A Learning Experience

by Therese Fowler


A college student who's an aspiring fiction writer got in touch recently, hoping to interview me for a project she was doing. Along with the questions she asked about what it's like to be a novelist, she wanted to know whether I believed creative writing could be taught.

What she was really asking, it turned out, was, Should I study creative writing? Will it help make me good enough to have a writing career?

Back in 2002, not long after I'd invested two years in my first effort at writing a novel, I began to wonder the same thing. I'd written an entire story beginning-middle-end (an accomplishment itself; you aspiring writers, don't let anyone tell you differently), revised it, revised it, revised it, and was in the midst of my second descent into the fiery pits of hell--er, agent queries. What I got back, in those days of SASE replies, were lots of form letter rejections in my mailbox. Dozens of them. But amidst those were a few encouraging letters--and, one day, a phone call from a very successful agent, a dream agent. When she said her name, I thought I might wet myself. (Yes, that's how it is at that stage, oh my...)

She'd read the novel. She'd liked a lot of what she read. The writing was solid, the voice was fresh. But it was clear to her that I still had some things to learn about how to tell a story in writing. Things like...building a plot. Small thing, but kind of important.

"What do you recommend?" I asked, the phone receiver clutched in my hand like a lifeline.

"Oh, there are some great books that address plot. You might also consider a writing group or workshop. Whatever makes sense for you. And then, if you revise it, I'd like to see it again."

She didn't say, "Go get an MFA in creative writing."

Because the fact is, most authors don't have MFAs. Don't need them, don't want them, can't afford the time and/or the money it takes to get those three letters that no one even gets to put after their name. You finish the degree program and you are not Dr. Great Writer, MFA. Not even Ms. Great Writer, MFA. Really, not even Ms. Great Writer, though of course there are some writing programs that seem to project exactly that expectation (but that's a subject for another post...).

But in 2002, I had a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old, both of whom I hoped to be able to send to college right after they finished high school (not when they were in their 30s, as had been my personal experience--and of course my parents didn't pay). I really, really wanted to be a novelist, a professional, full-time writer who earned a decent living. When people asked me, "What do you do?" I would be able to say, "I'm a writer," and be identifying not only my occupation, but my career.

So, in order to hedge my bets in as many ways as I could figure out how to do, I applied to grad school hoping to learn plot and whatever else came along. I didn't have a writing credit to my name. I'd never taken a writing class. All I had to recommend me to the faculty was a well-rejected manuscript and a burning desire to learn to be a better writer. If I got in, then completed the program, I'd come away with at the very least some extra credentials that would, I hoped, allow me to get a teaching job while I kept working at my ultimate goal.

Three years later, I'd written another novel (twice), figured out plot, completed the MFA degree, taught a couple semesters of undergraduate creative writing, and had gained representation by my first choice of agents. Nine months after that, I'd written one more novel--Souvenir, the one that would launch my career. Today, nine years after that agent's phone call, I'm in my fifth year of writing full-time, at work on my fourth novel, which is under contract, and my sons are both in college.

"So you see," I told the student, "every writer with even a little innate talent can, with instruction of whatever flavor, become a better writer. But you won't know for sure whether instruction will make you a better writer, a good enough writer," I said, "until you try. If a writer is what you really want to be, do it in whatever way makes sense for you, but do it."

A coda: It's not only about writing. In 2005, the same year that I was finishing grad school, Steve Jobs spoke at the Stanford University commencement. He'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year earlier; as you know by now, he died yesterday. In that speech, he told the graduates many useful things, but among them was this message: "The only way to do great work is to love what you do... Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Try.

*********

Therese Fowler is the author of three novels, the most recent of which is Exposure, recommended by the New York Times, USA Today, and Family Circle Magazine. She's doing her best to adjust to her new empty-nest status by regularly posting photos of any of her four cats on Facebook.

IDEALLY...

by Therese Fowler

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“Where do you get your ideas?”

