The Alchemy of Writing — More Tips from a Pro

7/28/2019 The Alchemy of Writing More Tips from a Pro

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to feel a different spiritislands work for me. My mother was a great

painter. She spent much of her life on Marthas Vineyard because the

tree line outside her house felt ominous and that spurred her work along

with the sound and smell of the ocean.

I look for energy all over the place. Often just riding my bike along theriver for three miles from my house to the office heightens my mood.

Then I makea cup of green tea and look at my work from the previousevening. I always read back several pages before I try to write

anything new.Moving back through interesting material seems to giveme momentum to push ahead

But what if there is no energy? I readthe paper. I switch on sports talkradio. I look at my watch. I pace. I am eyeing the lunch hour. Its getting

closer to lunch. One hour before I meet my friend Jeff for turkeyburgers. Forty-five minutes. Now Im getting nervous. Thirty-five minutes

before I have to leave my office! Suddenly I feel an urgency. I CANTleave for lunch without writing one good paragraph.Im sweating,feeling the time pressure and the words pour out. Sometimes a

writer can do more in a fervent half hour than in a dreary eight-

hour day. Ive often played this game with myself.

There are many energy tricks. Sometimes in the afternoon when Imgroggy I wander over to Starbucks for a coffee. But its not just caffeine.

I know all the women who work there. They know me. We chat. I lovethese talksokay, innocent flirtations. Sometimes I even get a free latte.When I get back to my office I usually feel fired up.

Here is a story about deep mining for inspiration. Early on in thecomposition of The Dream MerchantI had an impression of the womanwhom I wanted to be the great love of my central characters life. She

would be something like the girlfriend of Eddie the pool hustler, played

by Paul Newman, in the great movie, The Hustler. She would be

beautiful buta little worn from love and tough living. But her accessibilitymade her all the more desirable. The actress who played that part, by

the way, was Piper Laurie although when I thought about what my

character looked like, she was more voluptuous like Marilyn Monroe.

This character would be hugely important in my book. She would haveto be Jims matchshe would love Jim and ruin him. Only problem was,

I had never known someone like this.

I talked about the problem with Josh [his son, the subject of Searching

for Bobby Fischer] and one day he proposed an idea. There is

someone I want you to meet, he said. He arranged lunch for me with ayoung actress, Maya, a girlfriend of a friend of his. We met in a


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restaurant. Maya was sensual, the right body type, and gorgeous. I

spent more than an hour describing the character I wanted to writeher

name was Ava. Maya listened but said virtually nothing. She was asweet girlNOT Ava. This great idea was beginning to feel like a

failure. But then when we were leaving the restaurant she turned to meand her entire being had darkened, she had become sultry and

damaged. It was thrilling. She was becoming Ava. She was Ava. It gaveme chills.

For the next year we would meet in my office about once a month.

I would send Ava, no Maya, a long email describing what I needed

from Ava in the next chapter of my novel.Then during the course ofan hour or two together we would imagine the scenes or she would act

them out. When Maya left me at the end of a session I was shot out of a

gun to write the new material into the novel. As time went on, I did lesstalking and Maya held court. After a year of this she had truly become

Ava. I put her in dangerous situations and she embodied Avas

responses, her muted passion, her madness, a reckless impulse to bolt

to the edge of the cliff. Would she fall? I think it was deep fascinating

work for both of usJust to say, Ive never tried to create a character in

this manner before or since. But I could never have written Ava without

Maya.

TF: Do you have any friends you rely on to help breakthrough

deadlock? If so, why do you find them helpful?

I have a couple of friends that I rely upon. They are very perceptive

about the human heart. Ill talk quite specifically about what isnt working

in a section of my book. I listen closely to what they think. Ive done this

many times. My wife Bonnie has helped me many times like this.

Here is the curious thing. Often her advice or the idea of a friendisnt what I end up doing. But listening to the ideas engenders a

new idea. The whole point is that you have to get moving.

