Writer's Notebook - James Rafferty Blog

Considering Climate Change: Via Writing Fiction and Statistics

I have just completing reading the book How the World Really Works by Vaclav Smil. In this book, Dr. Smil, who has written over forty books to date, takes on task of explaining how different processes which include energy production, feeding the world and a variety of material processes intersect with the challenge of Climate Change. In the introduction to this book, Smil explains that he is a scientist and that his life work has been to conduct a series of interdisciplinary studies which have resulted in many books. In style, he views scientists as either highly specialized (drilling ever deeper holes within a particular narrow discipline) or scanners of wide horizons. Smil prefers the latter approach and in this book devotes initial chapters to helping the reader understand diverse topics which include energy, food production, what he calls "four pillars of civilization" (cement, steel, plastics and ammonia). Smil makes a key point that in all of these areas, the use of fossil fuels has been highly integrated into the related processes and that this deep integration will make the overall challenge of de-carbonizing the world economy much more difficult than many of the "experts" perceive.  

I don't have the deep background in areas such as energy and food production which Dr. Smil describes, but like him, I've looked at the matter of climate change in an active way for many years. I studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for five years and earned bachelor and master's degrees in my chosen field of Management Engineering. After that I joined the high tech business world and took on diverse roles in information technology, operations, product management, consulting and marketing in the business world. I've also paid a great deal of attention to geo-politics. I like making connections between diverse fields and enjoy taking a systems view of how the world works. These perspectives have served me well for me in both the business world and in the diplomatic world of international standards. In parallel, I have pursued another passion, writing fiction, and I finished writing my first novel, a coming of age novel called Growing Up Single in 2006. Shortly after that, I decided to take all I'd learned from writing the first novel and choose a theme that energized me for my second novel. I thought hard about my various fields of interest and wanted a deep, challenging area could draw on the skills I'd developed in my professional life and where I could tell a unique story. 

In the fall of 2006, the concept of global warming was already getting attention in the news media and among climate scientists. But despite numerous international efforts, which at the time included agreements developed in Kyoto and other exotic locales, I wasn't seeing much progress reducing the carbon emissions that were causing global warming and It was obvious that the politicians in major countries, including the United States, and the powerful fossil fuel companies, were happy with the status quo. My sense was that this situation could go on for many more years and that the consequences of inaction would likely create a cascading series of climate-related disasters in the years to come. 

I started crafting a novel about a future year of climate disasters which would force the diplomats and politicians to act and approve treaties which would make a measurable difference in reducing carbon emissions. The lens I used to view this situation was through the experience I'd gained during ten years of developing domestic and international standards in telecommunications and in my business experience in working with vendors and customers from many countries.  

In my view, global warming was a classic example of what were often called "If This Goes On" science fiction novels which I devoured as a reader in high school and during college. I outlined a book tentatively titled Riding the Sea Change and started writing. I personally love statistics, but I'd noticed that the general public tended to ignore statistics, particularly of news they didn't like and needed to be reached another way. My goal was to create an exciting narrative story to reach those readers. I finished writing a first draft six years later and got copies out to beta readers who gave me a lot of useful feedback. I did more edits and started marketing the book to literary agents. My book tells a story about climate change as it follows diplomats who travel the world, fight battles amongst themselves and ultimately get pushed to do the right thing and create a treaty which could really change the world and reduce the carbon emissions trends.

In the years since I wrote the early versions of this book, my sense about how difficult it would be to forge an international consensus has been borne out. We have also seen many examples of climate related disasters over the past few years. I still feel that novels are a great way to grab the attention of readers by bringing the challenges of climate change to life in a narrative form. My journey in writing, editing and marketing this novel has been a great learning experience both in its writing and in keeping up with developments in climate.   

Returning to Dr. Smil's book, I think he has done a fine job in showing how deeply our society has baked in the use of fossil fuels into many aspects of our world. But the key tool he has used is to break down these trends and show the reader the trends is by using statistics. This is a great way to reach the engineers and scientists of the world, but many readers with less technical background may find it difficult to read through 229 pages that are crammed with statistics.  

In summary, I recommend that people who want to get a much deeper view on climate change and what it will take to address it should take a shot at reading How the World Really Works. But if you would prefer not to delve into a highly quantitative book such as this, you can also learn a lot by reading one or more of the novels that take on climate change in a narrative form.  

My book isn't published yet, but I'm working on getting it out there one way or another. Stay tuned. In addition, there other novels on climate change that are worth reading and can offer readers insights in a story form. Some books which I've read and can recommend include Bandwidth by Eliot Peper, Forty Days of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson and Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

Good luck on your climate change journey, whether its via the world of statistics, through reading great stories or some other approach which you choose to pursue.  

