The Chicago Book Fair

 

Chapter 55

 

The Chicago Book Fair

 

Bill Clinton gave the keynote address at the Chicago Book Fair the year his book My Life came out." I remember he said—as a child he got ice shards from the Iceman, and his publisher told him, “Bill, you don’t have to mention everyone you have ever met in your life.”

 

I wondered how people who wrote memoirs could include such detail. Had they been journaling?

 

In the preface to his book, Clinton writes that as a young man just out of law school and ready to get on with his life, on a whim, he picked up a self-help book titled How to Get Control of Your Life by Alan Lahin. The book's purpose was to list short, medium, and long-term goals. He didn't remember the B and C lists but remembered the A.

 

"I wanted to be a good man, have a good marriage and children, have good friends, make a successful political life, and write a great book."

 

Admirable goals, Clinton. 

 

Wendy Hiller, a literary agent, invited me to the Chicago Fair along with a few other writers. She didn't represent me, and I don't remember what I was writing at the time, nothing good, but she must have seen some potential in me, and wanted to show me how publishing worked. At the Fair everybody wants to sell, nobody wants to buy. However, you might find a publisher there, they are looking.

 

I met a delightful young mother I liked who wrote a book about Breastfeeding. Her husband and brother were with her, and they invited me out to dinner after Clinton’s speech. Now, I regret that I didn’t go. I could have rallied, but after a day of walking that gigantic stadium and then wearing high-heeled shoes to the Clinton speech, I was ready to drop. Thus, I missed my chance to go out in Chicago with a black couple who might have shown me a thing or two.

 

Here was Clinton, an ex-president, so a memoir made sense. I'm a simple person trying to make sense of it and operating under the belief that you don't have to be famous to write a memoir. Just fill in the pen drawings with color and see what happens.

 

I found a note from a blog reader in my email this morning who said she wanted to support me. Thank you, kind person. 

 

I checked to see what blog she was talking about, and it was "What Do You Wonder About?" I stole that from Auston Kleon's book Steal Like an Artist. 10 things nobody told you about being creative.

 

See, he gave me permission to steal from him, so I chose the two steps below as the manifesto for my blog:

 

Step One: Wonder about something.

Step Two: Invite others to wonder with me.

 

That man is brilliant.

 

I came across his small book, which was free on Amazon Prime, and read it before lunch.

 

"You don't need to be a genius; you just need to be yourself," he wrote.

 

I slapped my head and declared, "Thank you, God,"

 

(Thank you, Auston Kleon. I don't know if God had anything to do with that statement.)

 

I have bounced everywhere with subjects—metaphysics, the spiritual path, life blog, travel, writing about writing, blogging, chickens, animals, horses, home life, family, story, Hawaii, Oregon, California, and God. I'll even throw in sea life if that strikes me. And then I hear the voice of blogging gurus who say to find your niche and stick with it.

 

I scream, "WHAT'S MY NICHE!" (All over the place.)

 

Kleon says, "You can cut off a couple of passions and only focus on one, but after a while, you'll start to feel phantom limb pain."

 

I love that man.

 

"Do not leave your longings unattended."

 

Right on.

 

Yesterday I began the day by deciding to write something about writing, for I have readers on my blog “The Best Damn Writer Blogger on the Block.” 

www.bestdamnwritersblog.com  (Fair to say, I'm the only one on my block writing one, but maybe I should check to make sure.)

 

I am curious to know how those readers found me. However, if someone shows up, I am happy to offer them something.

 

Except that yesterday, I had nothing to say.

 

Blogs are supposed to add something of value. So, where did that leave me?

 

With Zilch. Nada.

 

Kleon to the rescue, "If you try to devour the history of your discipline all at once, you'll choke."

 

Okay, back to the beginning of the day. Hemingway was a good place to start. However, Hemingway was reluctant to talk about writing, for he felt that saying too much might inhabit his muse.

 

Although Hemingway was known for his adventurous spirit, he was first and foremost a writer. He might have been reluctant to talk about writing, yet, over the years, he wrote letters to friends in various parts of the world at different times, and talk of writing invariably crept in. 

 

Along came Larry W. Phillips, who uncovered Hemingway's comments on writing and included them in a book called Ernest Hemingway on Writing.

 

"All good books are alike," wrote Hemingway, "in that they are truer than if they had really happened, and after you are finished reading one, you will feel that all that happened to you and afterward all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was." –By-Line Earnest Hemingway page 184.

 

This quote explains why my eyes cross when people say, "I only read non-fiction." As though fiction is frivolous, and they are into "serious" learning.

 

Quite the opposite is true. Good fiction writers can hit you with the truth when you don't even know you've been hit. And where do you see the outer workings of a person while being privy to their thoughts except with a fictional protagonist? 

 

There's a place for both. Yes, for all my ravings about fiction, I am writing non-fiction. 

 

Write whatever is itching to come out.

 

 

"The secret is that it is poetry written into prose, and that is the hardest thing to do." –Ernist Hemingway.

 

Hemingway left a lot unsaid. He wrote simply, quite against the flowery prose of his day. His style was considered the iceberg effect; much was beneath the surface.

 

Okay, back to Steal Like an Artist:

 

"We're talking about practice, not plagiarism. Plagiarism is trying to pass someone else's work off as your own. Copying is about reverse engineering. It's like a mechanic taking apart a car to see how it works."

 

If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it's research, “If you rip off a hundred people,” Panter says, “the folks will say, “You're so original."

 

I believe the following from Kleon applies not only to artists but to anyone starting a business:

 

You will need the following:

· Curiosity

· Kindness

· Stamina

· A willingness to look stupid.

 

Barbara Kingsolver said in her last tip of five on writing, "If you are young and a smoker, you should quit."

 

I qualify as a writer. 

 

I don't smoke, and I'm not young.