This question is one every writer I know has fielded countless times. My answer is often something like “from the Story Well,” “from the Story Fairy,” or “from the Story Cloud”--which of course hovers nearby full-time, and all I have to do is reach up and pluck out a new idea the way Harry Potter plucks memories from Dumbledore’s pensieve.

Right.

The truth is that there’s no actual answer to that question. Story ideas come from everywhere, and they come from nowhere. Sometimes I’m inundated with new ideas and have trouble prioritizing my interests; at other times I’m stumbling through the desert under a blazing sun, my hand shielding my eyes while I search and search for the smallest story seed, but to no avail. You get them when you don’t need or want them; you can’t find one when you need one…they’re fickle, that’s simply the way of it, and every writer has to embrace that truth or go find a more predictable occupation, such as mortuary technician.

I began writing fiction seriously ten years ago. To date I’ve completed eight novels. Three of those are published. A fourth—number eight—is under contract and scheduled to come out next year. I turned in the manuscript just before my newest book, Exposure, was released, then held my breath waiting for my agent’s and editor’s feedback. While I was on tour, the news came in: the story was “drafty,” yes, but its bones were good and they were confident it was all going to come together very well.

This is exactly what a writer needs to hear after spending long months (or sometimes years) with the story idea that captivated them enough to merit such a commitment. When tour ended, I was all set to review my editorial letter and then get to work again.

I read the editorial letter and, as I always do, began mulling my wonderfully astute editor’s various questions and observations. Each character arc was examined, the plot arc tested, the overall message considered. This manuscript had a lot going on, and so my editor asked what, in my view, did I think readers would take away from the story?

When I answered that question for myself, I saw something I hadn’t seen before. Something that didn’t suit me at all. Something that, after two weeks of mulling things over, made me realize that I as a reader didn’t want to read that story—and therefore I didn’t want to have it published.

I hardly need to tell you that this is not an ideal situation.

I knew that before I told my editor I’d gone off the rails in this way, I needed to offer a solution to the problem. So I went to the story cloud and plucked from it a brand new story premise. Remarkably, that premise contained almost all the same characters as my completed draft, but in a situation that was so elegant in its simplicity and so interesting that I could see the story in its entirety. I was confident (or as confident as an experienced writer ever is) that the writing would feel more like taking dictation than the pushing of boulders uphill that it sometimes is.

Do I make it sound like finding that solution was easy? It felt easy—once I’d obsessed about it for almost three weeks, tortured myself with scenarios of never having another novel published, of being thought difficult and unreliable. It felt easy once I overcame my certainty that real pros would never write the wrong story in the first place. It felt easy once I remembered that the only person I ever truly have to satisfy is myself.

Will this new idea turn out to be the right one? That test is still ahead of me. The challenge is a rigorous one. But it’s the kind of challenge I’ve succeeded with before, so as I set out, I’m both confident and terrified—which should play well on the page, since that’s the state my characters find themselves in as well.

One thing I know for certain is that even if this story doesn’t end up working the way I want it to, doesn’t get published, never reaches readers, I can go back to the story well/fairies/cloud, and if I’m patient, be rewarded with a new idea, another chance to get it right.

BEGIN AGAIN

I'm writing this on Monday evening, approximately fifteen hours before bookstores will unlock their doors and my second novel, Reunion, will go on sale for the second time.

Its first appearance came a little over two years ago. It was a hardcover book with a different jacket; now it's a Random House Readers Circle trade paperback with this lush new look, along with an author Q&A, a discussion guide, and an excerpt from the other book pictured here, Exposure. Soon you'll see it in your neighborhood bookstore, and at Costco, and as a Target Emerging Authors pick.

