The Best Advice I Ever Got

By Man Martin

“Experience is a dear teacher, but a fool will learn by no other,” Benjamin Franklin


I am a school teacher, and one thing life has taught me is that you have to be very careful what you say around students. The same child who cannot master a simple lesson you have drilled into his head for three weeks will be able to recall verbatim a random wisecrack you made in passing and quote it back to you, often in the context of a parent-teacher conference.

I myself, who have been educated to within an inch of my life, have often taken away more from a teacher’s passing comment than from all the carefully planned curriculum on earth, largely because most of what writing teachers have to offer is advice, and I have never been good at taking advice. This is not owing to a lack of good advice coming in at regular intervals from all sides. I am not proud of the fact I’m not good at taking advice. Had I taken advice, my teeth would be whiter, my cholesterol lower, my waist slimmer, my bank balance fatter. But, like I said, I’m not good at taking advice.

I do not know if this is because I’m cocksure, stubborn, or just a slow learner. Certainly being a slow learner is part of it. Usually I appreciate the value of advice – “Check your tire pressure every week” – only when I’m already stranded on the side of a long, deserted stretch of black top with a broken jack and a spare that is – also – flat.

I have received boo-coos of writing advice, all of which I’ve ignored, which is understandable enough when it comes unasked from friends and family, but which is downright inexplicable when it comes from respected professionals whom I’ve paid, at least in part, for the valuable advice they offer. I’m talking here about college professors under whom I’ve studied writing and who must have on more than one occasion shaken their heads in pained wonderment at my mulish stubbornness, persisting in doing things the way I want to do, dammit, and not listening to their seasoned wisdom which would have made my task lighter in oh, so many ways.

Or if not lighter, at least more productive.

Tonight as I type this the advice that comes to mind is from my dear teacher Tony Grooms. Grooms, author of Trouble No More and Bombingham, was one of my writing teachers at Kennesaw State University and taught me many things. He taught me the essential quality of a character is that he or she must care about something. “It doesn’t matter as much whether they care about their lover, their children, or their rosebushes, but they have to care about something or the reader won’t care about them.” He also said that while an ambiguous phrase might be very nice in poetry, it should probably be avoided in fiction. Clarity is the sine qua non of fiction. Next to characters we can care about, what the reader wants to know is just exactly what the hell is going on.

But all of this wisdom, plus much more besides, wisdom that I heard and neglected until I’d pounded my own fool head against the concrete for myself, testing that, yes, pounding your head on concrete probably is a bad idea and something that should be desisted from in future – Tony also warned me against excessive cleverness or “cuteness” in my writing, a lesson I may never learn – the thing that sticks in my head is one phrase.

Two hundred words a day.

He said this in an off-hand way during a summer workshop. He had graciously opened his home to his class, and we met there weekly to exchange and critique stories. It was there I debuted the first chapter of Long Gone, my novel and Masters Thesis, the only copies of which sit on a shelf somewhere in the KSU Library. The thing was never published and never will be; it was what we euphemistically call a “learning novel.” Too much ambiguity and the characters didn’t care about anything, is my post-mortem diagnosis.

Anyway, one summer afternoon before or after workshop when I was enviously admiring the tomatoes he’d already gotten from his garden long before ours were ripe, he said apropos of nothing much, “If you wrote just two hundred words a day, at the end of a year, you’d have a seventy-thousand word novel.”

He said this in the most casual way imaginable, a man nonchalantly observing that three hundred sixty-five times two hundred is seventy thousand, but what a light bulb went off in my head! Two hundred words a day. Anybody could do that! I could do that!

Thank you, Tony.

I have written two novels and am well into a third. Given my nature, I have had to learn the other lessons you taught me the hard way, pounding my head over and over against stubborn realities until the stubborn realities sank in. Stubborn Realities: 1, Head: 0. But I was able to learn what little I have because of that other thing. The two hundred word thing. I know I have a lot more to learn, and God willing, I’ll learn at least some of it before I die. But if I do, I’ll learn the hard way. Pounding my head. Pounding my head. Pounding my head.

Two hundred words a day.

