Joyce Carol Oates

"Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul."

— Joyce Carol Oates

American Novelist

1938 - 

Commentary

Reading fiction gives us the opportunity to leave the limits of our bodies and explore the world of others.  We are able to feel what they feel, to experience what they experience, and to understand the world as they understand.  

I can never become another person in the real world.  I will always be myself no matter how much I grow and develop.  Reading like acting gives me the opportunity to become someone else.  I can feel their fear, their love and their joy.  Some people I inhabit I love and enjoy being them.  Others, I don't like and don't enjoy being in their skin, but I can still learn from them.  I can still expand my understanding of the world.

I prefer reading stories where I like the characters and enjoy being with them.  For me, character is more important than plot.  I don't always enjoys novels driven so much by plot that the author sacrificed character depth.  I prefer novels where I can climb inside the character's skin and become him or her for a short period of time.  Two of my favorite private investigators from the world of crime fiction are:  Easy Rawlins (created by Walter Mosley) and V. I. Warshawski (created by Sara Paretsky).  I enjoy spending time with each of them in the worlds they inhabit.  For me, the plot is less important than being with the two private investigators.

Writing fiction gives me a similar opportunity as reading fiction.  As a writer, I am able to become another person in a world of my creation.  Unlike reading, I am able to explore the character on a deeper level and get to know the person even better than the reader does.  The fun of writing is in seeing the character slowly reveal himself and the world in which he lives.  

Creative Practice

This week make a list of characters in fiction who you like as well as those who you dislike. Ask yourself why you like or dislike certain characters.  What appeals to you about certain characters?  What disturbs you about certain characters?  Identify the type of characters you like to write about.

Biography

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prolific American novelists and writers living today.  She published her first book in 1963 and has since published over 40 novels as well as a number of plays, short stories, poetry and non-fictional works.  She has taught at Princeton University since 1978.

Oates was the oldest of three children born to Caroline Bush and Frederic James Oates.  She was born in Lockport, New York and raised in the farming community of Millersport, New York.  She was raised Catholic, but later discovered that her paternal great-grandfather was Jewish.  Her paternal grandmother encouraged her to read and gave her a copy of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland which influenced her writing.  She called the book "the greatest treasure of her childhood."  Other early influences included William Faulkner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry David Thoreau, Ernest Hemingway, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte.  She began writing at fourteen when her grandmother gave her a typewriter.

Joyce Carol Oates graduated from Syracuse University in 1960 with a B.A. in English and from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 1961 with a M.A.

Video

Here is a video of Joyce Carol Oates discussing how to write characters.

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Lucille Clifton

"I have a feeling that sometimes rather than wrestle and look for words, you have to be still and let them come."

Lucille Clifton

American Poet / Writer

1936 - 2010

Commentary

People sometimes perceive writers and poets as spending their days wrestling with words until they find the perfect word.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Yes, there a moments of revision and some will revise for years searching for the best word to convey the meaning.  But sometimes writers are lucky and the words appear as if out of nowhere.  A good writer, artist and creative leader learns how to remain still and listen.

Creative Exercise

Find a quiet spot where you will not be bothered by people and their electronic gadgets.  Spend 10 to 15 minutes listening to the sounds both within your head and outside.  Then take out your paper and pen and write for 10 minutes.  Repeat this process 5 times throughout the week.  At the end of the week review your work.  For an artist, repeat the same process and draw instead of write.

Biography

Lucille Clifton was born in Depew, New York.  She graduated from high school in 1953 and attended Howard University and the State University of New York at Fredonia.  She married Fred James Clifton, a professor of Philosophy and sculptor, in 1958.  The novelist Ishmael Reed introduced them while he was organizing the Buffalo Community Drama Workshop.  Reed also shared her poetry with Langston Hughes who included them in his anthology, The Poetry of the Negro.

Clifton's first poetry collection, Good Times, was published in 1969.  She was poet-in-residence at Coppin State College in Baltimore from 1971 - 1974.  She was the Poet Laureate of Maryland from 1979 - 1985.  Over the years she has taught at Columbia University, George Washington University, University of California at Santa Cruz, St. Mary's College of Maryland and Dartmouth College.



