Buzz, Balls & Hype

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Advice from a Pro

On Sunday,  I had the privilege of seeing my musical theater teacher, Lorraine Serabian, perform in "Broadway Originals" at Town Hall. This annual program features actor/singers performing the now-classic songs they originated on Broadway.

I have had wonderful teachers whose performances disappointed me. Some teachers, like some editors, are more skilled at helping others achieve their potential than at shining themselves.

Lorraine isn't like that. She stole the show, even among such luminaries as Tammy Grimes and Marilyn Michaels. She lit up the stage with her passion and her beautiful voice.

We talked about the performance in class on Monday.  How, We wondered, does a person achieve the confidence that allows her to throw herself that completely into a role? Is it something you're born with?

Not at all, she assured us. She was "nervous as hell" before the performance, as usual. But, she said, if you keep performing, eventually you get sick of watching less talented but more aggressive performers tear up the stage, and you decide to plunge in. Sometimes this happens all at once; more often in stages, but we will get there.

I have decided to believe her.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

BEGINNINGS PART THREE: A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH CAROLINE LEAVITT

For many of us, the hardest part of writing is facing the initial blank screen. I asked novelist Caroline Leavitt to discuss her emotional and psychological process in beginning a novel.

Starting a new work for me is always a combination of a great leap of faith, terrible fear and stubborness. I always start with something that obsesses me--usually a what if around a character. The novel coming from Algonquin next year (no title yet!) started with my wondering about a crime in a 1950s suburban neighborhood, at a time when everyone is paranoid about the Cold War and women had little rights and everyone imagines they are living the American Dream. And that led to one of my main characters, Ava, a woman ahead of her time, who somehow, in the suburban paranoia, is targeted for the crime. I clung to that kernel the whole time I was writing the novel, but what I cling to even more is my first chapter.  I've always felt that the first chapter holds all the seeds for everything that germinates in the novel. Every clue, right down to the last--and hopefully surprising, but in an inevitable way--page, should be there.  So I work for months on my first chapter, and then I have to show it to a few other writers. When that chapter is right, it becomes my lifeline. When I'm in chapter 8 and convinced I should chuck it all and go to dental school instead, I look at that first chapter. It's as if that chapter says, "See? You can do this.  You can't give up. This is what haunted you. Keep going."

I'm always intimidated. I'm always sure that what I am writing is dull, stupid, boring, melodramatic or all of those adjectives. I have to keep myself from going on Amazon to compare myself to other writers (always dangerous.) I have to stop the fear in its tracks. I do this by hunkering down in my seat and putting blinders on, by writing the book that I need to write for myself (I'm not thinking of readers at this stage.). I outline and map what I imagine should happen and then I change it as I write. I'm waiting for edits on the 1950s novel, and I've started another new novel, and once again, I've got that first chapter-lifeboat. I'm trying to map out the story (though I know the map will change). I suffer writer's amnesia. I don't remember the process once it's over, but I'm trying to recall more and more because I think it's important to remember that yes, it's hard.  And yes, it is so, so worth it.

How do you get yourself from the intimidation phase to the hunkering-down phase? That is, do you simply remind yourself that you’ve been there before, and this is the antidote, or is there a more complex process?

That's a really great question.  I'm never intimidated at first--I almost always love the opening stages, which to me are like falling love. It's after the first hundred pages that I start to fall apart and panic. I have writers' amnesia. I forget that this happens every time so I have writer friends that I ask repeatedly, Was I like this last time? And then they email and they tell me that yes, I thought I didn't have a plot and never would.  That yes, I thought my characters were wooden and stupid. And yes, I was crying then, too. This reminder helps me to realize that this is a process, that this is the really tough time and all there is to it is to sit there every day and work through it.  I have to stop myself from dramatizing how difficult it is, and I have to stop myself from thinking that every other writer is having it easy and merrily writing along!