Man Martin is the award-winning author of Days of the Endless Corvette and Scoring Bertram Wiggly, a novella.  His second novel, Paradise Dogs, was selected by Atlanta Magazine's December "Best Of" issue, as one of the top five novels for 2011.  He is writing a third novel, 200 words a day.  He blogs at manmartin.blogspot.com

Road Writer

by Andy Straka

I've had many jobs, but probably the one that has most informed my writing was working as a sales representative.

From publisher's rep (college textbooks) to medical sales (pharmaceuticals then orthopedic implants, then medical imaging and neurodiagnostic equipment), my road warrior years gave me a street level view of multiple worlds. Big cities and small towns and everything in between.  From New York City to Connecticut and Massachusetts; from Washington, D.C. to Richmond, Charlottesville and Virginia Beach, North Carolina, and West Virginia.

 My novels are all set in one of these locales. And even years later, in the era of GoogleMaps, I can close my eyes and picture the sights and sounds and smells of a neighborhood in the Bronx or Richmond's West end, the tony suburbs of Greenwich, CT, a winding switchback highway in the West Virginia mountains, or a beach town on the North Carolina coast. The inside of hospital operating rooms, corporate boardrooms, military bases, fly-by-night trade schools in Brooklyn—any one of these may come to mind when I write fiction.

My writing career was born on the road as well. In lonely hotel rooms at night, where I began to bang out stories and the first draft of a novel.

I've long since given up the sales life and escaped to the woods, or at least my little piece of the woods where I am blessed to be with my family, fly my hawk, and write. I’ve also had the good fortune to travel to many other places, including China, Mexico, and South America, and maybe I’ll be writing about some of those places one day as well.

The beauty of books is they can allow us to experience places we might otherwise never have the opportunity to see. Where have you traveled, and what sights and sounds and smells of different places have you experienced in your own life? How have these memories shaped you as a reader or a writer?
                         ---------------------------------------------------------------

Publisher’s Weekly has featured Andy Straka as one of a new crop of “rising stars in crime fiction.” His books include A WITNESS ABOVE (Anthony, Agatha, and Shamus Award finalist), A KILLING SKY (Anthony Award Finalist), COLD QUARRY (Shamus Award Winner), KITTY HITTER (called a “great read” by Library Journal), and RECORD OF WRONGS, hailed by Mystery Scene magazine as “a first-rate thriller.” FLIGHTFALL, a Frank Pavlicek novella, was published as an ebook in August. His latest book is  THE BLUE HALLELUJAH a novel of suspense, just released in trade paperback and ebook.
Andy has worked as a book editor, movie production accommodation agent, commercial building owner and consulting vice president for a large specialty physician’s practice, surgical implant and pharmaceutical sales representative, college textbook sales and manuscript acquisition representative, web offset press paper jogger, laborer on a city road crew, summer recreation youth director, camp counselor, youth basketball coach, assistant parts manager at an auto dealership, assistant manager at a McDonalds restaurant, and even been registered as a private investigator. (Not to mention a longstanding stint as a stay-at-home Dad to six, which makes neurosurgery look like tiddlywinks.) A licensed falconer and co-founder of the popular Crime Wave at the annual Virginia Festival of the Book, Andy is a native of upstate New York and a graduate of Williams College where, as co-captain of the basketball team, he “double-majored” in English and the crossover dribble. He lives with his family in Virginia.
Learn more at Andy's website/blog "The Hawk Writer's Guide To The Galaxy" at www.andystraka.com

How Lucky She is to Have Me

By Man Martin

I often think of the brightness we writers shed upon the world. On our readers, of course, and on literature in general, but in particular, what a ray of sunshine we must be to our families, what a constant source of joy and delight! We little notice the light we bring into the world, of course, the sun can hardly be aware of its own glory, but day by day we share some small part of our luster with our nearest and dearest. How my wife must wake up every day grateful that I am hers!


Not that she doesn’t contribute in her own small way to our life together: true, she earns a living, monitors our investments, mentors our daughters, makes sure the dog’s heartworm medicine is up to date, the oil is changed in the cars, that we’ve paid our ad valorum taxes, the pantry is stocked, the bills are paid, the house is clean, the plants are watered, and dinner is ready.