One very cool thing I didn't know before I got published is that books can have multiple lives. A new beginning means a chance to reach readers who missed the previous go-'round. For example, my friend Meg Waite Clayton's debut novel The Language of Light came out in '03 and will be reborn this June. Other examples include The Lovely Bones and Water for Elephants, for their film adaptation tie-ins. They got new cover art featuring the film stars; they got new lives. WFE, which was published in hardcover in 2006, has sold and sold and sold and sold, until you'd think every possible reader who might want to read it has already done so--but you'd be wrong: there it was last Sunday at #1 on the New York Times trade paperback list, making its 116th appearance. There are lots of readers out there--who apparently are all reading WFE, too bad for the rest of us.

I'm kidding.

Mostly.

So, in fifteen hours, Reunion gets a new beginning, and then a week from Tuesday Exposure debuts, and with this I get a new beginning of sorts. I'm someone I've never been before: Therese Fowler, author of three novels. That feels new and strange, something I'll have to get used to quickly.

I have to tell you, it's a nerve-wracking time. But it's an exciting one, too. Early indications are encouraging, not the least of which was a chat I had this morning with a journalist from USA Today, who called Exposure a great read and said it's an exceptionally "talkable" book. I would tell you that even my dog loves it, except that I don't have a dog--and even if I did, that dog might not share the favorable views, in which case I would have to get a new dog.

The fact is, I'm as excited and anxious and exhausted as a pregnant woman who's been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for months and whose baby is due now. But I'm as grateful, too.

Thank you for being here, for being a part of my new beginning. To show my gratitude, I'm offering up two copies of Reunion and two copies of Exposure. Just leave a comment here, and the four winners will be chosen randomly tomorrow evening at 8pm (eastern). If your profile doesn't link to someplace with an email address, make sure to check back here tomorrow night, or you can include your email address in your comment. BONUS: anyone who tweets the link or shares this post on Facebook gets an extra entry in the drawing--because as the teens in my house like to say, "sharing is caring." Just tag me, @ThereseFowler on Twitter, or Therese Fowler Author on FB. Good luck!

MARCH MADNESS

By Therese Fowler


Earlier today I was on the phone with an editor, discussing an essay I'd written for an anthology called The First Year, which will come out in 2012. The essay's deadline was March 1st, and I'd made it, but only by the skin of my teeth. If you read my last post, you might recall that "by the skin of my teeth" has become my modus operandi this year. So much of what I'm doing gets pushed right up to its deadline (including this very blog post) despite my good intentions to be more organized, more focused, and more productive Every Single Day (please God send me some house elves who can write).

I'd been invited to write the essay way back in October, and I'd said, No problem! The only other project on my plate at the time was my novel-in-progress, which had its own very-far-away deadline of April 1st.

But then suddenly, don't ask me how, it was February somethingth, and I hadn't done anything more with the essay than jot down some thoughts about what I would write when I actually did write it. So I got started, then put it aside because I had to write this other essay for the Portland Book Review. And then, because I'm apparently a secret masochist who is not happy unless she's under really stupid amounts of pressure, I took a good look at my novel-in-progress and concluded I needed to start it over again. I am pretty hard on myself when I'm not being a complete slacker.

But then suddenly again, it was February somethingmoreth. It was, in fact, almost March 1. So I put my nose down to the grindstone and finagled 2,971 words into essay form and sent it in on deadline. The editor said she loved what I'd written--but that is not to say the essay was ready for publication. She noted how the front of the essay seemed to be going one way, but the middle and end took a slightly different tack, as if when I'd started it, I didn't quite know where I was going to go.

Yep.

Despite the fact that I spend pretty much all day sitting down, I feel like I'm running around with my hair on fire. I have other essays to write, a book to finish, blog posts to craft, interviews to complete; I'm arranging book tour dates, tweeting links to contests and excerpts for my new book, Exposure, which comes out in May, brainstorming new ways to get the word out--because as many of you know, writing the book is only part of what authors have to do these days.

But you also know the sayings:
You can't win if you don't try.
Half of success is just showing up.
If you build it, they will come.

What I hope is that the first draft of my The First Year essay is a metaphor for the way this year is going to continue to go: Organized chaos moving into focused order and ending quite happily, with a definite to-be-continued flair.

