Coming to Terms With Yourself

When Harper Lee was asked what advice she’d give a young writer, she wrote:

“Well, the first advice I would give is this: hope for the best and expect nothing. Then you won’t be disappointed.”

And she went on to say: “You must come to terms with yourself about writing. You must not write “for” something, you must not write with definite hopes of reward. People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don’t know what they’re doing.”

These and other illuminating insights about the writing process are included in Kerry Madden's excellent biography of Harper Lee (Up Close: Harper Lee), a book that offers readers a rich portrait of small-town life in Alabama and the way such a life helped shape the author of To Kill A Mockingbird.

“My needs are simple: paper, pen, and privacy,” explains Lee, who grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, and whose sister Alice called her Nell.

She began writing at noon, Lee revealed in a letter responding to a request from her alma mater, Huntingdon College, about how she spent her day, and her work ended at midnight with a dinner break. Her idea of “play” was “reading, golf, and going through secondhand bookstores.”

Lee loved playing golf because it gave her the chance to be alone yet still be doing something. “You hit the ball, think, and take a walk. I do my thinking walking. I do my dialogue, talking it out to myself.”

As a child, she used to enjoy listening to her big brother, Ed, read stories to her and the young boy who lived next door.

Her father gave her and that boy a 25 pound black Underwood No. 5 typewriter, which they lugged into the back yard and into each other’s homes, and while one of them dictated a story, the other typed. That boy would become a famous author too, known to the world as Truman Capote.

The youngest of four children, Lee played imaginary games as a child like all kids, but “people watching” was her main interest. And books were scarce. “There was nothing you could call a public library,” she recalled.

Her high school English teacher, Miss Gladys Watson, became her friend and mentor for life, and it was the rule for good writing that she learned in Miss Watson’s class—“clarity, coherence, cadence”— that helped her shape the prose that became To Kill A Mockingbird.

Recalling her life in Monroeville, she wrote: “We did not have the pleasure of the theatre, the dance, of motion pictures when they came along. We simply entertained each other by talking. It’s quite a thing, if you’ve never been in or known a small southern town. The people are not particularly sophisticated, naturally. They’re not worldly wise in any way. But they tell you a story whenever they see you. We’re oral types— we talk.”

The girl who grew up known as “queen of the tomboys” went on to the University of Alabama to study law full time but got sidetracked along the way by Shakespeare and went to England as an exchange student to continue her studies in literature at Oxford University.

Eventually, she returned to Alabama and left law, quitting school against her family’s wishes, and moved to New York City, where she joined Truman and saw him occasionally.

“She had the “itch” to write,” said her sister, Alice, years later.

Lee spent eight years in New York before she felt ready to submit her short stories to a literary agent. But it wasn’t until friends gave her the gift of enough money to write full-time for a year that To Kill A Mockingbird began to emerge from her pen as a manuscript entitled “Atticus.”

In the process of creating her novel, she discovered that she was more of a “rewriter than a writer.”

“I write at least three drafts. I’ve been writing since I was a kid of seven. But I have systematically thrown out most of what I have written. It was a form of self-training.”

Unlike many writers who don’t like to write, Lee loved writing.

“Sometimes, I’m afraid that I like it too much,” she wrote, “because when I get into work I don’t want to leave it. As a result I’ll go for days and days without leaving the house or wherever I happen to be. I’ll go out long enough to get paper sad pick up some food and that’s it. It’s strange, but instead of hating writing, I love it too much.”

For more information about Kerry Madden’s biography of Harper Lee, visit:
http://www.kerrymadden.com/books/bk_harp.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/07/kerry-madden-tracks-harper-lee.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edVLhXZPPEY

One Writer's Process: Kerry Madden

The oldest of four children, Kerry Madden spent much of her youth telling stories to her younger brothers and sister, and when she was asked to clean the kitchen, she “made up stories... to escape the drudgery of my own life.”

Those early years helped her learn the secret to finding her voice–a voice as rich and captivating as two of Madden’s favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor and Harper Lee. Indeed, her voice is so distinctive that you can hear it like the rippling of a pure mountain stream the moment you open the covers of one of Madden’s award-winning novels.

In case you missed it, Madden’s Gentle’s Holler was named one of the best books of 2005 by the Chicago Public Library and the Bank Street College, received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, and was a finalist for PEN USA in 2006.