But these light duties, plus maybe a dozen or so others that slip my mind, must float by as in a pleasant dream in the knowledge that Genius is at work in the very next room – or at least browsing the internet and getting ready to work at any second – and that when I sit down to eat the tasty meal she has prepared, the man dribbling gravy onto his new shirt and getting rice grains all stuck down in the couch cushions and the carpet, is no ordinary man, but a WRITER, and that he will be with her all the rest of her life. You wonder how she can contain her glee at the prospect of all those decades of shared meals before her.

The books and papers I leave scattered around the house – every room, even the bathroom, has its little pile – are constant reminders that while she has been negotiating to get the drywall repaired and balancing the checkbook, I’ve been hard at work making stuff up. Anyone can see that I am full of inspiration; just the other day Nancy remarked how full of it I was. She knows how I suffer for my art. Writing is Pain, she told me the other day, or at least I think it’s what she meant to say. It came out more like, “Writers are a pain.” I shared with her the gist of this blog, and asked her if being married to a writer wasn’t like sharing the house with a magnificent, beautifully plumaged bird. “Yes,” she agreed. “Exactly. Like living with a five-foot ten inch bird. A flightless one.” Odd, how unlovely my wife’s figures of speech sometimes are; I had in mind a gorgeous peacock, but she spoke as if describing some large, incontinent ostrich. I do not blame her, of course, she is not a Writer, as I am. I was on the brink of asking if she ever felt especially privileged to share a life with me, but I thought better of it. At the time she was busy scrubbing some gravy and rice I seemed to have trod into the carpet.

And the most wonderful and glorious thing of all, is we Writers never think to ask for thanks for all we do. All unknowing, we are beautiful wonderful things. We ask for one thing only: the opportunity to Work.

Which is exactly what I’m going to do after three more games of solitaire.



My new novel, Paradise Dogs, (Booklist calls it “simply brilliant” and Kirkus says it is “hilarious”) is available in bookstores and Amazon.com! Visit manmartin.blogspot.com to enter the STOOPID Contest and win a free copy!

Who You Callin' A Lunatic?

by Cathy Pickens

Creativity takes many forms. And creative people craft their own forms of lunacy--or, as we prefer to think of it in the South, their own eccentricities. “Eccentricity” may manifest itself in crazy clothes or crazy habits or a certain free-wheeling style. Or it may be an intense focus, or a crabbiness when interrupted, or an absent-mindedness, or any number of other quirks. But writers haven't cornered the market on imposing lunacy on those they love.

I know creative cooks who have favorite stained, bedraggled totes they religiously carry to the farmers' market. They buy stacks of kitchen gadgets, debate the best technique for making a roux, and immerse themselves in countless cookery books. Of course, those who live with these obsessed ones do enjoy a valuable side-benefit: delicious meals. Probably on a regular basis. Except for the warm, inviting smells wafting from their kitchens, not so very different from writers, are they?

Or what about avid and creative gardeners, with their tools and garden hats and seed catalogues and cuttings? Again, those who live with them enjoy collateral benefits: a lovely yard full of vegetables or flowers. Similar eccentric manifestations to those of writers, without the lovely yards.

Creative folks can be devoted to innumerable passions, including writing. But, despite my attempt to draw connections between writers and other creative people, I find myself wondering why anyone would live with a writer. What benefits can those who co-exist with writers expect? Not good or regular meals, I fear. Or lovely gardens. Or, in the throes of deadlines, not even clean clothes. Or much else that's useful, really.

So just who would live with a mystery writer, I wonder? My husband knew I wrote mysteries when we married, though my first book hadn't yet been published. He couldn't have fully appreciated the craving for solitude, or the crabby growls when work was interrupted, or the mewling self-pity when things weren't going well. But marriage brings all sorts of surprises, doesn't it?

Thinking about this topic, though, I find myself wondering what man in his right mind overlooks the stacks of books on poisons and on women murderers? Who lives happily with bookcases full of historical crime accounts? Who follows his wife around to book events or on research trips or to endless dinners with other writers and actually enjoys most of it?

Now that I contemplate it, who, I ask you, is the unhinged one?