I hope that you'll join me on the journey--and if you will, I'll do my part to make it worth your while. I'm building my official Facebook Author Page and need to get the word out, so here's what I'm offering: when the page gets to 500 members, five members will win an inscribed copy of one of my books, their choice. When the page gets to 1000 members, I'll give ten more members an inscribed book, plus one member will win an e-reader (Kindle or Nook, winner's choice). What do you have to do for a chance to win? "Like" the page and encourage fellow readers (via FB, Twitter, or even old-fashioned conversation) to do the same. Simple, right?

And if you'll stand-by with a fire extinguisher in hand, I'll be more grateful still.

EXPOSURE Goodreads giveaway contest

Who doesn't love free books? Here's your chance to win one: Random House is giving away fifteen copies of Exposure, my newest novel (out May 3rd), to readers who enter the Goodreads contest before midnight Sunday.

Good luck!

A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES...(you know the rest)

My writing journey, these days, looks a lot like what's happening right this minute: it's almost nine p.m and I'm writing, crafting something (in this case, a blog post) that's due in the morning, after spending all day working on something (always, a novel) that's due in a few months or sometimes less. During breaks in my day, I'm checking in with Facebook, I'm learning to tweet, I'm trading emails with my agent, my editor, my publicity team, my marketing team, my husband, and our dog. Wait, no, we don't have a dog.

My writing journey used to look a lot like this:
.
.
. (nothing)
.
. (nothing)
.
. (nothing, nothing, la la la la la)
.
.

Because until I was in my thirties, I didn't see myself as a writer; I was a voracious reader who'd once imagined becoming a popular novelist, but never did much of anything to make that happen. Took one writing class in high school. Bought one How to Write Romance Novels! guidebook. Filled a spiral-bound notebook with a story about a young woman in a failing marriage while I was a young woman in a failing marriage.

At 30, newly single and with two young children, I put myself into college. At first I thought I'd major in psychology but, after a semester, saw that sociology was the better fit. While I'm fascinated by human behavior, I didn't want to spend my days with troubled people; I knew I had too much empathy, too much imagination. I knew that I'd never leave their problems at the office.

Sociology: the study of social systems, groups, dynamics, institutions. Race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, justice. My concentration was cultural anthropology, and I studied physical anthro, too. I loved it, and as I approached my final semester with a 4.0 GPA in place and my new membership in Phi Beta Kappa (not to mention a new husband and two stepsons), I had my eye on a fellowship for my PhD. This is when Fate intervened: my last semester included an English class taught by a Real Published Author who, upon reading the short story I wrote for my term paper, told me I had it. You know, IT, that thing (whatever it is) that enables some people to imagine a thing and write it down in a sort of interesting, possibly compelling way.

I wanted to believe him. So, with my husband's encouragement, I took a year off to write Mostly Readable: a novel. Tried to find an agent. Collected rejections. Revise, rinse, repeat.

That Real Published Author of my undergrad program said, maybe take a writing workshop. I said, maybe I'll go to grad school for an MA in English and a creative writing concentration! Maybe I'll get a teaching assistantship so that I can get paid (a very little, tiny amount of money) to learn cool things AND to write a novel! Fate said, "Sure, and by the way, the school may be getting an MFA program; you could transfer into that." So I did.

The other thing I did: write, write, write, write, read, read, read, write, write. Then my mom was diagnosed with cancer. Then my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. I dropped classes. My father-in-law passed away. Shortly after, my mom came to stay with me; radiation daily, chemo weekly, drugs, doctors; not much writing, reading only medical stuff, not much sleep. Three months into her stay here, she died, and everything really, really sucked for a while.

To be a novelist, to have a writing career, you have to be motivated by something more powerful than all the forces working against your success. Writing, even when you love it, is hard. Getting an agent is hard. Selling a novel is hard. Rejection is hard, bad reviews suck, deadline pressure is intense. What motivates me, foremost? Mortality.