Clifton published 14 collections of poetry and won numerous awards including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in 2007, the National Book Award in 2000 and the 1996 Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.  She also wrote and published 18 children's books.  Her children's book, Everett Anderson's Goodbye, won the Coretta Scott King Award in 1984.



In Clifton's interview with Bill Moyer for his series the Language of Life, she said: "I was not trained as a poet, and I've never taken poetry lessons or had workshops.  Nobody taught me anything much, really.  So, I learned how to learn, and what I learned is that I could be still and allow the world and the impressions and the feelings — I'm very good with feelings — to come to me, and I could use our language to write them down."

Video

Here is Lucille Clifton reading her poem, won't you celebrate with me.

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Anne Tyler

"If I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write at all."

— Anne Tyler

American Novelist

1941 -

Commentary

Many beginning writers feel that they can only write when the spirit strikes them.  They wait until they have the urge to write.  Unfortunately, they will write very little because the spirit is often on vacation.  Writers, artists and other creative leaders must develop the discipline and habit of working every day whether they are in the mood or not.  Somedays what they produce will be great and on other days it will be terrible.  The quality does not matter.  Just like there are bad hair days and good hair days, there are bad creative days and good creative days.  They will not always hit a home run or score the winning basket.

So what about you?  Do you wait until the spirit strikes?  Or are you up and at it every day?   Do you have the self-discipline to create something every day?  There is no boss looking over your shoulder or no parent coaxing you out of bed.  You have to be the one to get yourself up writing, painting or dancing.  No one can do it for you.

Creative Practice

Experts say it takes 21 days to form a habit.  So your assignment this week to choose a time every day when you will create.  Then for the next 21 days spend that time creating.  Begin now to form habits of a lifetime.  You are responsible for the life you live.

Background

Anne Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, MN.  Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker.  Her youth was spent in several Quaker communities.  She did not attend public school until she was eleven. She graduated from Duke University and did graduate work in Russian studies.

Tyler has published 19 novels.  The first one, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964.  She won the Pulitzer Prize for her 11th novel Breathing Lessons.

Tyler rarely gives face-to-face interviews.  In her first such interview in thirty-five years with Deirdre Donahue in 2012, she said: "I have to go to my writing room five days a week. I have to put in my time."  Donahue states that Tyler writes in longhand on unlined paper.

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Leo Tolstoy

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

— Leo Tolstoy

Russian Writer

1828 - 1910

Commentary:

Most of us at some point in our lives have a desire to change the world — to change how the world works and how others behave.  Some of us outgrow these desires and others spend a lifetime of activism.  Some of us become cynical and dropout.  Others rant and rave against the system.  Yet few of us ever think about changing ourselves.  

The perfect example is marriage.  I bet everyone whoever marries attempts at some point to change the behavior of his or her spouse.  Maybe it is putting down the toilet seat.  Or trying to change the spending habits.  We have all tried to change a spouse and nine times of ten we have failed.  You cannot change other people easily because most people resisted the efforts of others to change them.  If you want the marriage to be successful, you must learn to first change yourself.  And if you are successful, you will change the other person in the process.

As creative leaders, we must learn to work on ourselves first.  If your writing or your paintings are rejected, don't blame the editors and the gallery owners.  Look inside.  What do you need to do differently?  What do you need to change?  

Lasting change comes from within, not from without.  What work habits do you need to change?  What habits of procrastination do you need to change?  What attitudes do you need to change?  Changing a habit does not happen overnight.  Some experts say that it takes a minimum of 21 days to change a habit.  Changing yourself is not easy, but with hard work it can be done.  You can change who you are by changing what goes into your mind and heart.  

I believe the heart drives change more than the brain.  Most people know intellectually that smoking is harmful to one's life and yet many people are unable to stop.  You have to emotionally want to change for change to happen.  Our emotions are the basis for change.  Love for another person can motivate someone to change his behavior.  Fear can be a powerful motivation for change.

Creative Practice:

This week choose some habit that you would like to change and begin the work necessary for the change.  Remember that it takes at least three weeks for the change to take hold.  Commit yourself to the change.  Believe that you can change.  Choose to change.  Plant seeds of hope in your heart.

Background:

Born in the Tula Province of Russia, Tolstoy was the youngest of four boys.  He was two when his mother died and nine when his father passed away.  He was raised by his aunts.  French and German tutors provided his early education at home.  At fifteen he enrolled at the University of Kazan but failed to graduate because of partying to excess instead of studying.  He attempted to become a farmer on his parents' estate but failed as well.  He did develop the habit of keeping a journal.  After failing at farming, he joined the army and fought in the Crimean War.