 

Book Review - On Writing - Part Two

The post continues my review of the book On Writing by Stephen King. You can find the first part of the review here. The second half of the book probes King's thoughts about writing from a tools and process perspective. He's quite open about what works for him and gives many examples. He begins by talking about his Writing Toolbox. He uses his grandfather's toolbox -- filled with useful tools -- as an example that a writer might want to emulate. He's not talking about your writing desk, your computer or writing notebooks, but takes it up a level by saying a writer needs a vocabulary. He then offers examples of several writers and the differing approaches they use with their own vocabularies. Next in the toolbox is grammar.  King once taught grammar in his classes, but opted not to dig too deep in this book. He notes that you've probably learned a lot about grammar through your reading. He references The Elements of Style by Strunk and White and goes on to show examples of how different writers use their vocabulary and grammar to build sentences.  He also includes practical advice such as avoiding use of the passive voice and minimizing the use of adverbs. Going deeper into the toolbox, he also talks about paragraphs and provides examples on how paragraphs may differ based on the type of work.   

Once he has introduced the toolbox, King moves directly to writing itself. He talks briefly about the potential to improve one's writing and states that with a lot of hard work, a competent writer can become a good writer. So, yes, talent makes a difference, but one can aspire to get better at this craft of writing. This section starts with the basics: a writer must both read a lot and write a lot. He notes that constant reading is enables the writer to distinguish between what works and what does not, to experiment with styles and to get excited about writing. When King is in the midst of a project, he is writing every day.  He says "writing is at its best when it is a kind of inspired play" for the writer.  A typical pace for him is to write about 10 pages a day or 2000 words. He suggests one set a writing goal, say 1000 words a day and try to stick with it. From my own experience, one of the advantages of the NANOWRIMO approaches is that it tends to increase one's word count and show yourself it is possible to write 50,000 words in a month. You may also find that a lot of those words are good enough to build upon. 

The "On Writing" portion of the book is loaded with good advice and practical techniques beyond what I've described. If the writer keeps at it, eventually they (we) will produce a manuscript. King suggests this first part is "closed door" work, where you write the story to please yourself and don't share that early first draft content with anybody. One you've finished the manuscript, he suggests putting it aside -- say for 6 weeks -- until you can re-visit the work as a reader.  At this point, you can make notes, think about revisions and perhaps most important, figure out what the story is all about. Once you've done the latter, he suggests you can do the next round of edits to reinforce the key elements of the story and cut back on the portions that don't contribute to the core of the story and its themes. 

King also has suggestions about what you can do once you've produced that improved second draft. This is the point where the writer can share it with people who will read it and offer feedback about the work. He also mentions the concept of writing for the ideal reader, who will really get what you are trying to do with your particular book or books. 

I'll stop the commentary on specific writing tips here. Just be certain, that if you care about writing, you're likely to find a lot of information that even an experienced writer can put to immediate and practical use. For example, he offered a writing exercise and talked a bit about how much description is useful to establish a setting. Taking some of his advice, I found that going a bit lighter on description might strike just the right balance to draw the reader in and also let the reader add their own perspective to flesh out the words you've written. He also strongly suggests that we write "the truth" as we know it and not simply play to the expectations of what's considered polite.   

The book ends with a postscript, which tells how King managed to finish writing this book after a life changing event on a highway near where he lived. This part of the book is also inspiring, as King finds that once again, getting back into a writing project helps him to progress in the recovery from what he'd experienced. Here, again, he tells the truth, and we are better for it.   

I recommend this book to anybody who'd like to improve their writing, particularly if you'd like to tell stories or write novels, though his advice is probably also useful for other types of writers as well. If you don't fancy yourself as being a writer, but would like to know more about how an unknown person from a challenging background can become the person who wrote "Carrie," "The Shining." and many other well-known books, you'll gain that perspective from this book. Or perhaps you just love reading and want to know more how the words of one novelist get produced and turned into stories. King is a fine storyteller and willing to talk openly about his process, so whether your goal is being a better writer or learning more about writers, you'll likely find the investment of your time to read this book will offer its own rewards.    

Return to Newport Jazz - 2021

This past Sunday I joined a friend and we drove down to see the Newport Jazz Festival. In the time of Covid, a few differences were in place, including a "Health Pass" protocol for all who entered.  But, as always, the important part was the music. This time it was divided between two stages -- one on the lawn in front of Fort Adams and Quad stage in its usual place within the fort.  

The first act we saw was harpist Brandee Younger on the lawn stage. The band had already started when we captured a spot on the lawn to the right of the stage. In her comments from the stage, Brandee paid tribute to earlier harpists who'd played Newport, including Alice Coltrane. Younger's style was melodic, but also very jazzy and she made ample use of amplified electronics as part of her sound. On one song, I noted how the rhythm section reminded me a lot of John Coltrane's and Younger played chunky chords on top of it. Later, she played some sounds that reminded me of the "Chinese music" from Steely Dan's Aja. In the spirit of the day, she later invited another harpist, Macaela Davis to sit in.  Macaela's style wasn't as complex, but she worked well with Younger's band.  Here's a scene of me writing in my journal about the shows.  

