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Actor and Writer: Convince Thyself

(SPOILER ALERT) The solution to the New York Times acrostic puzzle on April 05, 2018 is: Stella Adler, The Art of Acting, “The reality you create on the stage by opening a jar or threading a needle isn’t so that the audience will believe in you. It’s so that you believe in yourself. Acting is truthful when you yourself are convinced.” Adler’s analysis applies equally well to writing. That is, the reality you create on the page with character, setting, and plot isn’t so that the reader will believe in your narrative but rather that you, the writer, convince yourself. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.

Stone by Stone and Word by Word

Like the mason builds a cathedral one stone at a time, so too the writer builds a book one word at a time. Admittedly, this thought is not original (read Anne Lamott’s classic manual Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life) but it encourages the novelist to aim for a magnificent literary edifice. For more thoughts on the art and craft of writing, see REFLECTIONS.

What I’m Reading: Guts by Janet Buttenwieser

My Amazon and Goodreads review of Guts (Rating 5): Interweaving Illness, Family, and Friendship — Janet Buttenwieser rewards readers with three connected stories. First, the book is a moving memoir of how she found the confidence to speak up for herself to a medical establishment that claimed to know her body better than she did, and how she trained that body to take physical risks she never thought possible. Second, Guts is an appreciation of family, the body’s extension that sustains us when we’re ready to surrender and magnifies our joy when we’re already past bursting. The book’s third tale, which embodies the other two, is a testimonial to friendship. Buttenwieser honors the late friend who she gained through admiration, lost through inattention, regained through commitment, and lost again to cancer. Guts, guarantees that her friend will live within her, and her readers, forever.

Learn History Through Fiction: Bibliotherapy for WWI Veterans

BIBLIOTHERAPY is the practice, dating back to the Ancient Greeks, of encouraging reading for therapeutic effect. After the First World War, traumatized (“shell-shocked”) soldiers returning home were often prescribed a course of reading to help them readjust to civilian life. In the U.S., the American Library Association distributed a list of recommended books while the novels of Jane Austen were advised in the U.K. Today, research on “mirror neurons” in the brain shows that reading literary fiction (but not popular fiction or literary nonfiction) improves empathy, i.e., the ability to experience what others go through as if you had gone through it yourself. Learn more about bibliotherapy in an article at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier. To find a book for what ails you, check out The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies (Berthoud & Elderkin, 2016). See what literary novels were popular in the years ending and after the Great War in BEHIND THE STORY. Read more about traumatized WWI veterans in On the Shore (see NOVELS). What novels would you recommend for our shell-shocked country today?

The Eight “Tudes” of Writing

In an interview, a lighting designer described three “tudes” necessary for the job: attitude, aptitude, fortitude. I added five more for the eight tudes essential to being a writer. In alphabetical order (they are of equal importance, albeit at different stages of the creative process): Attitude (thinking of yourself as a writer) // Aptitude (knowing your craft) // Beatitude (the blessing of a creative mind) // Certitude (confidence in the worth of your idea) // Exactitude (seeking the precise word or phrase) // Fortitude (butt-to-the-chair persistence in the face of rejection) // Gratitude (for the gift of writing in your life) // Latitude (to write “shitty first [or more] drafts”). (See REFLECTIONS for more thoughts about writing.)

What I’m Reading: You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir by Sherman Alexie

My Amazon review of You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me: A Memoir (Rating 4): An Uneasy Relationship Confronted by an Uneasy Author – I was halfway through Alexie’s memoir when I heard the NPR report about his repeated sexual aggression. It was several days before I could go back to reading the book, incorporating that knowledge. I already knew of Alexie’s anger at the mistreatment of Indians. In his memoir, I learned about his being personally abused too. Neither justifies his abuse toward women. However, I bought and read the book for his insights into his troubled relationship with his mother. My late mother was also a difficult person, so this was an area where I found it easier to empathize with him. Alexie speaks eloquently of his ambivalence toward her, feelings that will never be resolved. However, honest memoirs like his can help fellow travelers on an endless journey toward greater understanding, levels of forgiveness, and letting go while still holding on.

Learn History Through Fiction: World War I and Women’s Suffrage

In honor of Women’s History Month (March) – World War One boosted the cause of women’s suffrage when they were employed to replace the men fighting overseas. Women worked in the “land army” (farming), munitions factories, public transport, local law enforcement, and the postal service. By war’s end, women were also recruited into the armed forces as cooks, clerks, telephone operators, electricians, and code experts. These vital roles increased their economic, social, and political power. Parades and rallies enhanced their visibility. Using the rhetoric of the progressive era to demand the right of self-government, the suffrage movement pressured a reluctant President Woodrow Wilson in 1918 to approve a constitutional change and in 1920 the 19th amendment nationalized women’s right to vote. Read more about women’s involvement in the suffrage and labor movements during this era in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: WWII U.N. Orphan Camp Near Nazi Dachau Death Camp

In April 1945, the United National Relief and Rehabilitation administration (UNRRA) entered the American zone of Germany and registered between 6,000 and 7,000 displaced children. Both Jews and non-Jews, they included survivors of concentration camps, forced child laborers, and children whose parents were sent to forced labor camps. In July, not far from the Dachau death camp, UNRRA created an international pilot program in Kloster Indersdorf, a former monastery closed by the Nazis. Between 1945 and 1948, it became home to more than 1,000 refugee youth. Led by a disciple of Anna Freud, the institute served as a model for five other centers in Europe. Groups of 12-15 orphans were organized into surrogate families led by an adult parent figure. Said one staff member, “The first thing was to give them plenty of food, clothing, and listen to their stories, days and nights. It had to come out. Sometimes it took hours. You could not interrupt.” Photos of the children were posted in hopes that relatives, if alive, would recognize and claim them. In a few cases this happened, but for most of the Jewish children, “their dark suspicion grew gradually into the horrible certainty, that from now on each was all alone in the world.” Read more in BEHIND THE STORY.

Learn History Through Fiction: Suffragettes and Prohibitionists

In honor of International Women’s Day (March 8) – Many suffragettes were also prohibitionists, defending women against drunken husbands who abused them and protecting children from fathers who spent food and rent money on alcohol. Men were opposed to both movements and the liquor industry was a powerful anti-women’s rights force. Temperance proponents like Susan B. Anthony and Frances Willard took up the cause of women’s suffrage to enact laws against alcohol. Read more about early women activists in On the Shore (see NOVELS).

Learn History Through Fiction: Secrets in the Souffle

Researching the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II for my novel-in-progress, One Person’s Loss, I discovered that many famous people worked as agents — that is, spies — for the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Among them was chef Julia (McWilliams) Child; supreme court justice Arthur Goldberg, film director John Ford, Hollywood actors Sterling Hayden and Marlene Dietrich, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Ralph Bunche (who was paid $5,600 a year). They were primarily recruited for their “intellectual sweat.” The 35,000 OSS personnel files in the National Archives were not released to the public until August 2008, more than sixty years after the agency ceased wartime operations.