Life is uncertain and, even when long, almost always too short.(This is my forearm; the kanji is a Japanese proverb that translates as, Each moment, only once.)

So, I finished my MFA program with a completed, defended novel in hand. I found a fantastic agent--but we didn't sell the novel. I wrote another novel (Souvenir) and my agent sold it, at auction, and ultimately to ten different publishers here and abroad. To quote a line from near the end of my second published novel, Reunion: "It was a good start."

I emphasize, however, that it was only a start. Review copies of Exposure, my third novel, are arriving in mailboxes this week. Will it be well-received, well-reviewed? My film agent continues to field interest; will someone make an offer? The topic is timely: teen love and sexting. The story, inspired by my own son's arrest, is very close to my heart. Will readers love it? Will it sell well? Will I make my next deadline? Will I figure out hashtags, re-tweets, Facebook Pages? Will that dog stop emailing me?

I don't know. You never know whether the future will bring catastrophe or grace. But if you have an ambition or dream, of any kind, don't let that stop you from trying to achieve it.

***********

Therese Fowler is the author of Souvenir, Reunion, and, coming May 3rd, Exposure. She has worked in the U.S. Civil Service, managed a clothing store, lived in the Philippines, had children, sold real estate, earned a B.A. in sociology, sold used cars, returned to school for her MFA in creative writing, and taught college undergrads about literature and fiction-writing -- roughly in that order. With books published in nine languages and sold world-wide, Therese writes full-time from her home in Wake Forest, NC, which she shares with her husband, four amiable cats, and four nearly grown-up sons.

SOMETIMES, MAYBE

By Therese Fowler


Though I write novels and have an enduring, unwavering love for books, I sometimes step out on the relationship and go see a film. It doesn’t feel like cheating. After all, the love I’m indulging in either case is Story.

In the same way that I lose myself inside a good book’s story, a good movie takes me someplace new and different. Sometimes it’s an escape. Other times it’s an experience. I especially love a book or film that can bring me to tears—of mirth or of sorrow, I have no preference. All I want is to be in some way significantly moved.

Film does something that a book can’t: it presents action, setting, and dialogue simultaneously—which is why you can experience in only a couple of hours a story that would take days to read. This fascinates me. In another life I might have been a filmmaker.

But I’m a novelist, a storysmith whose medium is words. The next best thing for me, then, would be to see one of my books made into a really good film.

Authors gets used to spending a great deal of time in limbo. We wait for inspiration, for epiphanies, for our agent and/or editor to read our drafts; we wait to see cover design, we wait for our paychecks, we wait to see copyedits and page proofs and bound galleys and the finished book in stores. We wait to see if readers respond well. So when a film agent decides to take on one of our books with hopes of finding it a Hollywood home, we’re already good at the limbo that is surely ahead here, too.

This is where I’m living right now—in Hollywood limbo. My latest novel, Exposure, which will be published in early May, captivated a film agent at Paradigm. This itself is a thrill; Paradigm reps some of my favorite talent (to use the industry term); I love that I now have something in common with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The agent put the manuscript into the hands of some producers, some of whom then became captivated too, I’m told. Not being of Hollywood, I wasn’t instantly familiar with the names. Google helped me out, and very quickly afterward I swooned. (Truly. I am not prone to hyperbole, my friends.) I wish I could tell you more, but I’m not at liberty to share names right now. I have to say, though, that regardless of the outcome, this is a lifetime highlight for me.

Right now, certain directors are considering the project. Certain writers have been approached, and certain studios, and certain actors. Certain meetings are taking place. Of course, the whole endeavor is uncertain. Even if the film rights get optioned and the ideal people sign on, there are many more hurdles that have to be overcome before the movie gets made. Some of the other gals here can tell you that what happens most often in these scenarios is…nothing.