Next, we popped over to the Quad Stage, just in time to see the remarkable Kenny Barron - Dave Holland trio, which was rounded out by a much younger, but very talented drummer, Johnathan Blake.   

I'd seen Holland years before in Hartford, but it was a treat to hear him again in this trio. I've often enjoyed Kenny Barron on records, but I think this was the first time I'd seen him live. He played numerous styles on this day.  On one of the early tunes, he soloed with high notes from his right hand, then added McCoy Tyner style block chords with his left.  Holland showed complete command of the bass throughout as he roamed up and down the instrument with perfect intonation and verve. On another song, Barron began alone with flowing rubato lines and was eventually joined by Holland, who played a deep counterpoint. Blake soon added a subtle rhythm on the brushes, quite a contrast to the powerhouse drumming he'd displayed earlier in the set.  Barron built up this song with bright major chords which later segued into a solo from Holland. On this song, Holland eschewed complex patterns in favor of a melodic set of lines. After an upbeat Latin tune, the band closed the set with the Kenny Barron song "Speed Trap." The band blitzed through this song at lightning speeds whose tempo reminded me of Trane's "Giant Steps." 

After this, we returned to the lawn stage area and saw a diverse set of groups. The first, David Oswald's Louis Armstrong Eternity Band, played in the New Orleans style, but also added elements from later jazz eras which made it easier for me to enjoy their music.  The next two bands brought extended jamming to the stage.  The Bogey Band, featured an extensive horn section and drummer Joe Russo.  At times the ensemble work from the saxes, trumpets and trombones reminded me of early 80's Carla Bley, but more often, the band pounded out jazz rock that seemed to draw from the early Miles Davis electric bands. 

The next band, the Jam Jawn, were true to their name; they jammed throughout their set, but with a much jazzier sensibility than the Bogey Band. This was the first time I'd seen guitarist John Schofield play in a full band setting. Schofield played a tan and black thin hollow body guitar through what appeared to be a Vox amp. He kicked off the first song with distorted electronic licks and then the rest of the band joined in.  And what a band -- Christian McBride on bass, Macaela Davis on harp, Marco Benevento on keyboads and Joe Russo on the drums. In this context, Russo showed his jazz chops as polyrhythms rippled across the stage among the musicians. In this band, the musicians all listened to each other and themes jumped from one player to the next. Schofield closed the song with Wes Montgomery style octaves on the last few choruses. 

For the second song, McBride moved over to electric bass and laid down a funky beat to push the band ahead.  Schofield continued to amaze me as he brought Hendrix electric stylings into this song --- not exactly typical for Newport!  Per my notes, the organist eventually went ballistic with high energy surges up and down the keyboard. 

Macaela Davis started out the third song by plucking out a melody on her harp.  McBride had shifted back to the upright and laid down the bottom. This time, Schofield built a layer on top with long extended notes ala Duane Allman; Schofield's toolkit for inventive sounds seemed to be endless.  By this point, staying in my seat was no longer an option.  I masked up and moved into the standing crowd at stage front to be closer to the band and reveled in the delightful sounds being laid out by the musicians.  

Schofield started the next song, laying out a sweet blues line which later segued into a familiar rock anthem. The band jumped in and filled out the sound.  We were rocking at Newport with masters of jazz and the band brought us all along for the ride.  McBride finally introduced all the members of the band we'd been hearing.  

After this, it seemed like half of the musicians in town jumped up on the stage. I recognized members from the Armstrong tribute band, notably the trombone player. On the next song, Stewart Bogey and his bandmates joined in as well.  This was one of these Newport jazz moments where unusual configurations of players got on stage and played jazz, mixing the sounds of multiple eras with verve and lots of smiles.  Whew. 

Time to take a breather and get ready for the final set of the afternoon, Andra Day. My friend and I visited a falafel stand and picked up wraps for a light dinner, then got back to our seats. A while later, Andra Day appeared on stage and began to sing Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit."  The song isn't easy to listen to, but Day sang a powerful version. The Billie Holiday stylistic influence was quite evident, but Day also used her expansive vocal range to add high twisting notes that reinforced the song's painful message. The inclusion of this song was important and signaled that this set would be different than the pop-inflected set she sang at Newport in 2018.  

Day's group included 2 backup singers and a full band which was comfortable in playing both her jazz and pop material.  Here's a view of Andra Day and other members of the band:  

Day's set was split between jazz songs and her own original pop compositions.  The common element throughout was her powerful voice, which reached out to all of us with emotion and the ability to sing long lines which could move quickly between high and low notes to accentuate the words.  Later in the set, she sang a fine rendition of another Holiday signature song, "God Bless the Child." The main stage show was augmented by side views which showed video closeups of Day and other band members. In either case, one's eyes were often drawn to Ms. Day, who commanded the stage with both her voice and visual presence.  As she shifted to songs from her latest album, we listened and began the long walk back to our car. But in our heads, all of the music and sights of the day gave us a final burst of energy to join the graceful exodus from Newport as we took the high roads that brought us by the famed mansions of Bellevue Avenue.   