Movement begets movement. You need to get unstuck.TF: There

are many people with brilliant ideas, fascinating lives, and a good

feel for languagebut who have never seriously taken on the art of

writing. What is some specific advice you would give to up and

coming writers?If a young person is not passionately motivated, talentaside, I would never encourage him to try to become a professional

writer.

Even if you love writing, and it possesses you with missionary zeal, it is

such a hard thing to do. First you need to learn the art, and the path islittered with generations of talented writers that couldnt sit alone in a


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room and apply themselves for thousands of hours to become really

good. Then there are legions of devoted writers who did good work but

couldnt crack the profession, they couldnt get published or if they did

they couldnt make a living. It is a very tough field.

But whenever I happen to meet someone who is talented and

possessed by writing, and particularly a youngster, it is a great pleasure

to have a chat. However, the conversation needs to be personal to haveany real meaning. I need to know my new friend somewhat deeply, to

feel the play of his mind and what turns him on before I would presume

to offer advice. There are many different ways to be a writer.

For a teenager who is dreamy, who makes uncanny associations like a

poet, it can be ruinous to force onto him a rigorously academic

approach to writing, even with a good teacher. Teaching him tocompose organized mannered essays, like all the other smart boys in

class, can make him inhibited and ultimately edit the imagination from

this unusual fellow. For another classmate who plans to be a lawyer,

proper carefully constructed essays are perfect.

A writer has a core, a sensibility to draw from like pulling gold from his

own acre of earth. What you have to say on the page will be different

than what I would say. Good writers have their own voice. A paragraphby Philip Roth sounds like Roth. His sensibility and prose rhythms are

all through his pages. Same for Hemingway or Thomas Mann. A youngwriter can deepen his voice and make it richer. But a writer is on

perilous ground when he moves away from his core into an area he

doesnt know, when he lies or when he cheapens himself with

compromises.

Let me give you an example. I have a young friend who is gifted with

words and sentences. The scenes he writes are emotional. And he feels

impelled to write. Hes got the right stuff. This young man has led adifficult life. He is an orphan. As a teen he became an addict and

alcoholic. He suffered greatly getting clean.Hes known a lot of womenand hurt some badly. Okay, in shorthand, thats his base. It is very richwith pain and dark-side-of-the-moon adventures. But whenever he

writes more than a paragraph he feels the need to say that in his new

life he is redeemed and he is so grateful. He proselytizes. The

embarrassment about his past life is thwarting this writer who has such

an interesting story to tell. It makes it hard for him to dig deeply. It is

difficult to get over such habits like a quarterback who has an awkward

throwing motion. But he can do it if he wants it badly enough.

Here is one generalization that might be useful: A good writer


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needs to become intimately involved with fictive truth.

Bullshitting never works in writinga good reader can always tell

when a writer knows what he is talking about.If you write about theocean, you must know the movement of the ocean, the smell and taste.

Don

t try to invent it. It will smell like a fake. When you are trying tocreate a character he or she must be true. Fiction is not making

up stuff out of whole cloth. It is always linked to a writersexperience. Fiction is a wonderful tango between the writers

experience and his imagination.

When I write a scene I always put it to a personal test: does it

relate to something that has happened in my own life either

directly or by analogy?Perhaps something similar happened to myfather or a close friend. If I can feel it deeply, and if I know my craft, then

chances are you will feel it. IfI am guessing, chances are I will fall onmy face. Even if you are writing fiction, research isnt cheating. If youare writing about the ocean, go out on a boat when its rough, feel

queasy in a breaking sea, smell the salt water. Then read Conradsgreat passages on the ocean for inspiration, or Jack Londons. In The

Dream Merchantit was part of my plan that the last third of the bookwould take place in the dense rain forest of Brazil. I didnt dare write that

section of the book until I travelled there and spent a month in the

jungle.

TF: What inspired you to write The Dream Merchant? Tell us astory or two that will help us understand the process behind the

book. How did you draw from real life characters when writing

fiction?

