The Deep: Captain Val's Answers to Last Week's Questions

Gobsmacked: Celebrating Me Birthday Month with a Giveaway!

            For the month of May, I’ll be givin’ away a signed copy of my France, a Love Story, along with a surprise: a signed copy of a book by another author who … I'll just keep ye guessin’.

            Here’s me instructions: leave a comment on me blog, and your name goes into the end-of-the month drawin’. The more comments, the better your chances. If you subscribe by email, send your name and comment to valinparis (at) earthlink (period) net. If ye wish me to post yer comment to me Captain’s Log, tell me, and it’s done!

Bonus! Every captain needs followers and here’s how to serve yer captain. Bring a mate on board Gobsmacked by having them sign up to receive me blog. For every mate you bring aboard, your name goes into the drawing three times. I’m using the pirate’s code of honor for this. Just tell me you signed ‘em up. No cheatin’ now or it’s the gangplank!

The Deep: Captain Val's Answers to Last Week's Questions

Last week, I wrote ‘bout how a writer’s job resumé offers nothin’ but a skeleton of their experience. Writers ha’ to dig deep into personal experience to understand human nature and create living, breathing, believable characters. Some authors might disagree, but they don’t sail on my ship.

That’s why I suggest asking more personal questions of authors at readings. Depending on the nature of the book (‘cause you want to ask pertinent questions, not superficial, sensationalistic ones), the questions can be related to what the novel or memoir brings to the surface for you emotionally.

Here’s where I dive in deep water. Remember the questions I posed from last week?

“Ha’ ye ever been close to dying?”

“Ha’ ye ever taken a dark road and been lost?”

“What terrifies you and why?”

As promised, I’ll ask ‘em of meself and tell ye how they relate to life and work. A’right?

Ha’ ye ever been close to dying?

Job experience in me twenties:  drive-in restaurant waitress, telephone switchboard operator, movie theater ticket sales person, keypunch operator for a woolen mill (Ah, that dates me!)

Life experience and answer to the question:

Aye. At age twenty-three, I was beaten and had a knife put to me throat by a bi-polar, alcoholic Vietnam Vet who I was divorcin’ at the time. I’ve used that fear and aspects of the experience in me writin’. I’ve also used the characteristics that kept me alive—strength, determination, resilience, and street smarts. I learned first hand about PTSD, what war does, how it effects families, what violence looks and feels like, and can empathize with those who continually face the threat of violence and death during war and at home.

Ha’ ye ever taken a dark road and been lost?

Job experience during my thirties:  artist, editor of a literary arts magazine, graphic artist, cultural resource coordinator for the arts

Life experience and answer to the question:

No. I’ be lost a time or two, but ha’ ne’er taken a dark road. Even when I was wi’ me ex-husband, we had a child, traveled, and moved to Oregon from the East Coast. My son and Oregon were my greatest gifts from the ex, and I troll those waters, too, for me writing. The dark always yields to the light.

What terrifies you and why?

Job experience from forties onward: strategic planner at a community college; graphic designer and illustrator; writer

Life experience and answer to the question:

Nothing terrifies me, not after the experiences of my twenties, after the death of my best friend in high school, the suicide of my father, the terror of my ex. I follow me passion, have a terrific family, live in paradise, have the love of a great man, and if anything would frighten me, it would be the thought of losing any of my family, especially outliving the young ‘uns. But I don’t live there. I do however explore the possibilities, using those fears in the current work in progress “Parallel Crossings” where the five-year-old daughter of the main character is kidnapped by her ex-husband, and the girl is never found. That’s how I work the whole bloody thing into a story.

Guest author Erika Dreifus answers one of me questions

To show you scallywags what happens with authors when you ask questions like the ones above, I contacted Erika Dreifus, author of the brilliant debut short-story collection Quiet Americans. The connected stories about the Jewish experience during and after the Holocaust are so different and rich with characters who feel so real, I had to ask Erika the following question. Her answer follows.

Have you ever had a personal tragedy that gives you a strong empathy for your characters and what they had to endure?

“I think that the opposite situation may be true, that the immense good fortune and privilege with which I have been blessed are what have attracted me to the characters, themes, and events in Quiet Americans. It is because I find it so difficult to envision coping with the challenges that are woven into the stories that I have tried so diligently to do exactly that: envision. Then, too, the fact that certain characters and circumstances are so closely modeled on my beloved grandparents and what they did, in fact, have to endure does add a strong dose of personal connection to the mix.”

* * * * *

So there ye ha’ it! All told, if ye do one thing this month to celebrate me birthday, go to an author’s meet and greet, reading, or signing. No bones about it. They put their whole life into their work, and we benefit.

From the Gobsmacked ship to yours, a hearty hi-ho!

Captain Val

Captain Val's review of Erika Dreifus' QUIET AMERICANS

Coming Up!

May Giveaway!

“Platform, Flatform”

“A View of My Writers Room Wall: What Inspires Me”

“Oh, Google, My Name is …”

… and soon an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven

The Fountain of Youth, or What Does a Writer’s Resumé Really Look Like?