 

Book Review: On Writing

Several years ago, I participated in the National Writing Month (a.k.a.NANOWRIMO) and one of my writing friends hosted an online "writeoff."  A few of us participated and we all cranked out a fair number of words that night.  The host kindly offered a couple of prizes and I ended up choosing Stephen King's book about writing: On Writing - A Memoir of the Craft.  I'd heard good things about the book and added it to my writing shelf.  Some five years later, I was looking for my next book to read and decided the time had come to gain Mr. King's perspective on writing. 

As it turns out, I should have opened up this book much sooner, since it offers sage and practical advice on writing. I found I could start applying his suggestions immediately. The subtitle on being a memoir of the craft is accurate. The first portion of the book recounts his time growing up in a household with his mom and older brother David.  They lived in several locations, but eventually settled in the small town of Durham, Maine. Stephen admired his older brother David and they often got into hijinks together. By the time Stephen was a teenager, he was already writing stories and began collecting rejection slips, but eventually also started getting handwritten notes suggesting he submit again.  

Over time he developed his writing chops writing for a newsletter produced by his brother Dave and then later for his high school newspaper. He eventually landed a job covering local sports for a town newspaper and wrote up some stories on the results of games.  Even better, he began to get advice from the editor John Gould. Gould showed him how to tighten up his stories by 1) keeping the best parts and 2) taking out the parts that weren't essential to the story. This anecdote introduced a couple of key themes of the book, notably about making sure that the story gets told and also how re-writes can help achieve that. 

Over the next several years, King kept working at writing stories and over time started getting success in getting them published in magazines. He met Tabby, a younger woman who was also a writer and eventually they married and started a family.  King's mother had suggested he also get a teaching credential, which he garnered at the University of Maine.  He landed a job teaching English at a high school, but continued writing stories in his free time, all the while, getting encouragement from his wife to keep at the writing. He began to write the novel Carrie, but literally threw the first few pages away, before Tabby retrieved them and told King she wanted to hear the rest of the story.  He turned memories of hard times in high school and a couple of reviled girls into a horror story, with some help on salient details from Tabby.  He sent the book off to an editor at Doubleday and continued with his regular routine of teaching high school. The book was accepted and King got a $2500 advance. Not exactly life changing, but several months later, Doubleday sold the paperback rights for Carrie to Signet for the stunning amount of $400,000 dollars and would pay half of that amount to King. After years of hard work, success had arrived.  

King continued the memoir portion of the book, recounting several subsequent major book sales, but he also acknowledged that over this same period, he'd become an alcoholic. To his credit, he eventually turned away from drink and drugs and re-engaged with his love of writing with the help of the family and friends who cared for him.  His love of writing comes through very clearly in this book, both in the memoir section and the craft sections which follow.  

I'll continue my review on the craft portion of the book in a separate post.  

 

 

Connecting - Crossing to Safety

I recently returned from a unique trip to one of my favorite places, Asheville, North Carolina.  Despite all of the obstacles, my wife Cindy and I took a road trip to get there and helped our oldest son Jason pack up both his art studio and the apartment he shares with his fiance as they made plans moving to a new locale to attend graduate school in the Fall. The trip doubled as a vacation, though with lots of constraints. 

Here's a picture as we crossed the border into Tennessee and checked out their wonderful Welcome Center a few miles before we crossed into North Carolina through local mountains:  

After a 3 day ride to Asheville, we settled in at our Airbnb in West Asheville and started planning the month. Both Cindy and I had decided to do some reading during our stay and I'd brought along a couple books to read, but was open to getting more. Early on, Jason took me to one of the few bookstores that was open during this pandemic period, Mr. K's, which sells used books and CDs. The title of this post mentions connecting and here we go. In early June, A.O. Scott  published a wonderful profile about the writer Wallace Stegner, introducing him as a writer who had profiled the American West and influenced other writers, notably one of my favorites, Robert Stone. So, in Mr. K's, I went looking for a book by Stegner and found Crossing to Safety.  

Later in the month, I began reading the book and brought it back with me to Massachusetts. The novel was simply superb. Stegner published the novel late in his long career, in 1987, but the writing still felt fresh and contemporary. In the book, we meet a young couple, Larry and Sally Morgan, who are beginning a new life in Wisconsin, where Larry has gained a teaching position in the English department. Larry is also a writer and is in the early stages of getting his stories published.  They meet another young couple, Sid and Charity Lang, and the two couples find that rare experience of meeting people with whom they connect very well. Stegner writes the book from Larry's point of view and we bounce between these early scenes and others that take place some 40 years later, but the shifts aren't difficult to follow and we gradually learn so much about each of these characters and how their lives are intertwined.