Tolstoy published his first story, Childhood, in The Contemporary when he was 24.  His greatest novel, War and Peace, was published in 1869.  Anna Karenina, the second of his best novels, was published in installments between 1873 - 1877 to critical and public acclaim.

After the writing of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy suffered a spiritual crisis.  He rejected the Russian Orthodox Church because he felt it was corrupt.  He developed his own unconventional  and controversial spiritual beliefs.  His later fiction was more moralistic than his earlier work.

Video:

The Last Station, a movie about the last year of Tolstoy's life, was released in 2009.  Here is the trailer.

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Naomi Shihab Nye

"The story is given to you through the process of writing.  I always encourage my students to trust the process of writing.  It will take them somewhere, and it may not be where they thought they were going."

Naomi Shihab Nye

American Poet

1952 -

Commentary

Sometimes we plan too much.  We want to control every detail.  We need to learn to follow the story.  It is a gift.  We need to trust the discovery process.  The story will not betray us.  

Creative Practice

This week write a poem or short story starting with the phrase, "On the day that I died ..."  Follow where the story leads.  Trust the writing.  Go where it goes.

Background on Poet

Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and American mother in St. Louis, Missouri.  She began writing poetry at the age of six.  She spent her high school years in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas.  She received her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio.

Nye described her writing experience in the Four Winds Press:  "My poems and stories often begin with the voices of our neighbors, mostly Mexican American, always inventive and surprising.  I never get tired of mixtures."  She describes herself as the wandering poet and interacts with different cultures.

Video

Here is a video of Naomi Shihab Nye talking about inspiration:

I believe that people have more similarities than differences.  Yet people tend to focus on what makes them different than what makes them the same.  In this next video Nye describes a poetry class she taught where she used poems written by both Jewish and Palestinian women.  She used poetry to show that we are more alike than different.

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Masaoka Shiki

"Take your materials from what is around you — if you see a dandelion, write about that; if it's misty, write about the mist.  The materials for poetry are all about you in profusion."

— Masaoka Shiki

Japanese Poet

1867 - 1902

Commentary

Where do you get your ideas for your writing or your painting?  Are your ideas rooted in the world in which you live?  Has that maple tree in your backyard shown up in your painting?  Has the dragonfly or the butterfly appeared in your writing?  Look around you.  The world is yours for the taking.  Be sure to incorporate it into your creative work.

Creative Practice

Take 10 minutes everyday and write or paint something that you normally don't write or paint.  Take your subject from what is around you.  Maybe it is a dandelion, or a squirrel, or an oak tree, or even a spider.  Or take something you normally write or paint and change your perspective.

About the Poet

Masakoa Shiki (Tsunenori), considered one of four great Japanese poets, was born into a samurai family of modest means in the castle town of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku.  His father, Tsuneanao, was an alcoholic who died when Shiki was five years old.  His mother was the daughter of a Confucian scholar who became Shiki's first teacher.  She was forced to teach sewing to support her family.  At 15, Shiki became involved in the Freedom and People's Rights Movement and became interested in being a politician.  He moved to Tokyo in 1883 to live with an uncle. While in Tokyo, he discovered baseball and enjoyed playing.  He entered the Imperial University in 1890 where he studied literature and eventually concentrated on haiku.



When Shiki was 22, he began coughing up blood and adopted the pen name, "Shiki," the name of a bird that according to legend coughed up blood as it sang.  He dropped out of the university and began working as haiku editor for a newspaper, Nippon.  Shiki suffered fro tuberculosis the last 14 years of his life.  He went to China in 1895 as a war correspondent in the First Sino-Japanese war.  Living in filthy conditions in China, Shiki grew worse.  He became bedridden in 1897.  The illness worsened in 1901 and he began using morphine as a painkiller.  He died of TB in 1902 at the age of 35.  



