The Rumored Death of Boomer Sex

This week I met Jane Smiley at a workshop. She told me to stop preparing to write the novel and sit down and write a sloppy first draft, start to finish, then begin polishing it. I traveled twelve hundred miles, and spent a considerable amount of money to get this advice. It was worth it.

What started out as The Winter of the Novel has actually turned into The Winter of Understanding How Incredibly Complex a Task it is to Craft a Novel of Which One Can be Proud. As recent publications prove, it is possible to write a bestseller, or even a series of bestsellers with very little talent for writing and not much to say. But that is not what I want to do.

The only question worth answering is, "What is the story that must be told, that only I can tell?" For the workshop, we were all asked to come up with break out titles for the books we have written or partially written, or the books we want to write. I picked Boomer Sex because I want to write from the perspective of the Baby Boomers and I know "sex sells". Hey, why not just put it right there in the title I thought, then write a novel to go with the title.

That wasn't necessarily a bad idea. The problem is, I got impatient. I wanted an outline for a great novel  that I could start writing right now. Because I got impatient, I crafted the outline of a novel I didn't like very much. I couldn't get into the story, it felt more like a cartoon of a novel than it felt like a novel. So it was very hard to pitch it at the workshop. I was discouraged to say the least. Having been discouraged before, I've learned that that uncomfortable feeling very often immediately precedes a breakthrough.

I also met Robert Olen Butler at the workshop. Bob said write about the things in Boomer Sex that are real. A woman approaching retirement age having lost most of her savings in the recession, that is something you can get passionate about writing. The same woman losing her husband to a divorce, is something you can get passionate about writing. The question to ask is, what is the yearning of your character. In the case of Boomer Sex, the yearning is not, "how do I get money again?" The yearning is "who am I now?"

The first day of the workshop, our leader, Michael Neff, told us you can't build a beautifully crafted home with a couple of boards, some nails and a hammer. And writing a novel of which you can be proud is more complex than building a beautifully crafted home. If anyone should understand that analogy, it should be me. Michael has been known to say "sex sells", nothing new there, and he's right, it does. He was telling the truth.

But the context of that comment is very important. Michael makes it very clear you need a tightly written and edited story that is unique, interesting, and keeps eyes on the page. Once you have that, there are many more, very specific, things you must do to improve the chances of selling it. But if you don't have that tightly written and edited, unique story, all the sex in the world won't sell it. Unless you're E. L. James. Of whom I'm sure there will soon be many imitators.

The truth is, it's much easier to talk about writing a novel, or blog about writing a novel, than it is to write a good novel. Going forward, having spent the past three months studying novel structure and all the essential elements of a good commercial novel will in the end save me many months if not years of flailing around. I'm very grateful for the homework leading up to the workshop, for the condensed help I've been given, for the chance to practice pitching my ideas to professionals, and to observe what the other dozen attendees are working on as well as their processes. All in all a rare and enriching experience.

More later.