Louisiana’s Song, the second book about the Weems family set in Madden’s beloved Tennessee mountains, was nominated for a 2007 Cybils Award and named one of the best books of 2008 by Bank Street College. The third book in the trilogy, Jessie’s Mountain, was described in Kirkus Reviews as “a heartwarming family story bursting with love and mountain music.”

When Madden leads writing workshops, she tells students to “write down all the things that get your heart beating and pounding ... what scares you, what makes you laugh so hard?”

And her advice for those who want to become writers one day is this: “Don’t let anyone tell you no!”

Most of all, Madden wants to encourage her students to “be aware with all your heart–to what you see, smell, taste, touch, and smell.”

“Write,” she says, “because of the joy it gives you.”

Madden lives in Los Angeles, CA and is working on a YA biography of Harper Lee for Viking/Penguin. She was kind enough to take a break from her work to share her thoughts on writing with Wordswimmer.

Wordswimmer: If writing is like swimming...how do you get into the water each day?

Madden: I warm up with notes to friends or I post on my blog. When I'm starting something new, I keep a notebook by the bed to write in first thing in the morning, and it typically turns into a journal in the voice of my narrator. I have several Livy Two notebooks and one for Louise too.

Wordswimmer: What keeps you afloat...for short work? For longer work?

Madden: When the longer work slays me, I turn to the shorter work. In my novels, I often find myself "treading water" without a plot, so I write a short personal essay about anything from being "a roadie mom for my son's band" or "the insane barking dogs" next door or "an Alabama road trip with my daughter." Taking a break from the longer works to dive into the shorter pieces gives me a fresh perspective.

Wordswimmer: How do you keep swimming through dry spells?

Madden: Faith. Trust. Long walks. Indie films & Junior Mints. I also find that getting away alone to write is the best, but it doesn't happen much.

Wordswimmer: What's the hardest part of swimming?

Madden: Fear. Fear that it won't be there, but it always is...if I get quiet and allow it to be. If I remember to write with love and joy, my characters are right there waiting for me. This is something I have to relearn again and again. The other hardest part is book promotion--aka book-hawking--but I know it's essential. Still...

Wordswimmer: How do you overcome obstacles, problems, when swimming alone?

Madden: I look at trees. I look at trees against a backdrop of sky. I look at the way a lost palm frond will find its way into an oak tree after a windy night in Silver Lake and hang upside down like a giant wing (my daughter would call it a fairy wing). I get quiet and try to remember to slow down and be in the moment. I get great joy from encouraging kids to write stories. That helps in the dark times.

Wordswimmer: What's the part of swimming that you love the most?

Madden: I love it when my characters are doing the swimming and I'm along for the ride, because then it's just flying. We're all in it together and the scene is just racing along. And when I'm traveling to the Smoky Mountains, I love seeing the signs to Maggie Valley, because I feel like part of the little town will always be home now. Sometimes it feels like the Weems kids are playing up in the holler, and I could almost stop by.

For more information about Madden, visit her website:
http://www.kerrymadden.com/index.html

and her online journal:
http://mountainmist.livejournal.com/

To read additional interviews with Madden, visit:
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=1300
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802280310
http://slayground.livejournal.com/203444.html
http://www.debbimichikoflorence.com/author_interviews/2007/KerryMadden07.html
http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2007/09/author-interview-kerry-madden-on.html
http://www.californiareaders.org/interviews/madden_kerry.php

If you want to learn more about Madden's newest venture--Voices From Down Yonder, a group of Southern writers including Kathi Appelt (http://www.kathiappelt.com/), Kimberly Willis Holt (http://www.kimberlyholt.com/home.html), Frances O'Roark Dowell (http://www.francesdowell.com/), Alexandria LaFaye (http://www.alafaye.com/), Barbara O'Connor (http://www.barboconnor.com/), and, possibly, Deborah Wiles (http://www.deborahwiles.com/), who will do "Reader's Theatre" with their novels at various sites around the country--check out: http://www.windingoak.com

And if you're attending ALA in Anaheim, CA and would like to meet Madden, you can stop by the Penguin Young Readers Group booth (#2617) on Monday, June 30th, where she'll be signing books from 1:00 pm until 2:00 pm.

Special Note: Wordswimmer's taking a break from posting for the next few weeks. See you in July. Keep swimming!