Haiku by Shiki



spring rain:

browsing under an umbrella

at the picture-book store



a look backward

at the person who went by —

misted out



the nettle nuts are falling . . .

the little girls next door

don't visit me these days



ways of the world,

may he never know them,

the toad



lifting my head,

I look now and then —

the garden clover



to awaken

the hot-water bottle, barely

warm



how much longer

is my life?

a brief night . . .



a barrel full of phlegm —

even loofah water

will not avail me now



Biography  & Haiku Sources:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.

Hoffmann, Yoel. Japanese Death Poems. Tuttle Publishing (Boston). 1986.

Isaacson, Harold J. Peonies Kana. Theatre Arts Books (New York). 1972.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaoka_Shiki

Quote Source:

Beichman, Janine. Masaoka Shiki. Twayne Publishers (Boston). 1982.

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Natalie Goldberg

"It is important to remember we are not the poem.... The power is always in the act of writing.... Write good poems and let go of them.  Publish them, read them, go on writing."

Natalie Goldberg

American Writer, Artist

1948 -

Message to followers

Two years ago tomorrow, I began this blog.  I have spent between 5 - 7 hours a week producing it.  This amounts to over 25o hours a year.  There are now over 700 quotes on this site that are designed to inspired creative leaders, including writers, artists, musicians and actors.  When I started, my goal was to write the blog daily for a year.  Unfortunately, the time I have spent on this blog has taken time away from my personal writing.  One option would be to close the blog down, but I believe the messages I have been sharing are important to others.  I have decided instead to change it from a daily blog to a weekly blog. So beginning with this entry, I will be publishing the blog every Monday morning.  And I have changed the name to Monday Morning Motivation.  Please come back every Monday for your dose of inspiration and motivation.

Commentary

Natalie Goldberg has had a powerful influence on my writing.  I have read all of her books on writing and continue to reread them.  I highly recommend that every new writer read her books.  

We are not our writing or our painting.  Don't get caught up in confusing your identity as a person with the identity of the people in your writing.  The power is always in the act of creation, not in the final product.  Enjoy and appreciate the creative process.  That is where you will learn the most about yourself.

About the Author

Natalie Goldberg is an American poet, painter, teacher and author.  She has written 12 books including Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within which has been translated into 14 languages.  She has written several memoirs including The Great Failure and  Long Quiet Highway.  She currently lives in northern New Mexico.

Quote Source:  Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, p. 32 - 32.

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Paul Simon

"A song I was writing is left undone.  I don't know why I spend my time writing songs I can't believe."

— Paul Simon

American Musician

1941 -

As I write this I am listening to the songs of Simon and Garfunkel, one of my favorite groups.  Like many people, I was disappointed when they broke up.  I loved their songs which defined the world for me when I was a teenager.  I loved the lyrics.  I stopped following either musician after they broke up.  I probably should have followed Simon since he was the creative genius behind the group.  The above lyrics come from Kathy's Song, which he wrote in 1965 while in England.

Do you have any creative work left unfinished?  A painting?  A poem?  A novel?  I do.  I have a novel I spent 4 years writing, but never finished.  I also have several short stories.  These days I tend to write my poems in one sitting with little or no rewriting.

Do you believe in what you create or do you like Simon in these lyrics doubt what you have created?  Have you lost faith in your creative skills?  

Here is Simon and Garfunkel singing Kathy's Song.  Enjoy.

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Dean Koontz

"Writing a novel is like making love, but it's also like having a tooth pulled.  Pleasure and pain.  Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth pulled."

— Dean Koontz

American Novelist

1945 -

I love the images conjured up by this quote.  Pain and pleasure is basically what life is all about.  Why should creative work be any different?  We experience both pain and pleasure while doing creative work — painting, writing, singing or dancing.  Hopefully, you experience more pleasure than pain.  One cannot exist without the other and both teach us something.

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Nikki Giovanni

"Writers don't write from experience, though many are hesitant to admit that they don't.  I want to be clear about this.  If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems.  Writers write from empathy."

— Nikki Giovanni

American Poet

1943 - 

Writers don't experience everything they write about.  They have to be able to walk in the shoes of others, to be able to see through the eyes of others.  If writers could only write about what they have experienced, we would not have fantasy, science fiction or romance novels.  Male writers could not write about the experiences of females; nor could female writers write about the experiences of males.  Writers would not be able to write about people from other cultures.

All creative leaders need empathy.  They need to be able to understand where other people are coming from.  They need to be able to experience the world through the eyes of others.  No one is an island.