The inspiration for The Dream Merchantcame from many people.Certainly the earliest influence was my father who was a lighting fixture

salesmana great one. I have often referred to him as the Beethovenoffluorescents. During his best years in the fifties, my dad sold the

commercial lighting for nearly every new skyscraper in NYC: TheSeagram building, the Saucony building, the United Nations buildinghisjobs sounded to me like poetry. As a boy I wouldlook out at themagnificent night skyline of Manhattan as though it were my fathers

work. Like Jim in the novel, my father did some terrible thingshe

destroyed men who got in his waybut it did not dampen my love for

him. I knew that I wanted to explorethis undiscriminating fatheradoration in my book. That was a key connection between Jim and the

narrator, insofar as the narrator loves Jim despite his profligacy and

shocking moral drift. By the same token, Jim idolizes his own father who

has a considerable history of sins.


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Without my father there could never have been Jim. But Jim is not a

portrait of Abe Waitzkinnot by a long shot. They were both larger than

life salesmen. Neither was impeded by conscience or restraint. Abe was

perhaps more ruthless. Jim was much more lusty. My dad didnt care

much about women. Jim was a physical powerhouse. Abe was adominant personality but he was sickly.

The great comedian, Lenny Bruce, has a small but important role in my

novel. To write him I felt that I had to know this one-ofa-kind-

personality inside and out. If I didnt get into his skin the scenes would

be fake and would ruin the book. I read books about him and his wife

and I listened to performance tapes. I learned his dark slicing humor

until I could write it myself. I did write it. After a half year I felt like I was

Lenny Bruce. Then Lenny moved through the scenes naturallyhe fit

right in. It was a pleasure writing in his voice. Ive already talked aboutMaya who became my Ava, Jims wife. Lenny Bruce andAva becomelovers. They go to very dangerous places together. For a while it was

hard for me to stop being Lenny Bruce.

Here is an interesting story about inspiration. More than twenty-

five years ago, when I was writing feature magazine pieces, I

happenedto read a short article in Time Magazineabout illegalgold mining in the jungles of Brazil. The piece described secluded

enclaves deep within the rain forest called garimposwhere menslaved in deep muddy pits trying to collect gold to feed theirimpoverished families living in the cities. Their employers

hideously exploited these scrawny little men, lured them into the

camps by offering beautiful women. These poor men spent their

hard earned gold on a single night of desire. Then they had to go

back to the mudpits to work for another month before they could

return home. It was an endless cycle. The workers were

sometimes murdered by marauders or they died of disease or

animalattacks. Many never made it home. This whole junglescene was so exotic, violent, sensual and unlikely that I felt I hadto write about it.I signed a contract to do a long piece for Harpersmagazine and was preparing to leave for Brazil when I received a

contract from Random House to write Searching for Bobby Fischer. I

abandoned the Brazil trip to write about Josh and the chess world,

which greatly irritated the editors at Harper sthey didnt return my calls

after this. Anyhow, the scene in Brazil haunted me for years and once I

began my novel I decided that my character would ultimately save

himself or perhaps perish in the Brazilian rain forest. I wrote the earlier

sections of the novel aiming for Brazil.

TF: Tell us about the Amazon trip. What were you researching? What


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did you learn? Why was it so important to go there?

Oh man, what a trip. Josh wouldnt let me go by myself. He wasdetermined to protect his old man in the jungle. By then Josh was

already one of the top martial artists in the worldhe had won the Tai

Chi Push Hands World Championships in Taiwan a year before, and

now he was training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu [Tim note: Josh later became the

first black belt under the legendary Marcelo Garcia, the Michael Jordan

of BJJ]. I was thrilled for him to come but not so much for protection as

camaraderieso that wed see it all together. By then Id already written

the first half of The Dream Merchantand as Ive already said, Id beenpointing toward Brazil. Id been writing about a great salesman who

takes ethical short cuts to make it big and then loses everything. The

deep jungle was the perfect pallet for the changes I wanted inJim whoby now was ready to cross any line to win big again

and he did. I

wanted the last third of the novel to switch gears and come on like a

firestormthis was my homerun idea. But to work, as Ive already said,

the Brazilian scene would have to be truly rendered, all the smells, the

violence, the animals, the decadence, the disease, the astonishing

beauty.

