On Writing Writing Books

Buy on Amazon

Watching a prose performance (which is to say, reading) I sometimes wonder how long the author can keep it up. A biographer of Hart Crane (about which book I wrote here) said of his sentences, “we watch with mingled horror and embarrassment as he flings himself form another syntactic precipice,” and its something like that for me. When I began reading Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences about Writing, I thought the same. It’s so graceful, so winsome, so wise; when will it crash into a tragic heap? 

Sometimes a book doesn’t and I walk back into the world mouth agape, sun-struck. Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is this way. Smart on the topic of writing, observation, nature, and human living, it is also spun out like filament, like one of those long-held notes on a violin one expects to end at the bow’s edge but doesn’t. We’re just sent off into space, stupefied. Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic felt likewise. After the introduction’s linguistic bite, I thought: okay, that’s a good idea. Load all the ore up front and readers will be so dazzled, so drunk, they’ll sing through anything else you throw at them. But it didn’t stop. Line after line, Image after image of prismatic, gem-like perfection shone out, page after page until I stopped wondering. It’s one of the most incredible demonstrations of what’s possible in English prose I know. 

In the case of V. K., which is still the most useful book about writing I’ve seen, the answer is: he can keep up the high-wire act until page 150. It is unalloyed gold until that point, and then, the bow’s edge, the alloy, the filler, the frame. 

Buy on Amazon

I had the same thing happen to me recently with a book about writing poems. Glynn Maxwell’s On Poetry struck me like none of the many I’ve read in that genre. His examples about what poetry is, what it does, what it does not do are both convincing and authoritative. He puts down so compellingly and completely all arguments about slam poetry and song lyrics (over which I wandered into dust-up with Michael Robbins, who now sends me hate mail, thanks to this post) with a finality that stopped me cold. “It would be nice,” he writes, knowing he’s right, “never to be asked about this again.” Maxwell had me entirely in his trust. And then, (having grown tired of theorizing? Having come up against a deadline?) he stopped talking about poetry, what it is and what it does, and started talking about a particular section of his creative writing workshop. The students’ names, their lusts, their contributions to the course are writ out like we were suddenly in a novel about graduate school. He gives away lesson plans and it turns into a teaching manual. I was distressed, seeing it. Like an athlete who stays in the game too long, the late, sad images struck out the glowing, golden prime. I was left not with a lasting artwork about the discipline, but with something messy, and unappealing, and a bunch of broken promises, like life…

Klinkenborg got me going again. Made a believer of me. But the p. 150 disaster is total. There, he stops writing his engaging, lovely notes on writing. Instead, he quotes long paragraphs of writers he admires. Gone is his whiskey-smooth, Hemingway-esque advice. In its place, a scan of his commonplace book. They’re good scans, mind you. It’s nice he admires Ruskin, and Joan Didion as stylists, but I was busy admiring Klinkenborg as a stylist. I have my own Valhalla and I was just putting up the bunting to induce him therein when we parted company: he to go make a cup of coffee, and I to piss and moan here. It turned his thoughtful book on writing into some very thoughtful observations about writing, and an anthology of neat-o paragraphs. That would be fine except I was just (weren’t we all?) disappointed by Stanely Fish’s How to Write a Sentence, which purported to be about, um, how to write a sentence, but was actually a collection of his favorite sentences from English Literature, followed by interjections like “wasn’t that great?” and “did you see what she did there?” 

Some things I’d like to remember from VK’s miscellany though, which again, is marvelous and worth it. 

Revision Strategies

Revise toward brevity—remove words instead of adding them.
Toward directness—language that isn’t evasive or periphrastic.
Toward simplicity—in construction and word choice.
Toward clarity—a constant lookout for ambiguity.
Toward rythym—where its lacking.
…
Toward variation—always. 
Toward silence—leave some. 
Toward presence—the quiet authority of your prose.

or this:

Here’s another way to make your prose less familiar. Turn every sentence into its own paragraph. What happens? A sudden, graphic display of the length of your sentences and, better yet, their relative length—how it varies, or doesn’t vary, from one to the next. Variation is the life of prose, in length and in structure. 

or this:

How many sentences begin with the subject?
How many begin with an opening phrase before the subject? Or with a word like “when” or “since”or “while” or “because”?
How many begin with “there” or “it”? How many of the verbs are variants of “to be”? 

