mean that an exception confirms the rule. But also, one of the several meanings of the word ‘prove’ means to test, or more crudely, find fault with. When you read for proof, you are looking for mistakes.

So, logically, an exception invalidates the rule. Therefore, children should be permitted to stay up until “Lost in Space” is over.

Point 2:

If I hear or read one more news item like, “The report said the cause of the fire was arson, which begs the question: Who would benefit from the loss?,” I’ll run screaming into the desert. Then I’ll shoot myself in the head while throwing myself off a cliff. That should bring me peace, at last.

‘Begs the question’ is the term for a type of fallacy that can also be called circular reasoning. It takes for granted that which is being argued for. Example: I know this document is true because the document says it’s true.

It is nonsensical to use the term ‘begs the question’ when one means ‘prompts the question.’ In fairness, I have in recent months noticed some journalists getting it right. It’s such a great day when I don’t have to drop what I’m doing and sprint into the desert, carrying my .357 magnum and looking for a cliff.

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Practice the Hard Parts First

Zestful Blog Post #119

When I was a young musician my teacher told me, "Practice the hard parts first." Because it's so tempting, especially for a youngster, to practice the easy stuff and sort of forget about the tough stuff—trusting that somehow it’ll come—until we get caught out in an audition or performance and we stumble exactly where every other loser stumbles.

I’ve ignored that advice to my regret, followed it to my satisfaction, and dispensed it many times over the years. It’s excellent advice for anyone, at any age, who’s dedicated to doing something well.

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A Drafty Vault

Zestful Blog Post #118

The current issue of Writer’s Digest magazine (August/September 2015) features an article by yours truly called “What Real Revision Looks Like.” My idea was to Show Not Tell aspiring authors different ways to revise, by printing before-and-after excerpts from my own published novels. At 4,000 words, it’s the longest piece I’ve ever done for the magazine, and it was a lot of fun, in spite of the heavy lifting required.

[The dining-room table looked like this for a while.]

Yes, I literally had to do some lifting, in order to retrieve and go through the early rough drafts of my novels, hunting for passages that would illustrate, when compared with the finished, published product, how to recognize manuscript problems and fix them, using elements of good fiction.

I do possess the original handwritten drafts of all my books except for the first, Holy Hell. The very earliest pages of that one I threw out at some point during the 1990s, when I had typed a version onto a diskette (yeah, techno, baby), had minimal storage space in my apartment, and the belief that it would be vain and insane and bad karma to think the manuscript would someday have any historical/scholarly value. But I did some heavy rewriting of it later, and discovered those handwritten pages in the vault. The vault is the place where our house trolls live, beneath the stairs. The manuscripts are in cardboard manuscript boxes stacked in plastic storage totes. None of this is archival, but oh well. Authors, even minor ones, are supposed to keep their original documents and bequeath them to an appropriate archive. I’ve not made this bequest yet, believing it would be vain and insane and bad karma to think my manuscripts will someday have historical/scholarly value. About 10 years ago I read a magazine article that told about some archive that was (at least then) paying ordinary published authors thousands of dollars, like 10 or 15K, for each of their first drafts they wanted to sell. I don’t know if that’s still real.

Like many living authors, the thought that somebody may write their PhD thesis on my work someday is both flattering and disturbing. The dead ones could care less. But hey, how many analyses of Shakespearean slang can the Library of Congress keep track of?

At any rate, it was fun revisiting those old pages—seeing the reams’-worth of yellow pads I used, the different inks—Pelikan Brown looks good against goldenrod paper—from my varied fountain pens and nibs. I mourn the fact that Waterman changed the name of its beautiful Florida Blue to Serenity Blue. Thanks, dudes. Now that I live in Florida I can’t even buy ink with my state name on it.

OK, this is getting too self-referential. About the article for a sec. The most key point is that revision does not necessarily mean cutting material. Yeah, you’ll probably cut some, maybe a ton. But revision is a lot about writing new stuff, to clarify, to make more compelling, to make more magic. I say, during revising: Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow.

Before I sign off, here’s some wonderful news from Diane Dettmann, an early adopter of You’ve Got a Book in You: Her new book, Courageous Footsteps: A WWII Novel, is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online bookstores, as well as in bookstores local to her town of Afton, Minnesota.

She’s launching the book locally at an historic ice cream parlor in Afton on August 8 from 2-4. Hustle on over and meet a great gal, check out her intriguing book, and consume mass quantities. Congratulations, Diane!

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