The Rules: Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who’ve influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag at least 15 friends, including me, because I’m interested in seeing what authors my friends choose.

15 Authors Who Have Influenced Me

1. Ray Bradbury
2. Raymond Carver
3. Joan Didion
4. Ernest Gaines
5. Céline
6. John Steinbeck
7. Cormac McCarthy
8. Toni Morrison
9. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
10. Junot Diaz
11. Henry Miller
12. John Fante
13. Ralph Ellison
14. William Faulkner
15. J.D. Salinger

This list is in no particular order and is probably leaving off some significant names. I tried to write it quickly, thinking of authors of books and stories that I have read more than once and that are always top of mind when I think of my own writing. It’s an interesting exercise, but I’m going to have to look at it a bit more before I can come up with any astute analysis. One thing that does occur to me is I more often feel like I’m more influenced by other artists besides writers — musicians and filmmakers probably more than anyone else. If I could write books like Kurosawa made movies, like Miles Davis made  music….

What I learned was that to write a book you have to first become the person you need to be to write that book. I had to, like, literally change. I had to become a new person. I had to grow the f— up.

– Junot Diaz

The article was apparently a an advance volley from a book that just came out of his new book called “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.”

I particularly like Boldtype’s review of the book, to wit:

Murakami’s tough-love take on writing seems bracing in the context of an unending stream of “craft”-oriented tomes. Whereas a classic writer’s book like Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird deals in trade-based tips — “The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth” — Murakami jettisons such undeniable (but not particularly helpful) truisms in favor of stressing the importance of elbow grease. Or, writing as sport.

Not particularly helpful, indeed. I think Murakami’s wisdom may do more for me in the long run. Who knows, maybe he’ll be able to tip my scale and get me out there on the road to running, and writing, a hell of a lot more.

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

“The proper manner of calligraphy is nothing other than not being careless, but in this way one’s writing will simply be sluggish and stiff. One should go beyond this and depart from the norm. This principle applies to all things.” — “Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai,” pg. 42

View all my reviews.

Aimed at amateur videomakers, but very pertinent to all storytelling.

“At some point, somebody’s gotta say ‘here’s why the hell you’re listening to this story.’”

[Inspired by a post at 43 folders]

Even if you haven’t read her book about the plight of her uncle, Edwidge Danticat’s interview on “60 Minutes” should be watched. “Brother, I’m Dying” is the next thing I’m going to read.

Like the article’s author, I have always been plagued with a close relationship with the little green monster. I find it stifles me. I become overly obsessed with the details of the other person’s success, trying to find the place in their timeline where they just got lucky, sniffing out the aspect of their art that is more calculated commercialism than creative vision. Overall, I find jealousy is a serious waste of my time and energy.

No, I think what motivates me in a constructive and positive way is the notion of opportunity. If I feel like something I’m writing offers an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before, I am full of energy, ideas, and commitment. Being jealous over someone else’s work or career makes me focus too much of my precious* effort on someone else. Opportunity makes me focus on me. When it comes to writing, I think that’s probably more worthwhile. Luckily, I believe that sense of opportunity is around me right now.

It will also help if I stop succumbing to buzz about hot writing wunderkinds. That’s a work in progress, for which I’ll need to quit paying attention to much of what flows through the New York Observer, New York Magazine, and Gawker.

* I say “precious” not out of a sense of luxurious value, but “precious” in the sense of rarity.

Carlson guides us through the writing of one of his stories, “The Governor’s Ball.” He describes where the initial idea came from and then walks us through the process of completing the first draft.

The book is only 112 pages, but in those few pages Carlson uses his obvious, and proven, storytelling skills to construct one of the most engaging explorations of the writing process I’ve read lately.

What makes the essay/narrative so effective is Carlson comes back to a number of specific ideas about writing. Here’s a few that stuck with me:

• Stay in the room.
• Slow down, be specific, don’t stop writing.
• Solve your problems through the physical world.
• Stay there until something happens next.
• Introduce a character by considering the least likely thing he or she may do. How can the character surprise us?
• “My job is to have been true enough to the world of my story that I was able to present it as a forceful and convincing drama.”

The idea that stuck with me the most, and I suspect the idea that Carlson was really trying to emphasize is, no matter how much you want to stop writing after that first good sentence or page or scene, keep going. Stay in the room even though your coffee is cold. Stay in the room even though the phone is ringing. Stay in the room to write your first draft. And maybe even more importantl, when you’re stuck, when you don’t know where the story is going, stay in the room inside your story. It’s there in the physical surroundings of your fictional world that you will find what you’re looking for. And Carlson goes on to prove all that using his own first draft as evidence.

At the end you realize it’s all so simple—yet we know that more often than not keeping your butt in the chair is probably one of the most difficult things to do. This book serves as a useful reminder how important it is to, no matter what, stay in the room.

This is what I’ll remember next time I want to get up and refill my coffee cup (or wine glass):

“All the valuable writing I’ve done in the last ten years has been done in the first twenty minutes after the first time I’ve wanted to leave the room.”

“Every man has his own patch of earth to cultivate. What’s important is that he dig deep.??? — José Saramago

Screenwriter John August adds some more legitimacy to this love-hate relationship in an interview on Cecil Vortex. August is a top-tier screenwriter. Even if you haven’t heard his name, you’ve probably seen “Big Fish,” “Corpse Bride,” “Charlie’s Angels,” or “Go.” Which makes ideas like this all the more comforting to know:

I really don’t like writing. That’s a terrible thing to say of course, because one is supposed to love one’s art. But I’d rather do just about anything than sit down and start writing.

The thing is, I love having written. I love going back and looking at the scene I wrote. So “writing” is a necessary, painful process I go through in order to get to “having written.”

When people say, “Oh, I just loving writing!” I know they’re full of crap. They’re probably lousy writers who are regurgitating their daily thoughts in a journal. Actual writing is hard work. Even when you have the flow and it’s going well, it’s still incredibly taxing. My deepest nights of sleep are after days of having to write ten pages.

Ah. I feel much better now. Go read the interview on Cecil Vortex. And check out the rest of the site, there’s a stack of interviews with creative types. Recommended.

(Found via Yahoo! Picks)