I’ll be Gobsmacked! The news comes pouring in and I bail it here (links listed below):

I continue to chase down Captain Jessica Maxwell, that slippery lass, and shiver me timbers, I’ve booked an interview with her on May 26^th. She’s sailing at top speed! She’s writing a Bhutan book proposal, a NW Palate assignment, and traveling to New Mexico and New York for research on her big AARP assignment, “Retreats.” For those who follow her Roll Around Heaven adventures and want to join her, she’ll be doing a RAH! Workshop in Sun Valley, Idaho May 19-23, followed by giving a RAH! talk in Portland, Oregon, on May 25.

I’m tired to me bones just writin’ this!

One of my long-time favorite authors, Alice Hoffman, turned me on to a guilty pleasure—the television show “Being Erica.” As she says on Facebook, “… therapy and time travel, what more can you ask from a TV series!”

Don’ sail past her latest work of fiction, The Red Garden, a collection of linked stories that, after readin’ the first four stories, seems to ha’ disappearing as a theme. In her magical way she takes ye through two-hundred years in the town of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Being from New England, I love the mysterious, the dark, the Gothic, so these stories makes me blood surge.

A hearty lift of the tankard to Jennifer Egan who just won the Pulitzer for her A Visit from the Goon Squad, a novel on me “best reads.” Attn: Time Magazine: it’s TIME! Put her on the cover.

The always adventurous Seattle7Writers have launched Hotel Angeline: a novel in 36 Voices. A fleet of writers collaborate on a novel? Aye!

Now, to Captain Val Adventures!

The Fountain of Creative Ideas, or

Why My Resume Wouldn't Land Me a Normal Job

The Fountain of Youth, or

What Does a Writer’s Resumé Really Look Like?

            Where to begin, me hearties? Why, at the end of me last Captain’s Log, that’s where!

            I still be thinkin’ on that chandelier. It’s me love of lights, of things that sparkle. Why? ‘Cause I write about the dark things in life, seekin’ the proverbial “light at the end of the passageway.” It’s a pirate’s life to seek treasure, to find it in dangerous places.

            Like the great, and sometimes despicable, captains of yore, who struck out for the land of milk and honey or spices or gold, or to find a continent in the name of a queen, it’s the adventure, the mystery, their curiosity that kept them going. O, aye, they set their hearts on bringing home booty, but as in any adventure, isn’t the pursuit the real treasure?

            And me point? Well, mateys, ‘tis the same for writers. Aye, our ultimate treasure is to hold a book in our hands, knowing others are reading our tale.

            But the real adventure, the treasure, is in the writing, setting forth the story that won’t be quiet. Aye, indeed, a few buccaneers need to publish for glory, but I haven’t met any of those scallywags yet. Settin’ out to write a New York Times bestseller is akin to sailin’ out to find the fountain of youth. We all desire recognition, to be knighted, but that’s external and elusive. What sets us on the writing journey is curiosity and longing, and that comes from within.

            And here’s me point (aye, I’m a long-winded bag o’ bones) for this Log:

A writer must always be searchin’, must always feel hungry, must always be dissatisfied.

Aye, it’s a sad truth. Under that beautiful calm sea is a sunken ship with barnacles and some weird strange creatures livin’ inside.

            Some writers don’t try to hide this. Some are sailin’ the seas with their freak flag wavin’ brilliantly for all to see. Hoorah!

            But most don’t. Most seem almost—dare I say it?—normal.

            Don’t be fooled, readers. Ya see, writer’s ha’ two resumes. One they use for job searches (aye, the majority of writers work another job) and one they hide. And for writers, it’s the latter they draw on for their work. Think of it this way: some writers openly sail those scary troubled waters with memoir. Every writer has a memoir in them, but many prefer the fiction world, an escape from those troubled waters.

            Here’s me advice for fishing those waters when attending a reading of one of your favorite authors. Don’ bother asking questions like “Have you ever had writer’s block?” “Where do your ideas come from?” or “Who’s your favorite author?” Yawn! They’ll just give ye the standard answer.

            Go for gold. Ask, “Ha’ ye ever been close to death?” “Ha’ ye ever taken a dark road and been lost?” “What terrifies you and why?” Tailor those questions to their work. I guarantee that will wake up the audience and the author.

            To keep ye hooked and for me to sail, in the next Captain’s Log I’ll show ye how those questions apply to me life. I’ll tell ye where I fish for my material, what me subterranean world looks like, what creepy little creatures live there and where they came from. I’ll actually answer those questions above.

            Ah, the deep is a scary place, but sunken treasure lies there.

Until then, Dear Faithful Buccaneers, I am yours,

Captain Val

Jessica Maxwell and Roll Around Heaven

"Being Erica" episodes

Alice Hoffman talking about ghosts, the past, and explaining the world

Jennifer Egan talking about the idea of time, music, and her novel

Hotel Angeline: a Novel in 36 Voices

Coming Up! (Keep laughin’, you scallywags!)

"The Deep: Captain Val's Answers to Last Week's Questions"

"Platform, Flatform"

"A View of My Writers Room Wall: What Inspires Me"

A Giveaway! Yes, something for you, maties

... and in June! an interview with Jessica Maxwell of Roll Around Heaven