I can heartily recommend the book to virtually anybody who enjoys well written prose and deep character development. But my own connection was deeper than that. The novel reminded me of why I fell in love with both reading and writing, and the aspirations many of us have when we are young to make a mark in the world and do things that matter. In this novel, all of the characters wrestle with what they want and could be and we get to see these perspectives at multiple points in their lives. There's also a remarkable chapter where all four of them journey to Florence during a period when Larry has a sabbatical and hopes to take this time to write a novel, yet they also all take some time to see the country and gain unique experiences in the Tuscan countryside.  The novel also speaks to the present moment -- the year of the pandemic -- in a sense as one of the characters falls victim to a disease common to this period, polio, and we see how this changes the lives for all of the characters.  

Noting the theme of connections, the article I read in June led to my selection of this book in July at Mr. K's and then I connected deeply with this novel during the past few weeks. Crossing to Safety is a powerful story and quite inspiring as well. It serves as a reminder to remember our dreams and what we truly value, both in our worldly or creative goals and in our relationships, and then act upon them while we still can. I look forward to reading more of Wallace Stegner's works, but he also has pushed me to carefully consider my own way forward as I continue to wrestle with life's challenges during a time of transition.       

Here's a glimpse of a rainbow that we encountered one day when we were returning to Asheville during a rainstorm, one of many inspiring moments during this one month vacation.  

 

The Writing Conference and Workshop Season

I tend to invest time in my writing all year 'round, but March through May offers added bonuses. Yes, it's the conference and workshop season! Boston has a premier writing conference called Muse and the Marketplace which takes place over the weekend of April 5-7 and is sponsored by the Grub Street writer's group. In recent years, I've focused on the Friday sessions. I particularly like the late Friday event known as Shoptalk, since it's a chance to pitch one's latest projects and chat informally with agents and editors. After an intense day of networking, craft and marketing sessions, sipping a glass of wine and talking about trends in the industry with like-minded folks is most welcome. 

From time to time at the Muse, I also participate in Manuscript Mart, where the writer can submit the first 20 pages of a project to a literary agent or editor of their choice, along with a query letter and synopsis. This year I am participating again and look forward to a constructive critique of my near future climate change novel, Tempest. The chance to meet and hobnob with influential people from the publishing industry grabs the headlines for an event like this, but it's at least as much fun to devote a full day to the world of writing and meet with so many others who share this passion.  

Did I mention workshops? In addition to attending Muse and the Marketplace, which includes embedded writing workshops, this is also the time of year when the Norfolk Quill writers workshop spins up for several weeks. It's a chance for writers from the town of Norfolk, Massachusetts and surrounding areas to meet, do some informal writing off of prompts, talk about the writing craft and share excerpts from our latest works. It's a fun group and it's always been interesting to see what other writers from the area are doing. I've also used these sessions as a way to get feedback on excerpts from my recent novel length projects. As the workshop draws to a close, we're invited to submit work to the Norfolk Quill, a literary magazine which has been published annually since 2010. This past year, I had written a very short love story called "Thoughts of Spring" during one of the Quill workshops and was pleased when an edited version was accepted and given the lead spot in the 2018 version of the Quill.    

So, it's the writing conference and workshop season and I'm feeling energized as I look forward to the first Quill workshop in a couple of weeks and Muse19 shortly after that. If you like to do creative work, is there a particular time of year that pulls you in and gets your creative juices flowing?   

A Deep Dive with Joni Mitchell

Last week I began to read the book, Joni Mitchell, The Anthology, authored and curated by writer Barney Hoskyns.  It's a collection of reviews, conversations and interviews covering all of Joni Mitchell 40+ year musical career. It's a fine way to cover her career, since over time her musical journey took many turns and it helps to hear the views of writers reacting to all of it and also get Joni's own insights through wide ranging interviews and conversations at different times. I burned through the book in just a few days, tugged by the many memories I have of her music, both as she has performed it and through the many other artists who have interpreted her songs. My own Joni Mitchell journey began in the summer of 1974. I was on an internship in Wisconsin and one of the other interns played the music of For the Roses for me. I was immediately hooked and dove in deep when I heard her next album, Help Me, just after that. From that point on, Joni was one of my musical north stars. She didn't know it, but we traveled on parallel musical journeys. As she began to delve into jazz, I started shifting my own music in that direction, getting instruction at a local music studio on jazz guitar and getting direct exposure over the next few years to musicians such as Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays as they were just breaking out.  