So, I wait, and I hope, and I admire the chicken eggs without counting them. I write—my April 1st deadline won’t wait, after all. I go see movies, and I buy my favorites and watch them over again at home. Two DVDs I own that are among my favorite books-to-film are Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, and Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha. While I wait, tell me, what are some of your favorites?


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Therese Fowler is the author of Souvenir and Reunion. She has worked in the U.S. Civil Service, managed a clothing store, lived in the Philippines, had children, sold real estate, earned a B.A. in sociology, sold used cars, returned to school for her MFA in creative writing, and taught college undergrads about literature and fiction-writing -- roughly in that order. With books published in nine languages and sold world-wide, Therese writes full-time from her home in Wake Forest, NC, which she shares with her husband, four amiable cats, and four nearly grown-up sons.

You Gotta Love It

By Therese Fowler

When people learn that I’m an author, they ask, “What do you write?” These days my answer is “domestic drama.” It’s an answer born of trying to find a description that’s simple and brief, yet accurate enough to head off the kinds of misinterpretations I used to get. When Souvenir, my debut, was first out, my answer was “Love stories.” But I found that a lot of people equated that term with “romance,” and if you’ve read Souvenir or my second novel, Reunion, and you’re familiar with actual romance novels, you know my books are not that.

I do love a good romantic tale (Pride and Prejudice tops my list). I love the tension and the conflict, the slowly unfolding answer to “How can it possibly all work out?” A romance novel follows a prescribed path that leads to a happily-ever-after ending, whereas the stories that come to me, the ones that snag my writing imagination and refuse to let me go, refuse to take that path—or any path that’s genre-determined.

If I’m feeling loquacious, I might say, “I write dramatic stories about difficult situations, families, and love.”

But really, in my mind the answer is still, simply, love stories. Stories about love. All kinds of love: sibling love, parental love, romantic love, filial love. It’s the force that motivates all of my characters, for good or ill. It leads them to poor choices. It leads them to redemptive choices. Heartache, heartbreak, hope, happiness—not necessarily in that order. Love is like that.

In Exposure, my newest book (set for release next spring), eighteen-year-old Anthony, who is madly in love with a girl named Amelia, muses about the subject:

The world needed less cynicism, more love. Love was the answer. Love made the world go 'round. Love was all you needed. Love, actually, was all around.

(If an engraver will kindly put this excerpt in the present tense, I would be glad to have it on my grave’s headstone when that time comes.)

As you may know (especially if you caught wind of the Picoult-Weiner-Franzen-inspired debates of recent weeks), in the literary world, such “soft” themes as romance, domestic drama, and love aren’t given much respect, no matter how artfully they’re written. You might wonder how, then, those folks account for their reverence for Jane Austen. Well, apparently she didn’t write stories about those themes, she wrote about “manners and morals.” O-kay.

When I set my sights on a writing career, I was ignorant of literary politics. Had I known, or if I could go back and do it over again, well, I wouldn’t change a thing. I write fiction in pursuit of truth; and what’s true is that at the heart of the matter (whatever that matter may be) we are all, even the most sophisticated or jaded among us, motivated first and always by either the love we have or the love we want.

To celebrate love stories, I’d like to give some away! One winner, drawn at random, will get three books: a copy of Souvenir, a copy of Reunion, and a third love story of their choice (provided I can get hold of it easily). All you have to do is leave a comment naming your choice, then check back Friday morning to see if you’ve won.

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Therese Fowler is the author of three novels: SOUVENIR (2/08), REUNION (4/09), and EXPOSURE (coming 5/11), all from Random House/Ballantine Books. Her fourth novel, tentatively titled Escape, is under contract and expected to publish in early 2012. Her books, which are also published internationally, have been featured by IndieBound, the Borders Book Club, the Barnes & Noble New Reads book club, Target’s Bookmarked Breakout program, and were selected as Featured Alternate titles for the Literary Guild, Doubleday, and Rhapsody book clubs. She loves buttered popcorn, and has four cats (one of which shares this love, except no butter for him). For more information, go to ThereseFowler.com.