Using the Soul as Writing Prompt

I don’t know why I write, exactly. Catharsis, the itch to make something shapely and permanent, the attempt to stare God in the eye, the attempt to connect deeply to other men and women, because I can’t help myself, because there is something elevating in art, because I feel myself at my best when I am writing well. Because because because…

                       Brian Doyle
                       Author of Mink River 
                       and Martin Marten

First Posted: March 6, 2020

“I realized that this entire time…my hope to tell a
long-lasting story, to create something that endured,
to be alive somehow as long as someone would read
my books, was what drove me on, story after story;
it was my lifeline, my passion, my way to understand who I was.” 

                           Susan Orlean

                           Author of
                           The Orchid Thief and The Library Book

First posted: February 14, 2020

Write every day with a pen that's shaped like a candy cane.
                                                                  David Sedaris

First posted: January 25, 2020

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

             Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Seriously, Sam?

I mean, given the number who actually make money from their writing,

must be a lot of disappointed scribblers out there,

unfortunate blockheads having to settle merely for the joy

of playing with words and capturing their music on paper,

or leaving a record, however ephemeral, of an ephemeral life--

that one was once here, felt things, knew things, loved things--

reporting from the frontlines on their first-hand experiences of truth,

or wanting to make some small contribution to humanity’s forward movement,

or just tell a good story.

All those unfortunate blockheads dancing delirious with the muse

for a moment, or for an hour, or a lifetime,

alas, without any financial reward.

So sad.

[First posted: November 9, 2019]

 
I just write about what scares me. 

"I just write about what scares me.
When I was a kid, my mother used to say,
'Think of the worst thing that you can,
and if you say it out loud then it won't come true.'
And that's probably been the basis of my career."

                                          Stephen King 

[First posted: October 5, 2019]

August 5, 2019

Today Toni Morrison died.

Not sure what that means. Her books are still here on my shelf,
as they were yesterday, as they will be tomorrow.
So, what's been lost?
A person I never met and, chances are, would never have met.
A vessel, a conduit, a voice.
I salute the voice (Thank you)
but the words the voice spoke are still with us.

Nothing gold can stay, said another who I also honor,
but I respectfully disagree. The gold stays.
It is only the gold that stays.

Today Toni Morrison died.
What's important remains
here on my bookshelves.

[First posted: September 7, 2019]

 

As the lightning came closer thunder came with it--the sound seemed to roll over them like giant boulders. Mouse flinched, and Newt began to flinch too. Then, instead of running across the horizon like snakes' tongues, the lightning began to drive into the earth, with streaks thick as poles, and with terrible cracks.

Around midnight I was in bed, reading Lonesome Dove, and listening to the soft patter of rain through my open window. Just as I got to the part where the cattle drive is caught in a terrible storm with its thunder and lightning, it began to thunder and lightning over this valley.

I love it when that happens.

[First posted: August 10, 2019]

I am pleased to announce (ecstatic, really!) that my novel about the AIDS epidemic, 
As If Death Summoned, will be published next autumn by Amble Press, an imprint of Bywater Books.

The story is set in Portland and Australia during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and '90s. Much of it covers the early years, before there was a diagnosis, or a test or treatment, before it was even called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. The story ends in 1995, when protease inhibitors turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable chronic condition. By that time, 300,000 people had already died in the US.

I sent the manuscript to Bold Strokes Books, who had published my dark psychological mystery, The Unforgiven, in 2012.

Sandy Lowe responded, saying she liked it but didn't think that BSB, who primarily publishes mysteries, thrillers and romance, had the right market for it. She encouraged me to send it to Salem West at Bywater Books and then told Salem about the book.

On April 1st (Yes, April Fool's Day) Salem wrote to me:

 
Hello, Alan.

Lazy afternoon,

sprawled on my bed,

book and window open,

reading to the rain's syncopated rhythms,

     dozing,

                   dreaming,

                                         waking,

wandering through mind-drifts of memories

              ...the farm at Barwon Downs,

              ...hiking Mt. Takao in autumn,

              ...planting the chestnut with Dad,

while listening to the rain, reading.

 [First posted: October 25, 2015]