In a similar manner, Mitchell's music expanded beyond the solo focused early efforts -- which culminated with the remarkable Blue album and began to be supplemented with other musicians. But as several writers in the anthology note, Mitchell's music was quite unique and didn't fit the normal rock and roll or folk modes as it evolved. So she started working with jazz musicians -- first the LA Express, led by the lyrical woodwinds player Tom Scott and then ascending up the jazz ladder to work with some of the most inspiring musicians of that time, bassist Jaco Pastorius and later, saxophonist Wayne Shorter. I saw her play live with the LA Express in August 1974. That show included a mix of her solo oriented material, mostly dating from Blue or earlier albums, and the songs from the Help Me and For the Roses, which were a good fit for the LA Express. The crowd seemed most enamored with her older material and in fact, hearing Joni play with musicians like guitarist Robbin Ford was a dramatic departure from solo renditions backed by her own piano, acoustic guitar or dulcimer. I was intrigued by all of it. I soon bought Blue and found she was already quite a mature songwriter by this point, which had been quite obvious at the show.  

A few years later, she produced one of my favorite albums, Hejira, which was the first to include Jaco Pastorius as a collaborator. I was already familiar with Jaco from Weather Report, but Mitchell's music showed that he could use his fretless electric bass to add extraordinary color to her compositions. A couple years later, Joni embarked on her most experimental album, when the ailing bassist Charles Mingus invited her to augment some music he had written. This most unlikely of partnerships resulted in the Mingus album, though Charles died of complications from ALS as she was putting it together. In the book, pianist Ben Sidran discusses the project with her and we also get a review from writer Sandy Robinson. Like most reviewers, he felt the album was flawed and was too big a leap for Mitchell to take on successfully. In my own view, the album had its moments, but didn't really work as a whole. But there was one extra bonus on the back end. 

Mitchell took the music on the road and was backed by a who's who of contemporary jazz musicians, including Jaco, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays and Michael Brecker. I saw this band play live in 1979 at Forest Hills in New York City and it felt like a dream to see so many of my favorite musicians on stage together. It didn't always work, but it was remarkable what these musicians were able to add to Joni's music and yet it still felt like Joni was the artistic director. A good example of this band was captured on the Shadows and Light album. As the reviewer Ian Penman notes, Jaco played very well. For example, I just pulled out my vinyl album and listened to The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines. On this song, Jaco shows he can play straight ahead jazz that totally kicks butt and he and Michael Brecker soar into the stratosphere along with drummer Don Alias during the highly collaborative solo part. It is such a joy to hear how well they played together and it's poignant to think how much the jazz world lost when Jaco's life spun out of control and he died young. My own band has been working on playing Free Man in Paris, so it's a lot of fun to hear what this hot band did when they applied their chops to one of my favorite Mitchell anthems. 

One of the delights of Hoskyns' book is that it compelled me to pull out my Mitchell albums -- both vinyl and on CD -- and go back and listen again. This is a journey I'd encourage any fan of Mitchell's music to take. I didn't like everything she has released, but so much of it stands the test of time and shows just how much an artist can grow even over the course of a long career. I don't know if we'll hear any more Joni Mitchell new music again, but the music she has already produced is among the very best of her generation.   

 

Thoughts on Fridays at Enrico's

I just finished reading the novel Friday's at Enrico's by Don Carpenter, with editing by noted contemporary novelist Jonathan Lethem. This is the first book I've read by Carpenter, who wrote novels from 1965 up until his death in 1995. The back story is that Carpenter wrote this book while trying to grapple with the death of his close friend Richard Brautigan, but this novel quickly generates its own distinct energy. The book is about writers and how they deal with the process and challenges of writing. Most of the first half of the book is set in Portland, where several local writers are in the early stages of trying to make it as writers of novels or short stories.  

Dick Dubonet has just sold his first story to Playboy and is admired by the local writers for his breakthrough. He has fallen in love with Linda, who knows the leading lights of the San Francisco Beat community and is well connected in the publishing industry. Charlie, a Korean war veteran, has just moved up to the area with his wife Jaime; they are both writers, but write in different styles. Charlie gets a job teaching writing and meets a young man named Stan who has no formal education, but wants to write stories and get away from his shadow life as a burglar.  

Charlie tries to help Stan by having Dick Dubonet read a story Stan wrote. Dick doesn't think much of it, but Linda loves it and helps Stan by re-typing it to fix grammar and by making a few edits. The writers and Linda all get to know each other and we watch as they push themselves to get better with mixed results.  

This novel digs deep into the minds of writers as they fight to master their craft and navigate between the shoals of the literary and commercial worlds of writing.  The pressures get to some of the writers and we spend a lot of time with them in various bars and cafes.    

The second half of the book shifts into the Bay area, where Charlie and Jaime eventually settled.  In time, most of the characters from the Portland crowd show up again in later scenes -- years older, but still wrestling with many of the same demons.

I liked this book a lot. It's one of the more honest books I've read about the lonely journey of unknown writers as they struggle to learn their craft and then shift into the challenging task of marketing their work. Even though it's set in periods going as far back as the fifties, the characters feel fresh. Their quests to get published remind me of the experiences I've had as an aspiring writer. I also like the depiction of this informal Portland writers community and the mix of cameraderie and rivalry as each of these writers tries to find their way.     