Many people assume there’s an inherent conflict between creativity and a critical, analytical awareness of the medium you work in. This is nonsense. 

and perhaps most valuable:

There is no such thing as writers’ block.
There’s loss of confidence
And forgetting to think
And failing to prepare
And not reading enough
And giving up on patience
And hastening to write
And fearing your audience
And never really trying to understand how sentences work.
Above all, there never learning to trust yourself or your capacity to learn or think or perceive. 

I can’t copy out any more. Go buy this book. I have some writing to do. 

Small Cameras pt.2-Leica x1

When I finally won an eBay bid for my long-coveted Leica x1, when it arrived, after I finished marvelling at the packaging (what care, what consideration these people have) the first thing I did was to climb online and see if it was fake.  Search: "Leica x1 counterfeit scam." Hmm. Nothing.  But this camera is so light, surely it's a plastic knock-off of the dignified Leica of which I've dreamt.  I snapped a picture of the desk in front of me.  Hmm.  Best picture I've ever seen. Not fake then. Or at least, a very, very good fake, featuring luxury optics that outperform any camera I've ever held.  

It took me about two hours to love everything about this camera.  The leather strap (!) the camera comes with isn't adjustable, but it's the perfect length.  I never wanted to mess with those silly plastic toggles on another camera again.  I never wanted to be responsible for choosing a proper camera-hanging-from-the-shoulder-length. Above all, I never wanted to be weighed down with another clunky piece of kit again. Compared with this light little beauty, all other cameras seemed like carrying a laptop around one's neck.  People walking aroudn with thier d5100's or whatever started to look awfully silly.  

No viewfinder? A little ghetto, but that's okay, I thought, I'll just compose right here in this--wait, completely horrible LCD screen. Hmm. Back to the counterfeit theory. Leica is a terrific, and a terrifically arrogant company. They make dictatorial choices, which are admirable in thier audacity sometimes, and sometimes infuriating. They've decided, see, that people don't really look at images on the camera's LCD screen, or, they shouldn't be looking at images that way, so they've put a perfectly-functional, but woefully basic screen on a screamingly sharp piece of design; having maxed out the sensor quality (within reason) and lens quality, they've cut things that don't matter (in their estimation) so much. For more thoughts on the company's approach: its glories and attendant frustrations, check out my favorite camera review ever, or find this beautiful essay by Anthony Lane about the history of Leica Cameras, recollected later in Best American Essays 2008. 

I had a great time making pictures with this device.  I carried it everywhere, some days not clicking a single frame, and still not feeling bad about having toted it around due to its size, weight, and ergonomic reward. I was often frustrated with not being able to focus (the camera does a great job of focusing on its own, but I like to decide what's clear and what's not; plus, I'm faster) but all frustrations melted with the easy intuitive menu, the simple button placement (everything I need in a click, or turn of the smart metal wheel atop the camera), and big, bright files (if occassionally over-saturated colors).

Self. Photo by Amber Willett. Taken with Leica x1.

I had to sell it in the end, because I had to feed my family, and because it can't make videos.  I don't know anything about these things, whether video would be hard to impliment, or whether it's a simple software add that Leica doesn't deign to grant because they're being purists.  Either way, I'm often called upon to make little videos of dance performances, or poetry readings, and I can't very well have a house full of tech equiptment to accomplish tasks that an iPhone can handle. I miss it though.  I sympathize with camera critic Steve Huff, who loved his Leica x1, then sold it, then bought it back after a year because its magic--and that's really what it seems like--called back to him even over the twenty cameras he'd had in between. I may just re-buy one myself when I'm in the position to, unless I find an unbeatable deal on the nearly-identical-but-for-the-added-possiblitiy-of-an-EVF Leica x2. 

Small Cameras pt.1-Fuji x100

I haven't had a proper camera since the digital revolution made my years as film photography student seem quaint, like minoring in tannery, or taxidermy.  Granted, there is still great work being done in film, and I'm not sure that even the best digital cameras match it yet--though they're close--but it still feels a little funny having been in likely the last class to learn hand-processing not as some retro-choice, but as the only option for aspiring professionals, just as it must've felt when the French perfected a county-wide canal system just in time for the automobile to render that method of goods transport adorable and less cutting-edge than they imagined and budgeted for. 

Since I'm travelling around Europe a good bit this year, I thought it was time to step up.  Thing is, I'm sort of particular about what I carry on my person.  I choose my wallet based on whether it will disturb the line of my trousers, and carry my keys in a side-bag for the same reason.  I'm not a diva exactly, but cheap or badly designed things not only disturb me ethically, and obviously, aesthetically, but sensually: the touch of most plastics turns my stomach.  I know enough about myself to realize that if I was actually going to carry a camera with me, rather than have one on my shelf at home, it would have to be small, and pretty cute.  