Of course, he has his passions for things inconceivable to me, crossword puzzles and Oklahoma football only two of them. Maybe that's what has kept things so happy for the last twelve years--allowing each other to be eccentric, each in our own way, even when he might wish for more cookbooks and fewer tomes on poison

The Nature of People

This months wonderful topic is how nature plays into our writing. I've been looking forward to this for so long, waiting for my day because nature in my fiction weighs in loud is remarkable and redemptive ways. Lightning crash, thunder roar, hurricanes abounding. From moonlit magical nights to breathless sunrise the good Earth plays itself out full of Glory.

But then I realized my most recent offering has been one of a very, different. type. The book I never meant to write. A non-fiction memoir that surrounds itself in nature of another kind - the human heart. In December of 2008 I had the strangest idea for a resolution - to say a silent prayer for a stranger I passed in life every day for the coming year. A different stranger each day.
2009 revealed a landscape and side of nature that I had never dreamed would be something that I would capture by putting pen to page. I met the lonely, the hungry, the famous, the broken, and the beautiful - all thirsty for a touch from a stranger that surprised me day after continuing day.

What I discovered was that the nature of the world is that it seems to be so dry, so thirsty for a good word, for a prayer , for a stranger's touch that time and time again my whispered resolution brought a smile, a respite, and a story.

The stories of these short but amazingly, meaningful and lasting encounters, and of how they affected my life are captured in Praying for Strangers: An Adventure of the Human Spirit which just debuted Tuesday. As such, I am currently on the road reading, speaking, and discussing how this ongoing adventure has continued to play such a major role in my life. I completed the resolution at the end of 2009. But I never stopped praying for strangers. It's two years, and four months later, and the adventure continues.


Thank you for visiting the new Praying for Strangers website, and sharing with friends. It continues to be an honor to be here at A Good Blog is Hard to Find, to have the privilege to write the stories that find us, and to be in your good company.

River Jordan is a critically acclaimed novelist and playwright. Her fourth novel, The Miracle of Mercy Land, a southern mystical work set in 1938 features a protagonist full of moxie and a ‘backbone of worthy’in this suspenseful story about love, mystery, and the choices we make. Jordan’s first non-fiction
narrative, Praying for Strangers, An Adventure of the Human Spirit arrived from Penguin/Berkley in Hardcover April 5, 2011. She speaks around the country on the “Power of Story,” and produces andhosts the radio program, Clearstory on 107.1 FM from Nashville, TN where she makes her home.

The Effect of a Thunderstorm on Silver Queen: Writing About Nature

By Man Martin
 
Years ago I visited my friend Frank Cummings in Sandersville, Georgia where I was raised. “Durn rain last night knocked all my corn down,” Frank told me. Later his grown-up son arrived, and the first thing he said coming in the door, was, “Durn rain last night knocked all my corn down.” I envied them. They’d had an experience of rain I hadn’t. The weather for them was not small talk; it was an issue. They had a stake in whether or not and how much it rained. Rain to them was a like having a neighborhood giant: an unreliable and reckless, but not disliked, giant, friendly and essentially good-willed, but clumsy and prone to sudden tantrums. They had felt the damage, even temporarily, it could do to a patch of Silver Queen. They knew rain. I never wanted anything as badly as I wanted right then to have some corn planted so I too could talk about how the durn rain had knocked it down.


For Southerners – by whom I mean anyone from a largely rural area – nature has a meaning city-dwellers can’t imagine. In Manhattan, where the sun is rationed down one slice at a time through the skyscrapers, how could you know why spring is such a big deal? Oh, I’m sure they’re glad to see winter finished with and warm weather arrive. Central Park, I’ll bet, is beautiful in spring. But here in Atlanta, my heart rushes up when the dogwoods and azaleas break out and suddenly my own familiar street turns into a Monet painting.

Southerners don’t just like Nature; we soak in it. We get down like dogs and roll in it, which is fine, but as writers, we need to be highly conscious how we express this. Doing it the wrong way is, well, wrong.

For openers, here’s an example of some of Washington Irving’s descriptive writing from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”



The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.