Josh and I flew to Manaus, which is an island city surrounded by rivers

and jungle. Its a haunting place, sultry from the heat and danger of the

jungle all around. My character Jim would own a big estate in Manaus,

where he would sell his gold to buyers, and then after several days hewould travel back to junglethe jungle became Jims greatest passion.

But first, to set up his operation he needed tohire an army of gunmen toprotect his garimpo from marauders in the rain forest, to guard the gold.Josh and I travelled to gun dealers to learn the business of small

private armies. We met with gunmen, talked about their

malevolent work.We visited steakrestaurants where Jim would dinewith his top men. We visited poor shacks on the fetid riverbanks where

he recruited hundreds of miners and we went to huge ornate brothels

that catered to miners, where Jim hired gorgeous sad-eyed girls to work

on their backs for him in the remote camp. Really, Jim constructed a

little jungle empire that mirrored his runaway ambition.

There were many ways to maim oneself or to die in Jims jungle

world but also it was a captivating place.Josh and I spent severalweeks in the deep jungle, with its dense foliage a crazy tangle of living

sculpture. We hiked for miles learning to softly push the vegetation

aside like swimming. It was the dry season and watermarks on towering

ancient trees were ten feet above our heads. In six months, four

hundred pound fish would be swimming where we were walking. Weswam in the rivers terrified about piranhas, and tiny fish called a candiru


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that swim up a mans penis and with sharp spikes become lodged in the

urethra. We played with pink porpoises that swam through our legs. We

visited abandoned gold mining operations and met with garimpeiros

who explained the work of searching mud pits hoping to find gold and

pull themselves out of poverty but rarely did. These men were addictedto this difficult workI suppose they were addicted to hope.

We spent nights in hammocks suspended between acai trees

listening to an infernal racquet of insects and the bleating of

hunting creatures. We worried incessantly about being attacked

by jaguars. Every night weheard them hunting nearby.Travelers inthe jungle worried about jaguars. Every native we ran into carried a rifle.

We were told that a man by himself in the rain forest was a dead man

walking but parties of two or three men were more likely to be left alone

by jaguars. There were little cats, the size of house cats calledjaguatiricas. They attacked howling like babies in packs of five or six.

They ran up a mans legs and ripped him apart. The little ones scared

the hell out of me.

I could go on and on about the Brazilian Amazon: the beauty of the

women, the unforgettable people we met. The jungle has a deep

intoxicating callreally it is a sirens call. It was hard for me to leave and

return to the states. My character Jim couldnt bear to leave even

though staying would likely cost him his life.

TF: Last but not least: what are your top ten favorite books? FW:This is a risky question to answer. For one thing, I have loved so many.

How can I narrow it to ten? And to further complicate the process, Ive

noticed that books are always changing for me. Some books that Iadmired at thirty feel dead to me today. I know that I never got more

excited reading any novel than Jack Kerouacs masterpiece, On the

Road. But would I revere it as much today, forty years later? Last week I

read This Is How You Lose Herby Junot Diaz. I was so taken by thepainful truths in these stories and the amorous Latin rhythms of hisprose. Before reading Diaz I was telling all of my friends about Jennifer

Egans A Visit from the Goon Squad. These are my recent infatuations.

But did I love these books as much or more than The Sun Also Rises? I

just dont know. Last time I read Hemingways classic it was a hard

push for mebut ten years before it thrilled me.

Here goes:

1. Love in the Time of CholeraGabriel Marquez2. Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad3. The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

4.Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov


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5.a. For Whom the Bell TollsErnest Hemingwayb. The Old Man andthe SeaErnest Hemingwayc. The Sun also RisesErnestHemingway

6. On the Road--Jack Kerouac7. Death in VeniceThomas Mann8.The Sheltering SkyPaul Bowles 9. Invisible CitiesItalo Calvino10.a. The TrainGeorges Simenonb. American PastoralPhilipRothc. The Spy Who Came in from the ColdJohn le Carre###

Read more about Fred Waitzkin and The Dream Merchanthere.

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The Alchemy of Writing — More Tips from a Pro