So DSLR for me then.  At the same time, I didn't want to settle for the quality that comes from most compacts.  Anybody that pays attention to such things will know that we're in the middle of a small-camera revolution, with the advent of the (really strangely beautiful) iPhone camera, and the Micro 4/3, and other mirrorless systems making quality files available from much smaller packages than were concievable a few years ago.  

I spend entirely too much of my time reading reviews of these cameras, and by this point I've owned most of them, and been really satisfied by none, and thought I ought to say why.  

Fuji x100

The first one I bought was the legendary--really this camera and the hype surrounding it will define this decade of camera manufacture in any history thereof--Fuji x100.  I don't want to provide a full review here, since they exist really by the thousands all over the internet; I just want to say a little more loudly some things that all those reviews say in the footnotes.  That is: though this camera makes amazing images, better than anything in its class, including narrowly, the Leica x1 (more on that in a minute), and though it is beautifully-designed as an object (I notice whenever anyone walks by with one around h/ir neck), its menu-design and sluggishness take nearly all the joy out of shooting with such a pretty thing.  

Amber Willett in Dresden, Germany. Shot with Fuji x100.

Again, every reviewer notes this camera's focus-problems and slow start-up speed, but they don't say with sufficient strength (or didn't anyway to stop me from buying it) that what this means is that you'll often miss shots while it "boots up," that if you see some great moment--your wife smiling, kids playing, and bird overhead--you'll likely get to save that only as a memory, while you look at the little rotating wheel on your x100's screen.  If somehow, by the time you're ready, something else great happens, you'll likley get an out-of-focus picture of it, since it's another 10 seconds (more like 3, but that's an eternity to a smile) while the thing focuses.  

I look back at the few good images I made with it from time to time and think: these are gorgeous, but not since the Sega Genesis have I so badly wanted to physically damage a piece of equiptment for dis-obeying me.  If you have a world of patience, or a studio, or if you take pictures mainly of food or other things that hold still, this is the camera for you.  Otherwise, let's all be thankful for Fuji's having moved the proverbial ball so far down the field in terms of style, but lament their accompanying ham-fisted approach to the engine that drives it.  A great camera to look at then, just not much of one to look with.

Year's Best

 Last year, one of my favorite musicians ever, Iron and Wine, released their new album on my birthday, which felt like a gift from the world.  The year before, the band that has taught me more than any other (about art, about life) Bright Eyes, released two albums on my birthday.  It seems fitting then, that I should offer something back, in the form of a Best-of list, since this year's birthday has just passed without fanfare from the musical community.  Here then are my favorite albums from 2011, offered in a spirit of generosity rather than contention, for those of you with whom I no longer share car rides or mix tapes.

Girls- Listen Here

Iron and Wine- Listen Here

The Antlers- Listen Here

Youth Lagoon- Listen Here

Bon Iver- Listen Here

There was a lot of good work this year, but these are the masterpieces.  For those of you who don't hate Christian music, you might look seriously at the new albums by Leeland, and Sixteen Cities, which are the best things in that genre this year.  And if you don't hate screaming, you should check out the hardcore rock-opera by F**ked Up, which is breathtaking and holy in an entirely different way. 

Review of Michael Dickman's "Flies" published

My review of Michael Dickman's book Flies is up on the Books and Culture website now.  You can read the whole thing here.

If there's anything that the onset (or is it an onslaught?) of e-books should teach us, it's that books themselves matter. For the most part, if the publishing industry crashes, I say they deserve it for keeping the public trust so poorly.

Case in point: the publication of Michael Dickman's new book of poems Flies, recently out from Copper Canyon Press, is one of the major events of the year for people who care about poetry. His first book, The End of the West, was the bestselling debut in the long history of that press, and if it was filled with a sagacious quietness that suggested an author twice Dickman's age, it was also filled with promise. Many of us reacted with a compound clause: that's amazing; I can't wait to see what he does next.

Part of that feeling comes from the fragility of Dickman's lines. His verses seem weightless at the same time that they feel enormous and heavy. That's not a hyperbolic contradiction: think of a blue whale and you have it—this slow, gigantic force. Or, picture the cover of that first book: a photograph by Ralph Eugene Meatyard (Untitled, 1960) depicting a hanging victim, who, due to the camera's trick and limit, seems to float, or even to fly up off the page, when he should be dropping.

The cover of Dickman's new book...