Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory holds that a character’s inner life should be submerged, invisible to the reader but with an undercurrent of feeling in the text. That I get.

His other theory of stripping down language is less appealing. So many simple sentences. Everything is described as good or fine or hot. Characters speak “rot” most times. For me it got a bit tedious. I admire the book, but it’s not a style I’d want to imitate.

The epistolary novel (one composed entirely of letters) is supposed to have died in the late 18th century. No one writes them anymore. Except John Williams. His political novel, Augustus, about the great Roman emperor, is composed entirely of correspondence, mostly by other people writing about the title character.

Before I read it, I would never have believed an ancient form like that could prove so compelling. I recall falling asleep with Pamela as an undergrad. Augustus, though, was too good to put down. It provides all the drama and intrigue of The West Wing without the political correctness. Plus, it shows how politics infects all aspects of the players’ lives. No wonder it won the National Book Award!

Today I turned in the final draft of my thesis, which is also the first 100 pages of my novel. After four years working on it, including two years of relentless criticism from my grad school professors, the moment felt anticlimactic. Shouldn’t there be people here to congratulate me, offer me representation, book contracts, and large advances?

Maybe next week.

All my life I resisted grammar, first as a mewling adolescent diagramming sentences, then as a student of Latin and French who was baffled by the difference between gerunds and gerundives, and finally as a teacher and aspiring writer.
“How is labeling the parts going to help me (or anyone else) write better?” I asked.
Because I’m a native English speaker, and because my parents spoke standard English, I got away with it. Still I was never sure where to put the commas, and I couldn’t construct long, complex sentences like some of my writing idols. Martha Killn taught me how in Rhetorical Grammar. Now, like all new converts, I think every wanna-be Hemingway should study grammar.

For eight hours a day, Mark Rothko stared at his canvases, waiting for inspiration. He clocked in an out like any 9 to 5 line worker, putting in his time with faith that the answers would come to him. (At least, so he’s depicted in the terrific play Red by John Logan).

Therein is a lesson for me and all other aspiring authors. Writing takes time and practice. To finish a novel requires that you write a page a day for at least a year. To edit and polish it takes even longer. To become expert at something (it’s been said) takes 10,000 hours of practice. After 12 years of work, I’m approaching that threshold. Does that mean I’m ready to be a professional author?

I prefer the answer given by Mike Magnusson, one of my professors and mentors at Pacific, who compares writing to bike racing. “You’ve got to get up every day at five and write for two hours,” he tells students.
Although I don’t wake that early, I put in my hours every day. Just like in sports, you have to train to improve.

Or as Frank Gaspar, my current advisor and mentor, said of writing a novel “Touch it every day.”

Good advice for all of us.

While watching the new documentary The Impostor, I was struck by the magnetism of the narrator and star. He’s a serial liar and impersonator who wants to improve his life by assuming the identity of a missing child. Not only does he make for a compelling tale, he offers lessons to aspiring writers (like me).

My friend, colleague and coach, Dave Corbett, once said “give the character a compulsion and let him go.” It’s sage advice and is equally true in fiction and documentary.

While reading Junot Diaz’s story “The Cheater’s Guide to Love” in the July 23 New Yorker, I became convinced that it must be auto-biographical. Now, I know little about Diaz’s personal life and didn’t bother to do much research after reading it. But something in the tone or content – about a faithless Dominican man who blows his relationship to his girlfriend and comes to regret it – set off that tingle, that spidey sense telling me this wasn’t purely an invention. What it was I couldn’t say except perhaps an accumulation of odd details that seemed too peculiar to be fictive.

Regardless, the question I have is whether a writer can create that mimetic sensation through skill/craft, or if it requires self-revelation. All fictionalists strive for that sense of “so real it must be,” but when one achieves it our first instinct is to cry foul. “Autobiography thinly disguised as fiction” is a common complaint, yet how do we know, and does it matter?

As some famous author (I’ve heard it attributed to several, including T.S. Eliot) said, “Bad writers borrow, good writers steal.” In that spirit, this week I looked to one of my idols for inspiration. Richard Price is the best crime fiction writer working today, and in his latest novel Lush Life he did a phenomenal funeral scene. So when I needed help upgrading a death of my own, I reread his. If only I could take it word for word, I would.

I just finished a new short story about a library who discovers an odd pattern to the book vandalism in his branch. Of course, since it’s fiction I didn’t use any of my own experience working in a library for seven years. Nor did I steal the idea from my workshop advisor at Pacific U, who mentioned a similar case in a Portland bookstore. Lastly, none of the characters were inspired by actual people (any resemblance . . .). As we know, fiction must be entirely invented.

For a first draft, I’m pretty happy with it. Still, don’t expect to read it for at least a year. As one of my profs. told me, stories take time to steep.

One of my favorite short stories is “Rapture of the Deep” about Jacques Cousteau’s french chef, who foments a revolt against the sea captain because he’s sick of cooking “poisson, poisson, poisson.” It’s one of those I turn to often when searching for inspiration. T.C.Boyle invents such a great narrative voice, it carries the tale. Have a listen to a professional reading at Selected Shorts.