Really beautiful, you’ll have to admit. The only problem is it’s not having any effect on anything. It’s just there as Ichabod rides to the Van Tassels. It doesn’t matter to him, and so ultimately – sorry Irving – it doesn’t matter to us either. All this gorgeous scenery – the lush gradations of light and color Irving pulls off – the bit about the sloop seeming to float midair – is just a backdrop, and since this isn’t a stage play but a short story, it’s not even a backdrop, but something worse: an interruption.

Maybe Irving’s point is that it doesn’t affect Ichabod, that he’s so absorbed by the prospect of all the good food to eat at the Van Tassels, that he doesn’t notice the heart-stopping beauty around him. Maybe, and if so, I’ll buy it. But later, Irving goes into another passage about the twittering of blue jays and whatnot that makes you want to scream, “Get on with it!”

For contrast, here’s how Twain does description in Huck Finn.



We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the pale under-side of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and blackest -- fst! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs -- where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know.



Twain jokingly apologized that he could write only “one kind” of weather, but that kind he handles magnificently. I contend this is a much more effective passage than Irving’s and not just because something’s happening, either, although that’s part of it. The point is, something’s happening to Jim and Huck. Nature isn’t something over their left shoulder as they head downriver; they’re in the middle of it. They’re responding to it, and it’s affecting them. If anyone understands this, it ought to be Southern writers; Nature isn’t just a backdrop we ride past on our way somewhere – it’s the thing itself; it gets right in the midst of our guts and does stuff to us.

It’d be great to write a passage as gorgeous as Irving’s, but you could make a pretty good name for yourself as a writer even if, like Twain, you could only do “one kind” of weather. But it still isn’t enough to throw in a thunderstorm now and then.

You need to have some corn planted, too.


Man's second novel, Paradise Dogs ("Zany," Publishers Weekly, "Hilarious," Kirkus) appears in bookstores June 7th.  His debut novel, Days of the Endless Corvette, won a 2008, Georgia Author of the Year Award.
Visit him on the web at http://manmartin.blogspot.com

RESPECTING THE STORY (or the oil and water of this business)

Dear Friends, Fellow authors, and A Good Blog is Hard to Find Faithful Readers,

Here we are gathered in this room hanging out on the edge of the net and touching one another with our words. And that's exactly what I want to talk about. This month we are speaking about publicity, what to do to give that book a push, to find its readers, to connect with the world but I realized that Patty Callahan Henry just waxed eloquent on the joys of getting out and getting to know your public. Last summer I drummed up a few mistakes I'd made along the way. You can find that post here. 

Me waxing on about the mistakes and learning curves of the publishing business - or what I know now that I wish I knew then: http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

And a few days ago Shellie told it the way it was about the rubber meeting the road here: 

Shellie Rushing Tomlinson wrote about taking it on, the real world and the art of publicity http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/2011/02/marketing-smarketing.html

And our gracious, talented friend Kerry basically taught a class on giving back with a photo montage from the road that speaks volumes here:

Kerry Madden talks about giving back while getting it right: http://southernauthors.blogspot.com/2011/02/tips-to-surviving-book-promotion-by.html

Then I literally spent time reviewing a year of blog posts on A Good Blog is Hard to Find. Amazing. Incredible. Honors and Kudos one and all. And again a special nod to Karin Gillespie for beginning this blog and for Kathy Patrick for the undertaking of it's continuance. How I wish I had been able to tap into this incredible resource so many, many years ago. I think this blog should be required reading for young people, old people and all those in between who struggle and strive to write a story, touch a heart, and get their work published and read in this wild and every-changing business. I think this resource so valuable that I'm going to settle in this week with coffee, notebook and pen in hand and honestly take notes from the authors that have had such incredible, down-to-earth, been there and done it raw advice. This is the kind of advice we PAY for at writing conferences and to PR firms. Seriously. 

That being said - I have nothing to add to this subject that hasn't been captured. Not a clue, not a key. 

BUT -  - - I do have a little something on my mind. 