Here is an interview with Nikki Giovanni.

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Heather Graham

"You need to meet people constantly because that is where you get your ideas and everything that you are going to write.  I find people intriguing.  I love people and I love to hear their stories and to find out where they came from and where they are going."

— Heather Graham

American Novelist

1953 -

Writers are often viewed as loners and they do have to spend a lot of time alone writing, but writers also need human contact.  Many times the people writers come in contact with find their way into novels and stories.  Great writers are observant of the people they meet and use the details of these lives to add authenticity to their work.  

Meet Heather Graham, author of over 150 novels.  She has more than 75 million books in print in 25 languages.

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Clarissa Pinkola Estes

"Writing, real writing, should leave a small sweet bruise somewhere on the writer. . . . and on the reader."

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes

American Poet, Storyteller

1945 - 

Creative work touches us and leaves its mark on our soul.  We may transform our demons by writing or painting, but we do not escape untouched.  And when we write fiction, our characters become a part of who we are.  We have conversations with these people who haunt our minds.  And they don't leave us.  Our memories do not die.  We are forever engaged in dialogue even when the names and faces change.  We are listening to the voices of others.

Here are some quotes from the book, Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

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Susan Minot

"I also find solace in painting because it's an alternative to writing.  It doesn't involve words, and while it requires concentration that makes the time you are doing it disappear, it does not involve the mind the same way, or require logic in the same way.  Painting allows me to convey something not from my head, but from my hand, through images."

— Susan Minot

American Novelist

1956 - 

I have taken up painting late in life but like Susan I find it a great alternative outlet for my creativity.  I can paint for 2 to 3 hours and be totally lost in what I am doing.  Here is video of Susan Minot talking about both her writing and her art.

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Flannery O'Connor

"Writing is like giving birth to a piano sideways.  Anyone who perseveres is either talented or nuts."

— Flannery O'Connor

American Novelist

1925 - 1964

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Camille Pissarro

"It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character."

— Camille Pissarro

French Artist

1830 - 1903

Conversation
(1881)

The key to success is to practice, practice and practice!  If you don't get it right the first time, do it again.  Keep working.  Too often we give up too soon.  Draw, write and paint every day.  Be patient with yourself.  Give yourself time to develop and grow into the artist that you want to be.  Nothing happens over night.  Sometimes it takes years.  Sometimes it takes a lifetime. 

The time is now.  Get up off that couch.  Stop watching television.  Draw.  Paint.  Write.  Do something.  Anything.  Every minute you waste is gone forever.  Practice!  Practice!  Practice!

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Natalie Goldberg

"Some people write for fifteen years with no success and then decide to quit.  Don't look for success and don't quit.  If you want writing, write under all circumstances.  Success will or will not come, in this lifetime or the next.  Success is none of our business.  It comes from the outside.  Our job is to write, to not look up from our notebook and wonder how much money Norman Mailer earns."

— Natalie Goldberg

American Writer

1948 -

The creative arts are not about fame and fortune.  They are about creating.  If success is what you seek then you ought to pursue another profession.  For every actor who becomes rich, famous and invited to the Oscars, there are thousands who act in small community plays for the love of it.  For every writer who reaches the best sellers list, there are thousands who toil daily with neither recognition nor financial rewards, simply for the love of writing.  For every musician whose songs top the music charts, there are millions who sing at church or in the shower.  Our work is to create, not to become rich and famous.  Are you focused on creating or are you daydreaming about being rich and famous?

Here is Natalie Goldberg:

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Eileen Goudge

"I will always have a story to tell.  I take elements from my life and throw them in a pot and stir the pot and see what happens."

— Eileen Goudge

American Novelist

1950 -

We all have a story to tell, but we do not have to tell it through memoir.  We can tell it through short stories, novels, songs and even paintings.  What we have to learn to do is learn how to change our story.  The story does not have to be factual.  Our story is only the beginning — the starting point.  The emotion should be true, but not the facts.  We may have been born in a small town in Illinois, but we can change it to a coastal town in Oregon.  Our grandfather could have died when we were fourteen, but we can change it to our father when we were ten.  We should take elements from our lives and make story soup.  For some of us changing the story is easy.  For others, it takes patience, imagination and hard work.

Here is Eileen Goudge talking about how she wrote her way out of poverty.

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