 

Book Review: Eat, Pray, Love

Our church has a great book swap a few times a year. Last year, my wife picked up the best-seller Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. She read it over several months, then passed it on when she finished, saying I’d probably like it. She was right.  

The book has sold a massive number of copies and its natural audience would seem to be women who might have experienced some of the travails — the breakup of a marriage — which Ms. Gilbert tells us about. But Liz Gilbert — as she calls herself in the book — is a fine writer and her writing skills quickly pulled me into her story. In the early part of the book, we hear about the breakup of Liz’s marriage and her disastrous on-the-rebound romance with David in excruciating detail. It’s painful to watch and was probably painful to write. Liz has fine narrative skills and makes us want to come along when she decides to escape this mess. Bear in mind, this book is a memoir, but some of the plot twists feel suspiciously like the work of an accomplished novelist. So at the darkest hour, she manages to find a way to do one of her favorite things — travel — and turn it into a paid writing assignment.  Nice work if you can get it, I guess. But truly, the book literally takes off when Liz hops on a plane and lands in Italy. She’s put distance between herself and her stateside problems and now decides to do an indulgent thing.  Her goal in Italy is to learn to speak Italian.  

So begins her overseas journey. Liz has arranged a three-part adventure. She’ll go to Italy to learn that language, go to India to pray at an Ashram organized by her guru and then return to Bali where she’d met a witch doctor who invited her to come back sometime. Really? Yes, really. Liz is incredibly self-absorbed, so we hear every little detail as she dives into each part of her adventure. But she’s clearly enjoying herself in Italy, as she works to learn the language and eats an amazing amount of wonderful food, not only in Rome, but in other regions and cities including Naples, Sicily and Florence. Clearly, this is a kind of therapy and it felt like I was gaining weight in harmony with her just reading about all of the pastas, meat dishes, cheeses and wines which she and her friends consume.  

After Liz has eaten her way through Italy, it’s time for something completely different. She flies to India and travels down many back roads to find her way to the Ashram.  Earlier in the book, Liz learned to pray out of desperation during some of her darkest times and was intrigued by a woman guru she’d met through her former boyfriend David.  The woman had taken over an Ashram in India — essentially a site where followers go to retreat and spend days and weeks in prayer, chanting and yoga — and Liz decides that she needs to spend several weeks at the Ashram before taking time to travel through other parts of India.  Liz is quickly forced to leave behind the hedonistic persona she’d constructed in Italy and replace it with — what? Ah, turns out this is the next quest. Liz needs to adapt to the monastic life of the Ashram and her over-the-top extroverted personality finds the adjustment is very hard. But this woman is nothing if not game, so she gradually find ways to bring herself into harmony with the sense of the Ashram, with help from several other devotees, including a wise Texan named Richard, who pushed her to just let go. By the end of her time in India, Liz has learned a lot and found an inner peace which takes her far from where she’d been at the beginning of the trip. She had learned how to pray.  

Next stop, Bali. Liz had loved Bali on a previous visit and had been befriended by an older man — a healer — who told her she should come back to visit. Okay, a bit strange, but by now, as readers, we’re living in Liz Gilbert land, where the strange is commonplace and coincidences play out in uncanny ways.  With some effort, she is able to find the village of the man, who it turns out is well known, and she finds a place to stay in the village where he lives.  The man at first doesn’t recall Liz at all, but gradually remembers a very sad woman he’d met two years prior. Ah, that Liz.  Liz is good at making friends and she eventually not only spends a lot of time with the male healer, but also meets a female healer named Wayan. She and Wayan get along very well and Liz starts to weave herself into the fabric of the small village in Bali.  But beneath the placid surface, Bali has a very complex system of mores and customs which are very hard for outsiders to fully fathom. Wayan has some issues finding the right kind of place to live and Liz tries to help out in her inimitable way. Naturally, it’s a lot messier than it seems and Liz gets in way over her head. So that means it’s time for her to start thinking about — you guessed it — love.  She meets some of the men who are visiting Bali and gradually starts to re-discover the social self she’d put aside during the dark times with her husband and David.  

I’ll leave the rest for the reader to find out how it all turns out. Liz Gilbert is a masterful storyteller, so she pulls us along on her quest and we do want to find out what happens. Everybody has their dark times and need to find ways to recover and care about life again. Liz Gilbert takes us on her journey, a quest for renewal after her fairy tale life has been crushed. It’s a good read and I’m glad I took the plunge.    

Reading High Fidelity -- A Different Take on Coming of Age

Two years ago, I shared an excerpt of my unpublished first novel, Growing Up Single, with a literary agent at the Muse and the Marketplace writer's conference in Boston sponsored by Grub Street.  We needed to specify a genre, so I said that my book was a Coming of Age novel, but it was set over a span of a few decades.  The reaction of the agent to this classification was interesting.  She said that I should position this as a Coming of Age novel ala Nick Hornby.   