As the days wear long, with The Miracle of Mercy Land only debuting a few months ago, with Praying for Strangers: An Adventure of the Human Spirit rising to the surface April 5th, 2011 - I have been in a constant state of editing, or promoting for months. (Yes, never mind that I do that little Radio show thing on the side - but people, I do so love author talks, festival news, a GOOD review, and a few great tunes to set the mood. - I'm kinda, well, addicted in the most wonderful way to a little Clearstory every week.) And what I want to say is - looks like those days of authors hanging in Paris with other writers and then moodily walking those smokey streets back to hang over the typewriter and stir up stories like the end of the world was pressing in and all humanity hung in the balance - are over~ 

These days - it's promote, promote, promote. Are you on Twitter? Facebook? How often do you post? Who do you know? What have you done to sell books TODAY? Traveling? Cruising? Talking?

All good and great and needed things in today's screaming society of plugged in professionalism - yet . . . I've got this story  waiting to be told. A big one. It's southern, dark, demanding, dreamy and full of the fight for redemption and the places we have to find in ourselves to forgive and find our way back to the truth. 

BUT - without those dedicated hours where I respectively step back from the PUBLICITY demands of the upcoming book, road tour, social media, Publisher emails, the bing of my smart phone, the call, the demand, the scream of the BUSINESS of this Writing life - there will be no writing life left worthy of all those efforts on my part, my publisher, or my publicist.

I've been looking at the serious output of creative madness of some of our counterparts from the days of old. Men and women with long lives, and histories of making love to the page with a touch of madness. God bless them everyone. Because we need them. We need those words that don't bear the rhythm of us simultaneously trying to answer sixteen emails and forty live chats while bidding on a leather bag from Italy while we write the next line. We need the words from a generation that respected the work of the writer, the REAL work of THE WRITER. The Words they weave into THE Story. 

And we need each other. We need the stories that usher us out of the silence of our souls. We need the incredible clarity that those stories bring to our cluttered lives. The words that so beautifully illuminate our existence and help us laugh at ourselves and love one another again.

. I thank you for every writer that gives a leg up to another writer, blogs on their work, facebooks

But I also ask you, beg you, implore you - step away from the blessed promotional work we all shoulder, burden, and carry - even celebrate - to write. To simply,  strongly, passionately - write. Step away from the noise. Carve out precious HOURS not moments to write uninterrupted. Find a corner, a coffee shop, a library or a graveyard but make a covenant with yourself NOT to answer the bells and whistles that scream for your attention. Dive in and gloriously lose yourself in the characters, place, setting, and creation that awaits.  I assure you, the world will be waiting for you, for me, for all of us, still clamoring and demanding when we return. 

IN the greediest moment of your life, grab that story asking to be told, and don't let go of it 'till it's told. In the most complete,  most powerful way possible.

RIVER JORDAN is the author of four novels, and a collection of essays.  Her first published non-fiction work inspired by a New Year’s Resolution – Praying for Strangers: An Adventure of the Human Spirit will be published by Penguin/BerkleyApril 5, 2011. Ms. Jordan teaches and speaks on ‘The Power of Story’  and produces and hosts the radio program, Clearstory, on WRFN, 107.1 FM, Nashville. Jordan and her husband live in Nashville, TN. You may visit the author at http://www.riverjordan.us or visit http://www.prayingforstrangers.com 

Why Do You Write This Stuff?

Someone once asked me, “Why is it all your characters are so stupid?” The answer, although I didn’t think of it at the time, is that usually my characters are based on me.

I’m not saying I’m stupid – far from it. I’m extremely bright and highly educated. I have a PhD. I read books. Hell, I write books. Still, I do things that others might consider odd.

For example one time I came in the front door, and my wife asked me, “Where have you been?”

“Walking around the block,” I answered. I had some weighty matters on my mind that day, and I often find a stroll clears my head.

“Wearing that?” was Nancy’s follow-up query.

I studied my ensemble. A perfectly clean – well, almost perfectly – white terrycloth robe, cinched at the waist with a matching terrycloth belt. I also had on tennis shoes, but no socks.

“Please, tell me, please,” Nancy said, looking at the floor with a frown, and pinching the bridge of her nose as if she felt a headache coming on, “that you weren’t also talking to yourself.”

