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….

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.

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.

• Writing a few pages of my forever-unfinished novel tonight after my girls go to bed.
• Seeing the last episode of “The Wire” tomorrow night (Thanks to HBO On Demand)
• Hearing no more about the Democrat primaries
• Listening to tales of Jeff’s trip to India
• Reading “Love in the Time of Cholera” on the subway tomorrow
• Adding more books to my account on GoodReads
• Seeing “There Will Be Blood” again
• The end of winter

It’s a simple notion–write your life in six measly words–that seems to have caught on: what started as a fun web project is now a book called “Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure.”Apparently, editors Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser’s (love that last name) quota for the obsure was woefully low; my entry appears on page 174, albeit with fine company. Even the New York Times and NPR are in on the half-dozen harps.

Nicely packaged book and a project inspired by a perfect example of le mot précis:”Baby shoes for sale. Never used.” Attributed to Hemingway, of course.

This year, I’m starting a new job soon. I’ve embedded myself even deeper in the corporate world, but, on the positive side, I think I’ll have more mental energy for writing once I am away from the office.

Then there’s holidays, always a chaotic blend of disruption and tranquillity. This time around, my life is disrupted by a certain notorious pest in my house, which will require hours of cleaning and preparation to get rid of the problem. I would love a change of scene, right about now.

And the tranquillity… well, no evidence of that just yet, but I’m trying to stay optimistic.

Meanwhile no writing is happening over here. Though I did submit a story to the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Contest, since I already had a story revised down to 1,500 words. And I’m soothing my imagination by reading a biograph of Charles Schultz and finally getting around to reading “Call It Sleep.”

Here’s hoping in a few weeks’ time, when the scene changes, I’ll be reaching a satisfying resolution.

One of the reasons I’ve been light on the posts to the site is the old grind. Working for the man has been getting me down, down, down, you might say. That’s why I have to put in a plug for a new book from a very good friend of mine.

In fact, I just got back from celebrating the publication of Jeff’s book “Working for the Man.” I’m happy to see it in print, and I was happy to see a huge crowd come out revel in its desperately needed solutions for the plight of millions: working inside cubicle land.

One of Jeff’s most popular and brilliantly subversive ideas is “How to Write a Novel While You’re on the Clock“—a near and dear subject indeed.

Anyway, to end this shameless plug, I invite you to check out the book. Support a fellow writer and hand out a few copies at your office holiday party.

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.”

While I respectfully disagree with the recommendations for Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird” (to me, the chapter on dialogue felt like the only fruitful discussion on writing in the whole book), there are some good books being discussed.

And, of course, there’s the requisite discussion about how true artists shouldn’t need to read “self-help books” and other such pontificating. Sure, a great deal of writing how-to books are horseshit, but I can’t imagine how anyone who loves writing can’t get something out of reading about the process and the craft.

Read the list.