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LOU READS

This week, Lou Reed visited my local independent bookstore to publicize his new book, The Raven. Or that was why I assumed he was coming; after having seen him I'm not sure why he was there.

I was admittedly not the target audience for this reading. There was a period in my youth when I thought he was a genius, and I still find much to admire in his songs and his stance. And I'm grateful to him for serving as a gateway to the Beat poets, Rimbaud and WS Borroughs, all of whom provided me with entertainment, inspiration and courage at difficult times in my life. But I'm older and more tired now, and the only reasons I attended the reading were that my friends wanted to go and the bookstore is a quick walk from home. So I was in a good position to observe the audience-author interactions from an outsider perspective.

I have attended many readings in which authors have presented as anxious to please their audiences, going out of their way to respond politely and in detail to such questions as, "What is your favorite color?" and "Why didn't you write about [fill in pet topic]?" I have even attended a reading at which the author was actively hostile to the audience, ridiculing their questions and accusing members of not knowing how to read. But this was my first encounter with a writer who seemed completely indifferent to the other people in the room.

He read in a monotone that was at times difficult to understand, and instructed the employee in charge of the accompanying slideshow to linger on or return to his favorite illustrations so that he could meditate silently on them. He dismissed questions, not with anger or contempt, but simply, apparently, because they did not appeal to him. And although I could not wait to leave, the rest of the audience seemed entranced. (And no, very few people appeared stoned. That was my first thought too.)

I was especially attuned to this because I am scheduled to give two performances this week, neither of which is high-stakes, but about both of which I am extremely nervous. Both my musical theater teacher and a friend who is a professional musician, to whom I have been neurosing ("I know there is nothing to be afraid of--the same way a child knows there aren't monsters under the bed, but doesn't want to turn out the light") insist that nerves are a good thing--that a lack of complacency makes us work harder, and provides that all-important charge between performer and audience.

I'm thinking, too, though, about a wonderful acting teacher who used to tell us, "Don't cater to the audience. When you cater to anyone--a lover, a child, an audience--you lose them. Do what you do based on who you are, and the audience will find you there."

I think there is wisdom in both stances. But I have to admit, I would have appreciated a little nervous energy the other night.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Dear Dr. O'Doherty,

 With the most recent extreme example of plagiarism all the publishing buzz at the moment (Q.R. Markham's Assassin of Secrets, published by Mulholland, turns out to be entirely composed of text taken from well-known published books), would you please tell us something about the impulse to plagiarize? These cases arise every so often, most recently, for example, the case of Kaavya Viswanathan's debut novel, published in 2006 and withdrawn when her plagIarisms from Megan McCafferty, Salman Rushdie, and a few other published authors came to light.

With Assasssin of Secrets, it isn't just a few cut-and-pasted sentences, but an extraordinary crazy quilt of appropriated text on, possibly, every page. (It is a remarkable feat, in its way, crafting a Frankenstein's monster of a novel apparently coherent enough to garner starred reviews in PW and Kirkus.) Even his answers in an online Q&A about the book turn out to be words stolen from other writers.

How could someone capable of composing a readable manuscript, getting an agent, signing with a publisher, and going through all the stepsone goes through over many months or even years when one publishes a novel never have second thoughts about this sufficient to withdraw the manuscript? (And the author is part-owner of a Brooklyn bookstore, so he might even have awareness of the impact on booksellers when something like this happens.) How could someone's (apparent) ambition to be a published writer lead to the delusion, especially in this internet age, that "writing" such a book could succeed undetected?

Obviously, the publishers need to do some soul-searching on their side. I am asking you to explain something about the author's behavior and thinking in a situation like this. While of course you cannot know what was going on for this individual in this case, can you shed light on what may be going on when someone does something like this? What happened here?

-- Curious and Disturbed

Dear C & D,

As you may know, since you wrote, Quentin Rowan ("Markham") himself has published an account of his process. You will need to decide for yourself how truthful and self-aware this is.

Regarding the more general issue you present, it is fascinating and complex and deserves a fuller response than I can give here, but I will try to hit the main points.

There are many possible motivations for covert antisocial behavior. Some individuals have an inflated, possibly delusional, sense of their own cleverness; they may believe they will never get caught and even enjoy the sense of hiding in plain sight.

Others are thrill-seeking; the excitement of doing something risky (such as speeding, sneaking drugs and alcohol into the school dance, or, yes, plagiarizing, particularly in an obvious way) is enhanced by the knowledge that the consequences of being caught may be dire. This seems to be, at least in part, the process that Rowan describes: substituting the addictive thrill of alcoholism with that of plagiarism.