I considered. I probably had been talking to myself, but had no specific recollection. As I said, I had been wrestling with matters of weighty import, hence the reason for taking a stroll in the first place, and it seemed probable I had made my ruminations audible. Still. Talking to myself was probably overstating it by a fair margin; mumbling to myself was probably more like it. That being said, it must also be admitted that when dealing with complex topics, it is my practice to take both sides of the issue, to give every point a fair hearing. In the midst of a heated debate, I am prone to dramatic gestures, the better to emphasize a point.

Nevertheless, I did see Nancy’s point: a grown man strolling the streets in his bathrobe – reasonably clean or not – and talking to himself – be it ever so politely – is apt to raise eyebrows and attract the attention of passing patrol cars, especially if he is also gesturing to himself – even if it’s only in the give-and-take spirit of a free-wheeling debate.

Again, let me emphasize, contrary to appearances, I am not insane. I’ve never actually had a test to confirm this, but to the best of my knowledge, I am not insane. I just think differently. I do things differently.

This is why I write what I do. In my first novel, a mechanic believes that if he takes apart and rebuilds the same Corvette over and over again, saving the leftover pieces every time, eventually he’ll have enough parts to build an entire car.

I wrote this because it’s the sort of idea that occurs to me.

In my second novel, Paradise Dogs – due out this spring from Thomas Dunne Books, and a dandy gift for any occasion – the protagonist, Adam Newman, borrows a dozen loose diamonds from a jeweler. And loses them.

I wrote that because it’s just the sort of thing that would happen to me.

This same Adam Newman believes there’s a secret government project to dig a barge canal across Florida, and his son, the world’s least accurate obituary writer, is in love with his brother’s girlfriend, and…

Well, you get the idea.

These are the sort of people who walk around the block in their bathrobes.


Man Martin is the author of Days of the Endless Corvette, which won him Georgia Author of the Year in 2008. His next novel, Paradise Dogs, is due out this spring from Thomas Dunne Books. Visit him on the web at manmartin.net.

Creative Secrets

from Cathy Pickens

Over the next few weeks, some of us will be blogging about our writing process. Coincidentally, I’ve just finished teaching a summer course on the creative process in the MBA program at Queens University of Charlotte. Imagine, 25 business students exploring their creative process.

For many years, I searched for a magic potion, spell, or bullet that would enable me to be creatively productive every day. One that would guarantee the words would flow as if by magic.

What I learned was that, although it is magic, the secrets are much more plebian and ordinary than I’d imagined.

With much reading on topics such as “flow” (that mystical period of being so lost in a project, you lose track of time) and the creative process, I found the first simple secret. Simple shouldn’t be confused with easy, because I still have to force myself to do it, some days. But the secret itself is simple.

I call it the BIC method. It’s a guaranteed, sure-fire, psychologist-tested (by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) method for achieving flow, that wonderful state of creative nirvana.

Are you ready? BIC stands for Butt in Chair, Bic (or pen or keyboard of your choice) in hand. Same time, same place, every day. That’s it. Simple – though not always easy.

Doesn’t matter if you feel like it or not, if you know what you want to do or say, or not. You show up. No use expecting the muse to show up uninvited. If you aren’t in your accustomed place, she might visit with something special for you and, when she can’t find you, fly on by and give it to someone else.

Some days, the words come, the writing goes well. Other days, I have to laboriously drag each word from the end of my pen. Hardly seemed worth writing on those days – until I discovered another secret: when I went back to re-read the first draft, I could never tell which pages I’d written on the good days and which I’d written on the hard days. Every page needed that next stage of re-visioning.

Which leads to my third and final secret. Many people see creative people as silly, carefree, even undisciplined. Creative people do know how to play, they often enjoy their “work.” But they also know it is hard work, and it requires discipline.

To complete anything – and then to polish it until it shines … and then to start all over again demands discipline. I’ve met lots of talented, successful writers. I’ve never met one who doesn’t work at his or her craft. But I also appreciate Stephen King’s admission in On Writing: he enjoys every stage of the process. Of course you should enjoy it, at every stage, even when it’s hard.

You choose to do the work, commit to the discipline, show up and sit your butt in the chair. You can enjoy it – it’s your choice. No better secret than that.