Caroline Leavitt is the author of nine published novels, most recently the New York Times bestseller Pictures of You. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts  Award in Fiction, and a Goldenberg Fiction Prize. She was also a National Magazine Award Nominee in Personal Essay, a finalist in the Nickelodeon Screenwriting Awards and a quarter finalist in the Fade In/Writers' Net screenplay competition. A book critic for The Boston Globe and People, she has also published in New York Magazine, Psychology Today, More, Cookie, Redbook and Parenting. Her tenth novel will be published by Algonquin.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

 

THE DOCTOR IS IN

LANGUAGE FACILITY AND ITS LIMITATIONS

Like many people, I tend to assume that if I can do something fairly well without much effort, the skill must be an easy one to acquire, and people who botch it just aren’t trying very hard. (Finding your way back to a place you’ve been only once before; doing your own taxes; or changing your oil are, by contrast, really, really difficult tasks, and anyone who manages them is, by definition, a genius.)

I have felt this way about verbal expression for a long time. Sloppy sentence structure makes me crazy. I’m not much of a nitpicker regarding split infinitives, ending a sentence with a proposition, using “they” instead of “he or she,” or many other rules that seem to be handed down by the Grammar Police rather than to have evolved organically in the service of clarity and grace. But I resent having to work to extract the basic meaning of a sentence, and flinch at hodgepodge construction the way I would at a pile of random bricks masquerading as a house. And I become impatient with people who insist that the literal meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or page is different from what’s obviously there. If you would only try, I think.

Then, last week, I went to Belgium. As always when our family travels, we assumed our traditional roles: Bill as the expert on the history and culture of the region; Ben as the nearly infallible navigator and decoder of transportation systems and ticket vending machines; and me as the communicator.

I have, in the past, found it difficult to understand how anyone from the US has trouble managing in Europe.  Most people around the world speak at least some English now, and even if they don’t, Germanic languages are a lot like English, and most Americans speak at least a little of some Romance languages, so what is the problem? I speak enough French and Spanish to make reservations, order food, ask directions, buy tickets, and make superficial conversation. I don’t speak Italian, but I get by in Italy with “Spanglais,” a bizarre mélange of French, Spanish, and English spoken in an approximation of an Italian accent, that somehow does the trick. I don’t speak German, but in Augsberg, as recorded here, I went to a dinner party where most people didn’t speak English, and managed, through guessing at the meaning of words that sounded sort of like English words, and filling in the rest with charades, to have “conversations” about parenting, food, and the differences in national personality between Germany and the US.

So I thought Belgium would be no problem. And in Brussels, that was the case. Most people we encountered spoke a combination of English and French that was easy to understand and respond to, and when I had to get by on just French, that was doable, too.

Then we went on to Bruges, where I had to hold conversations with, and get important information from, people whose only language was Dutch.

Dutch is apparently a great language, but I can’t make sense out of it. I understand, intellectually, that it is not that different from German, but it doesn’t sound like German to me. It sounds like the other person is saying “Floodle bloodle oggernogger” over and over until my brain freezes. 

I had this experience in Amsterdam, but fortunately, most people spoke some English, and in those places where they didn’t, we had Dutch friends to translate. I always assumed, though, that if left to fend for myself, I would be able to do so.

Ha. We missed out on a delicious-looking and –smelling lunch because I couldn’t make sense out of the menu. And if not for Ben’s stellar navigational skills, we might still be wandering around looking for the train station.

We didn’t need to visit Waterloo; Waterloo had come to me. I returned home a chastened woman.

I have been reflecting since then on what an enormous privilege it is to be able to make oneself understood, and to understand. It seems miraculous that here in New York, not only can I read menus, follow directions and make light conversation—I can engage in deep, nuanced discussions with friends and clients; I can read novels and write this column. And I’m pledged to remember Bruges when I’m tempted to get petty about others’ grammar or reading comprehension skills. If they’re doing better than floodle bloodle oggernogger, we’re ahead of the game.

Next week: Caroline Leavitt on Beginnings

 

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.