Still others may struggle with deep-seated feelings of guilt over unrelated acts and actually wish to be caught and punished.

And our culture tends to value form over substance; the state of being famous rather than doing something worthwhile that may also make you famous. Some writers struggle with a perceived need to be published, or famous, and this need can become so intense that it overshadows morality and realistic thinking.

But keep in mind that, although plagiarism is illegal and arguably deeply immoral, it is not unnatural. The idea of intellectual property is a relatively recent one; for earlier generations, stories were passed down and refi

Writing on the Air

My regular improv class is on hiatus, so to keep from getting rusty I recently took a trial class at another school. It was fun, and fascinating to experience a very different approach to the same material. One exchange between John, the teacher, and another student stayed with me, because it highlighted something I think all improvisers feel but that I have never heard articulated before.

In a scene involving food preparation, the student had been holding an imaginary pot when he got into an argument with another character and started waving his arms around. Afterward, John asked, "So what happened to the pot?"

The student acknowledged that he had forgotten all about it. "I was worried about where the scene was going," he said, "and I lost track of where I was."

"That's what's so hard about this business," John commented. "You have to wear all the hats, at the same time. You're the writer, the director, and the prop manager, in addition to being the actor. You have to be completely authentic in the moment, and at the same time you have to be aware of the narrative arc and where you're pushing it. There are no rehearsals, no do-overs. It's just you and your co-creators, up there, naked."

He made it sound difficult and scary, and it is. It is also incredibly freeing.

When I write, I am a compulsive reviser. I have to force myself to send stories out, because I never believe they are really done. I rip them apart and put the scenes together in different order; I rewrite them from the point of view of a minor character; I change the setting, the time of year, and the characters' names and vocations. I have been fiddling with some stories for more than 15 years now.

This is fun, but it can be hard to know when to stop--when there really is more to be gotten out of a story, vs nit picking that keeps me from moving on.

Improv is really helping with this. I can't look on anything I do as a draft. I can't revise. I am constantly learning from my mistakes, but I can't go back and fix the mistakes; I can only try to do better next time. And sometimes what I think is a mistake--a spontaneous expression that I would, if I were writing, go back and delete--turns out to be exactly what the scene needs.

It is an exciting, humbling, and confidence building art, and it is changing everything.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Thoughts on Entitlement

I have had a difficult few weeks. Some clients at an agency where I volunteer are facing life-threatening problems that are not, technically, mental health issues, but because of budget cuts and layoffs there is no one else to address them, so we have stepped in--and been stymied at every turn by bureaucratic snafus. A dear friend who has been plagued by a series of scary health problems over the past few years is preparing for yet another serious operation later this month. And I have been preoccupied and disheartened by both the responses to the Penn State scandal and the military-style crackdown on the OWS protesters.

 And so this week, I screwed up in my musical theater class. It wasn't one of the insane, dramatic failures that come from overreaching, which happen to me periodically and which I don't mind, because I always learn from them. This time, I simply called it in, something I don't think I have ever done before, and that I didn't think I was capable of doing.

 At our regular post-class coffee-shop postmortem, my friends agreed that my performance had been subpar. "You usually have this spark, and it just wasn't there," was how one of them put it. My friend Florrie, who knows pretty much everything about me, said, "It's not surprising that you were a bit distracted given everything that's been on your mind."

It wasn't just distraction, though, I realized later. It is more that, given all of the distressing events going on right now, it is hard to feel entitled to spend time and energy on such frivolous pursuits.

Don't get me wrong: I believe firmly in the value of art to any civilized society. Just not necessarily my art. I don't write searing social or political critiques, and I am not performing protest songs or guerrilla theater. I write stories about the inner workings of ordinary people, and I perform songs about unrequited love and social awkwardness.

I went to bed after class thinking that perhaps I should just give up this nonsense and focus on things that matter. When I woke up, though, I remembered two things people had said about my work the day before, which hadn't really registered at the time. My class friends agreed that even when I do mess up, I always make them laugh. And my teacher, after rightly blasting me for a half-assed performance, said, "One thing about you, though--I always care about you. Whatever you're singing, I'm always engaged and rooting for your character. Some people perform flawlessly, but they don't make us care. I'd rather watch you."

