March Recommendations - Writing Edition

Some but not too many recommendations

First, a note: I was recently asked by Colleen Crivello, creator of the newsletter Double Take to talk about my divorce and current marriage. In telling the story of leaving my first husband and finding my second, I inadvertently told the story of becoming a writer. I do not give marriage advice (lol), but I do tell a wild and candid story, chock full of infidelity, walking the Camino de Santiago, polyamory, despair, and a lot of therapists. You can read it here.

Now, things that help me write…

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Last month I went on a retreat with five other writers, replicating a trip we did last year. It was a natural reflection point where we could take stock of our progress. Three of the group finished the books they were working on last year. One of them got a straight-to-series order from Apple (galleys of Rufi Thorpe’s Margot’s Got Money Troubles have arrived!). One of them published a novel, two of them sold novels.

None of those people are me. It appeared I did nothing.  

The ginger will make sense at the end.

The fact that I am still telling people “Yeah, I’m just working on the novel,” or still saying I’m “nearly finished,” mortifies me. But while I’m inclined to abuse myself, call myself lazy or slow, the truth is that I did a fuck ton of writing in the past year. I rebroke and rewrote a pilot (which took writing three different scripts to figure out), finished a feature, started Write What, wrote these essays and a craft essay for The Sewanee Review. And every week, pages and pages of the novel. Now that I’m in the last days of this draft, I can take in some of that.

There’s an egoic impulse to protect the illusion that we writers do it all alone. It’s like Oz – no one can know the Wizard is a tiny, petty, insecure human. But I am tiny, petty, and insecure. I don’t do it alone. My friends are so generous with their time, homes, and resources. And, most importantly, I have an editor. 

That’s my first recommendation – An Editor. 

You might ask, Doesn’t a writer get an editor when they sell their book? Yes, they do. I’m lucky to count mine among my close friends and confidants. But I’m talking about a freelance editor, or developmental editor, one who doesn’t work for a publisher or a magazine. One who works for you.

I’ve heard the merits of a freelance editor debated at residencies and conferences: isn’t it a waste? Kind of a racket? Does it create too many cooks in the kitchen? I did not have a freelance editor when I wrote Sweetbitter (though I was in an MFA program, another kind of racket). For Stray I wanted to continue working with one of my Knopf editors who no longer worked there, and she was hired freelance. When it came time to start this newsletter, I knew I didn’t want to publish anything that wasn’t of equal quality to my books. I wanted a partner.  

When I found my person (someone I'd worked with before), there were the initial conceptual conversations. He asked big picture questions I would have blundered past. There was back and forth over what my strengths were, and a lot of “we’ve seen too much of this kind of craft talk.” He sees my work in a telepathic way. He can read a few paragraphs and say, “This is what you need to make it what you want it to be,” without my articulating what I want it to be. He has a feeling for my tone and obsessions. He’s so good at reading me it feels like cheating. At one point he cut something I wrote about writing and masturbation, and wrote: “I think this recurs enough in your work that it might warrant an essay of its own?” 

Not all writers have or need this. A lot have writing groups, or former teachers, mentors, trusted readers for early drafts of novels or essays. They’ve been doing this long enough that they’ve built up resources. An agent will read your work and give notes (my agent reads for me constantly, but I don’t think all of them have time) but it’s not their job to edit.

And what if you haven’t sold a novel yet? Or you don’t have an agent, or a writer friend with the bandwidth to read and note up a manuscript? What if you can’t afford an MFA, but want serious feedback, transparent marketplace advice, or just to be held accountable?

I might suggest talking to a few freelance editors and seeing if one doesn’t feel like your literary soulmate. It’s worth noting that it’s an expense - I don’t take that lightly. And if you’re fortunate enough to have sold a book, your editor at the imprint is most likely more than enough. But if you’re serious about your work and want to take it to the next level, a freelance editor can be a life-altering resource and I don’t see how it could be a waste. For me personally, the proof is in the pages. I can see line by line that I’ve become a better writer working with mine.

Other Things That Help Me Write

Scrivener – I was so annoyed right after I bought this program. After a lifetime of Microsoft Word, there was nothing intuitive about it. Certainly nothing that would make me proselytize. I googled, “Why is Scrivener so special?” and watched YouTube videos. Then, after two months of fumbling around, Scrivener and I clicked. We fell in love. How did I ever work without it? There are tons of praiseworthy features but these are the top two for me:

First, the toolbar. It doesn’t seem particularly innovative to have all your documents listed vertically, but what it means is that you can jump from your research documents to a character sheet, to your working draft, without opening or closing a file. Do you remember what it’s like to have fifteen open Word documents and be like, Wait, which one is the one I’m working on? Did I just write that brilliant thought on my old draft or new one? You can see here that I have my novel up top, then old drafts, character sheets, notes, then research. They all live together in harmony.

