The Quality of Our Work…

Do you feel that some best selling author’s books start off good but at some point are just not exciting as they use to be? Why, Why not? This question was posted on the yahoo group: africanamericansonthemovebookclub

I was touched that the question was raised and addressed–and by black authors.

I reveled in the response that one author gave.

Heck yea! One of my fav’s of all time, I feel like sold out to the industry. He started out telling stories from the heart. His tales had soul and despite whether or not I could relate to the story that was taking place, it was so powerful…so real that he’d draw me in and I felt like I was really apart of the picture he was painting. But the last two books I read by this author… commercial. Seems that now he’s writing for the industry and not for the reader. The passion… the heart of it is no longer there. He has a contractual obligation to put out so many books and it reads – in my opinion. But he gets great reviews because of his name, track record, and sexual contact count.

It seems readers (I don’t know if it’s just Black readers or readers in general) don’t seem to care about work as a whole. Superficial. Drama. Sex. Attractive people. That’s all that seems to resonate with most readers, and the more the better. Substance be damned. Technique be damned. Narrative, style, all the elements that make the picture come together are irrelevant in our little community of readers and writers.

And it’s proven when this best selling author put out a book riddled with errors and 60-some odd pages of one completely irrelevant sex scene when the genre of the book wasn’t erotica, and still pulled 5-star reviews. Yea, I think a lot of hot bestselling authors fall short but I think they do so because they can. Why not? Y’all still gone drop down no matter what.

peace
Miki Starr Martin
author/designer/ web production artist

Starr Martin touched my heart in raising an issue that is close to my heart as both an author, wife, mother, psychotherapist and perfectionist.
I mention my other professions because my work in them nurtures and fertilizes my passion as an author. Without them I would most not likely have returned to writing. I wrote stories as a child, but never ever considered pursuing writing as a career.

Yet and still whatever I set my mind to do, seek to prepare myself to be able to deliver the best job possible. After studying astrology and deciding I wanted be able to help people with problems of the heart, mind and soul, I went back to school at 32 years old and pregnant ( I also had a 4 year-old) and earned a MA in Psychology. I then went on to do a 5-year internship and gained licensure as a psychotherapist.

It was during this time that I began writing and the art of process painting. After delivering my third child, now ten years old and writing a very rough draft of my second novel (in two weeks), I attended the Hurston-Wright Writing Conference in Washington, DC. The following summer I attended The Voices of Our Nations Writing Conference in San Francisco, CA across the bay from where I live.

While the authors who led our workshops offered much in the way of learning the craft of writing, I now realize that the most important thing I learned from them was the importance of the would be author dedicating her/himself to seriously improving their craft of writing. The would-be author must apprentice in some way shape or form. No one produces a piece of writing that is ready to publish.

The ultimate result of attending these workshops was that I studied for 3 years under a local poet and writing teaching here in the East Bay. During these 36 months I participated in 3 consecutive writing classes, one of which met weekly—a multi-genre class where participants submitted mainly short stories and poems or review. I was the one novelist. The other two classes were novel classes that met bi-weekly. Of the four participants each had 40 minutes in which to read aloud their work and again as with the multi-genre class, sit in silence and receive critique.

Along with providing a sturdy basis on which to later and successfully matriculate through a MFA program in Creative Writing my participating in these weekly and bi-weekly workshops taught me first and foremost how to write each day. Reading aloud your work—hearing your words as you have crafted them—or slapped them onto the page without even the effort of spell check provides a here-and-now experience of the terrible importance of editing. Reading one’s work aloud, develops the voice of the novice writer.

My participation in these 3 workshops also developed my tolerance for deadlines. Writing became a part of my innate being that I did second nature. This proved incredibly helpful when I entered my long distance MFA Program—never mind my teacher, a published poet and short story writer provided me a glowing recommendation. A low residency MFA program proved most user- friendly and agreeable with my lifestyle as a wife and mother. On a practical level I was in no mood to attend classes with students barely two to three years older than my eldest child and having little or no life experience wherein to not simply judge the quality of the delivery of my work, but also understand and grasp the themes my stories reflected.

Writing is an art that, like wine, improves with age. So too does the writer who commits her or himself to not only writing, and reading, but also a steady task of self-improvement thorough perpetually seeking ways and relationships with those who demonstrate how and support you in improving and refining your craft.

Reading along with participants as they read their works developed my listening ability and strengthened my eye for editing my own work. It’s easier to see one’s own challenges in writing when examining the work of fellow writer than when reading your own. In this I learned humility—that the supportive and loving energy I bequeath the work of a fellow writer lends positive energy to my cause as a writer.

Crafting viable and entertaining stories is not for the faint of heart and the ambivalent individual. Likewise it proves to be the undoing of ego-centrics who approach the task and art with an intention of building up their persona or bravado. As a writer you give as good as you get—both with regards to fellow writers and readers.

Knowledge and experience of this held me in good stead throughout my MFA program—a place where many fear to tread and where one’s writing is put to the ultimate test. Earning a MFA (from Goddard College West, Port Townsend, WA) provided an experience in which I not only worked on my art of writing fiction, but also and most importantly, nurtured and fertilized my passion and love of reading. I also learned how to read as a writer.

I am amazed at how many people seek to write a book, story, or poem and do not read. I read daily. And there are times now where my reading overtakes my writing. But always to the benefit of my writing.

And so I return—having traveled full circle and back the questions: Do you feel that some best selling author’s books start off good but at some point are just not exciting as they use to be? Why, Why not?
Yes.

There are books and stories that start out strong and fall apart in the middle. The protagonists undergo no transformation and I am neither engaged nor entertained. I feel cheated. Then again, Stephen King says a bad read—for teaching purposes—accomplishes more than a good, strong and well-written story.Likewise there are writers whose careers begin with great promise and their stories are thrilling. As a reader you feel blessed to be a part –a witness to the artistry of this individual—in fact blessed. Their stories leave you changed and transformed—feeling more alive and vibrant for having met and traveled with their characters.

And then money takes over. The writer succumbs to the demands of the publishing industry that like all others in this country has lost—if it ever had—the quality and virtue of patience. But alas Rome was not built in a day. Yet its demise can quicker and swifter than any had thought possible or foretold.Each one of us is like Rome—or perhaps a would-be Rome—a perhaps greater civilization in the making. While American education and culture emphasizes Eurocentric standards and measures of assessing quality I am drawn to the older cultures of India, China, and of course Africa.

While their beauty may have waned in the eyes of some who view youth and beauty as the gold standard—their endurance—that of their cultures and people—speak to the very essence of that for which every writer, in their heart of hearts strives—to develop a body of work that transcends time—extends into a world that exists long after they, the writer has left this world—an possibly returned as a person searching for her or himself.

And should they chance upon a work of art they created in a life past—say, for instance their own writing. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could read it without the interruption of typos and misspelled words, never mind awkward phrases and poor grammar that leave the piece with little or no meaning and you the reader questioning why ever did this person write this? How much better it would be if the writer should encounter her or his work in another life time—decades and centuries long after she or he has lived, died and returned—and in reading that work find themselves anew—engage a new consciousness upon the page. And in so doing recognize a higher self for which they can continue striving.

For in the end isn’t that why we write our stories—in the present of the here-and-now—to taste a bit of eternity and know—taste the beauty of glory of who we are as divine creations that find universality in through our participation in the experience of being alive and human?