And laughter and caring are also important to a civilized society. So I'm still in. Though not giving up the day job.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Advice from a Pro

On Sunday,  I had the privilege of seeing my musical theater teacher, Lorraine Serabian, perform in "Broadway Originals" at Town Hall. This annual program features actor/singers performing the now-classic songs they originated on Broadway.

I have had wonderful teachers whose performances disappointed me. Some teachers, like some editors, are more skilled at helping others achieve their potential than at shining themselves.

Lorraine isn't like that. She stole the show, even among such luminaries as Tammy Grimes and Marilyn Michaels. She lit up the stage with her passion and her beautiful voice.

We talked about the performance in class on Monday.  How, We wondered, does a person achieve the confidence that allows her to throw herself that completely into a role? Is it something you're born with?

Not at all, she assured us. She was "nervous as hell" before the performance, as usual. But, she said, if you keep performing, eventually you get sick of watching less talented but more aggressive performers tear up the stage, and you decide to plunge in. Sometimes this happens all at once; more often in stages, but we will get there.

I have decided to believe her.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

BEGINNINGS PART THREE: A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH CAROLINE LEAVITT

For many of us, the hardest part of writing is facing the initial blank screen. I asked novelist Caroline Leavitt to discuss her emotional and psychological process in beginning a novel.

Starting a new work for me is always a combination of a great leap of faith, terrible fear and stubborness. I always start with something that obsesses me--usually a what if around a character. The novel coming from Algonquin next year (no title yet!) started with my wondering about a crime in a 1950s suburban neighborhood, at a time when everyone is paranoid about the Cold War and women had little rights and everyone imagines they are living the American Dream. And that led to one of my main characters, Ava, a woman ahead of her time, who somehow, in the suburban paranoia, is targeted for the crime. I clung to that kernel the whole time I was writing the novel, but what I cling to even more is my first chapter.  I've always felt that the first chapter holds all the seeds for everything that germinates in the novel. Every clue, right down to the last--and hopefully surprising, but in an inevitable way--page, should be there.  So I work for months on my first chapter, and then I have to show it to a few other writers. When that chapter is right, it becomes my lifeline. When I'm in chapter 8 and convinced I should chuck it all and go to dental school instead, I look at that first chapter. It's as if that chapter says, "See? You can do this.  You can't give up. This is what haunted you. Keep going."

I'm always intimidated. I'm always sure that what I am writing is dull, stupid, boring, melodramatic or all of those adjectives. I have to keep myself from going on Amazon to compare myself to other writers (always dangerous.) I have to stop the fear in its tracks. I do this by hunkering down in my seat and putting blinders on, by writing the book that I need to write for myself (I'm not thinking of readers at this stage.). I outline and map what I imagine should happen and then I change it as I write. I'm waiting for edits on the 1950s novel, and I've started another new novel, and once again, I've got that first chapter-lifeboat. I'm trying to map out the story (though I know the map will change). I suffer writer's amnesia. I don't remember the process once it's over, but I'm trying to recall more and more because I think it's important to remember that yes, it's hard.  And yes, it is so, so worth it.

How do you get yourself from the intimidation phase to the hunkering-down phase? That is, do you simply remind yourself that you’ve been there before, and this is the antidote, or is there a more complex process?

That's a really great question.  I'm never intimidated at first--I almost always love the opening stages, which to me are like falling love. It's after the first hundred pages that I start to fall apart and panic. I have writers' amnesia. I forget that this happens every time so I have writer friends that I ask repeatedly, Was I like this last time? And then they email and they tell me that yes, I thought I didn't have a plot and never would.  That yes, I thought my characters were wooden and stupid. And yes, I was crying then, too. This reminder helps me to realize that this is a process, that this is the really tough time and all there is to it is to sit there every day and work through it.  I have to stop myself from dramatizing how difficult it is, and I have to stop myself from thinking that every other writer is having it easy and merrily writing along!

Caroline Leavitt is the author of nine published novels, most recently the New York Times bestseller Pictures of You. She is the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts  Award in Fiction, and a Goldenberg Fiction Prize. She was also a National Magazine Award Nominee in Personal Essay, a finalist in the Nickelodeon Sc

MORE ON BEGINNINGS: A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH MASHA HAMILTON

This is the second in a series of short interviews with writers about the emotional and psychological processes involved in creative writing. I asked Masha to describe the process of beginning a new novel:

I don't plot a new piece. It is a lot scarier than that for me; questions start to bubble to the surface, and I begin to feel a character, as unformed as that sounds. Then I look for the "inciting incident," the moment that is going to challenge the character in difficult and unexpected ways and start off some action that will change lives. Usually that inciting incident stays roughly the same as I work on the novel, but really, everything else is open to change. I try to remind myself if I don't have something on the page, I have nothing to revise, because I know the beginning is simply creating something to revise!