Second is the split screen. I can rewrite line by line (my preferred revision method), as the drafts are side by side. Or I can open my current draft and my research. See below where I have the working manuscript on the left, and my master draft (a dumping ground and workbook) on the right. When I figured this out my jaw dropped.

On the left, the working manuscript, on the right, notes.

This reading light – It looks crazy but hear me out. You can use it for anything. Sometimes all the lights are on in my office, but the sky won’t lift and it feels like a cave. Or my kids are watching a movie in semi-darkness and I want to read in a chair. I’ve heard that people using it for knitting, grilling in the dark, or puzzling. The light stays with you, so you can move through multiple books or a newspaper without having to adjust a clip-on light. I take it with me everywhere, even the library. I know, I’m old!

A Library Card – “The third place” is a social setting that is neither the home or the workplace - spaces that anchor community interaction and social engagement, free from markers of socioeconomic status: parks, cafes, and of course, public libraries. I’m sure no one reading this needs convincing about the importance of libraries. I often set up shop in a branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, and I’ve worked in a dozen branches of the NYPL (my favorite is Seward Park).

But when it comes to reading, I like to own my books. I mark them, dog ear and revisit. I love to stare at my shelves and let the spines talk to me – I’ve had real breakthroughs doing this. Whenever a new person comes into my house and makes a passive aggressive comment about the books, I call in my husband: “Tell them I use all the books! Tell them!”

However since working on this research-heavy novel, I need information, not a reading experience. I need to juice the book and give it back. Right now, I have the entire Pigeon series by Mo Willems, The Secret Garden, Gay New York by George Chauncy, Regards: The Selected Nonfiction of John Gregory Dunne, and Grace Hartigan’s journals. Soon I’ll have City of Night by John Rechy, and a book on Spanish-style architecture called Casa California. Every time I leave with fresh books, I’m a breathless kid - the entire universe feels knowable.

A Foam Roller – My foam roller lets me believe I might not end up a hunchback. I’ve had one in my office for years (as the writers who worked on the Sweetbitter series can attest), one in my room, and a travel sized one. I can’t live without it.

A Manicure - My friend Edan Lepucki got bright, shiny nails for our retreat, and I thought it was brilliant. Think about how often our fingers are in our frame of vision when we’re writing. Isn’t there such a thing as color therapy?

Ginger Juicer – My friend Jade Chang brought this mini-juicer along with what we thought was “plenty” of ginger. I have not been the same since. Did you know that taking a fresh ginger shot is a lip-numbing burst of adrenaline? Did you know that the bagged ginger tea I’d been drinking is trash compared to the wincing spiciness of ginger juice, lemon and honey in hot water? It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you like to party, I recommend a ginger shot in the afternoon. Now my husband is addicted and everyone I’ve served shots to has bought the juicer.

The Pomodoro Method – This time management technique is old news, but it’s a classic for a reason. Developed by an Italian in the 1980s, it uses a kitchen timer (ideally a cute little tomato or ‘pomodoro’) to break your work into 25-minute intervals, separated by 5-minute breaks. You could do this using your phone as a timer, but the audible ticking is supposed to externalize the desire to complete the task, then the bell is supposed to release you. Theoretically, the sounds will initiate focused states.

Regardless, this is a great one if you find that you’re scrolling against your will. If you can’t delete your apps (which we all should!) check them during your five-minute breaks. This is also a great way to remind yourself to stretch or sit in sunlight or close your eyes.

Psilocybin – Once I was banging my head on my desk trying to write a pilot and a screenwriter friend of mine said, “Why don’t you take some mushrooms and go to Malibu?” I was like, “Wait, is that a thing?” I did not go to Malibu but I did take a microdose and walk around the Silverlake Reservoir. I wrote an entirely new outline in two days, and the producers I sent it to…loved it?? Would I have had the same outcome without the microdose? Maybe. Maybe not.

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Paid subscribers, I’m in the process of putting together a video series with other writers - in the meantime, look for an old-fashioned AMA coming your way…More soon.