Two years later, I've now just finished reading Nick's breakout novel -- High Fidelity -- and I totally get why the agent (who I'll leave unnamed) made the comparison.  High Fidelity is set over a period of about thirty years and covers classic ground that is found in Coming of Age novels, but the main narrative action and the issues that are addressed face the protagonist Rob as he reaches the age of 36 and feels like his life is falling apart.   Hornby writes a lot about relationships -- much as one might find in a romance novel -- but he offers the guy's point of view, so that creates a much different perspective.   One example of the difference is that Rob starts the book by sharing is "Top 5" girlfriends list and makes a point of saying that it doesn't include Laura, who just left him for another man.   

Rob's life is full of delayed decisions.  Today we might say he is "commitment challenged," since he likes having a woman in his life -- that significant other -- but something has always gone wrong and he's still single in his mid-thirties, unlike many friends who have found that special someone and gotten married.  In his work, he's barely scraping by in running a record shop whose specialty is vinyl records during that transition period in the late Eighties to early Nineties where the CD has become mass market and vinyl is mostly for high fidelity aficionados (hence the title).  

My book Growing Up Single has some similarities.  The main character, Jack Reilly, is still single at age 35 and tells the story of how he got to that point.  Jack has had a series of relationships, but for various reasons, they've never worked out.  As the book progresses, he's already crashed and burned in his first career choice and moved on to be part of a computer software startup.  As the book approaches its denouement, Jack needs to make a series of decisions about his love life and his career -- the two are somewhat in conflict -- and he agonizes over which way to go.  

As a writer, we are encouraged to find books like the ones we have written, so that we can pitch them to agents and publishers and they can get some idea of why your book is like somebody else's success, but is also different.  Having now read both books, if there was a shelf of books written from a man's perspective that covered the territory of relationships and coming to grips with potential life changing issues on both the career and the personal side, both High Fidelity and Growing Up Single would fit nicely on that shelf.  

I have not been actively pitching Growing Up Single while I've been writing my second novel -- coming soon -- but I've still gotten a couple of nibbles from small publishers in the past couple of years when I told them about the book.  I'm grateful to the agent who told me about Nick Hornby, since I now know about one more book which delves into some of the same issues and I can use that at some future point when talking to other people about the book.  

I'd recommend High Fidelity to male readers who want to see how another guy dealt with the desire to find a more mature approach to relationships and their careers, or to anybody who would like to read more books in the seemingly non-existant genre of Men's Fiction.  I'd also recommend this book to women who'd like to get a guy's point of view on romance.  There are many elements of this book that sprawl over into the territory of romance novels -- the pursuit of love, the tension of breakups and the attempt to re-kindle a lost relationship -- but the male perspective gives the work a different twist. Hornby also has a good sense of humor, so there's a lot of funny material in the book as Rob works through his various issues.  

For those readers who'd like my take on the Coming of Age story as told in Growing Up Single, get in touch. 

Tools of the Trade for Networking and Writing

I like using personal technology to make more efficient use of my personal time and as an unapologetic techie, I have fun while doing it.  During the past year, I've been using Naturally Speaking 11.5 from Dragon (Nuance) to accelerate the process of moving the text of my latest novel from hard copy notebooks into a Microsoft Word document (see a related blog post here).  In the early days, the dictation went very fast and it was a nice change of pace from typing.  But more recently, as the manuscript has approached 100K words, the combination of Word and Dragon started to break down, with symptoms which included very slow response, loss not only of words but full paragraphs and a very slow reaction during the corrections phase.   

I put my problem solving hat on and tried an experiment.  I took the latest chapter I was working on and opened up a new Word doc, then loaded Dragon.  I started dictating and the results were near miraculous -- once again, the speech to text program had no problem keeping up and the corrections mode now worked smoothly again.  In essence, I re-learned an old lesson from my days in editing international standards -- Microsoft Word starts to become unstable when working with large documents, so it's best to work around that.  This workaround -- using a new document and then doing a cut and paste of the results into the large manuscript -- worked just fine. 

I'm also in the midst of a career change due to a re-structuring within my current company, so I've been using software tools in this effort as well.  In order to keep track of my networking and company research efforts, I'm using an Excel spreadsheet keep track of current activities and next steps.  In networking calls or meetings, I'm getting a lot of information, so I've recently started to use Naturally Speaking to dictate information into OneNote (I've previously blogged about the virtues of OneNote here and here).  Dragon and OneNote are an effective combination.  OneNote is much more lightweight than Word and is a good way to capture the essence of a meeting in a series of bullets. 

I've also been doing more updates on my personal web site and paying more attention to web analytics, but that's a discussion for another post. 

Do you like to use personal technology?  What are some of your favorite tools and tricks of the trade?