So, by the time you actually get to the point of writing, are the character and incident so clear in your mind that you feel ready to set it all down in draft, almost as if you were recording something that was actually happening, rather than creating from scratch? Or are there steps between conceptualizing and writing?

The character and the inciting incident are clear enough to get me excited. I know what I want to explore, and how, in essence, to trigger that exploration. And that trigger occurs in scene, so yes, I can kind of see the scene by the time I actually start writing it. I'm writing it as though it will be the first chapter. It always ends up near the start, but it doesn't always end up as Chapter One.

It sounds comforting, to remind ourselves that what we write at the beginning will almost certainly be changed, so there’s no point in stressing over it. Does it work that way for you? Are you able to just start writing, knowing that you’ll probably come back and revise?

Yes, it is really comforting to me. In fact, it surprises me how much can change months and even years into the project--although "change" isn't exactly the right word. Clarify is more what I mean.

Masha Hamilton is the author of four novels, most recently 31 Hours, and the founder of two world literacy projects, the Afghan Women's Writing Workshop and the Camel Book Drive.

 Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. She can be reached at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Beginnings: A Brief Interview with David Abrams

 This is the first in a series of short interviews with writers about the emotional and psychological processes involved in creative writing. I asked David to talk about what comes up for him when he is starting  new work:

If I stare at them long enough, blank screens (formerly known as "blank pages") terrify the shit out of me.  There is so much empty space waiting to be filled, all that acreage primed for words--words which are still trapped in my head, words which are hiding around the corner, cowering under bedsheets, refusing to come out into the light.  Blank screens fill me with self-doubt and second-guessing.  Blank screens are the arch-enemy of productive writing and should be avoided at all costs.  Therefore, it's best to populate them as quickly as possible, even if it means typing the word "The" and letting it sit there all alone in that white space while you summon what follows.  That "The" buys you some time while you wrestle the anxiety and try to tamp down the fear of beginning a new story, novel, poem or essay.

David, this is brilliant. I love the idea of just writing "the," of filling up a page with nonsense. I’m going to try it myself the next time I have trouble getting started.

The image made me think of going to a party filled with people one doesn’t necessarily like, just to not be alone. I once met a woman who had been widowed for about a year and still was unused to the isolation, both in her home and in her social life, since she and her husband had entertained mostly as a couple with other couples. She told me that when things got really bad she would go to the emergency room of her local hospital and sit there among the people waiting to be seen; it brought her back to humanity just to be around others.

This made me wonder how much of a role loneliness or perceived isolation plays in reluctance to begin a new work. Writing is such a solitary activity; the decision to plunge in entails accepting long stretches of complete aloneness, especially before we have our fully formed characters to interact with. Do you think filling up the page with nonsense might be in part a hedge against this aloneness?

That's a very sad image of the widow going to an emergency room just to connect with people--especially when you stop to think that ERs are packed with people at their worst moments--in pain and feeling very vunerable.  I can think of safer, quieter places to mingle with humanity.  But, on the other hand, if she sat in a coffee shop, nervously sipping her brew and moving muffin crumbs into shapes of continents with her fingertips, she probably wouldn't connect with anyone else.  They'd all be too busy chatting with others at their own table.

But I stray from your question (avoidance technique!).

In truth, I'm never alone when I write.  This will sound a little Jekyll-and-Hyde-ish, but I'm always at war with myself when I sit down at the desk.  One half of my Self--the louder, bullying half--is always trying to convince the meek, compliant (and lazy!) Self to do anything but the task at hand.  I sit there for long stretches doing a lot of Not Writing.  Until finally, through guilt or reason, Mr. Meek rises up and gives Mr. Bully a swift kick in the teeth.  So, I don't really surround myself with my characters as entities; I don't really converse with them or wait for them to "arrive."  I'm enough company for myself.  As they say, I'm my own worst enemy.

I should also note that physically, I can only write when I'm alone.  I set the alarm for 3:30 am every day and, half-asleep, go down the stairs to my basement office where I spend the next two to three hours in solitude.  The silence is only broken by the hiss of the furnace, my hungry cats' plaintive mews, and the classical mu