Marcia Golub

Marcia Golub has published two novels, Wishbone and Secret Correspondence. She is also the author of The Open Voice award winning short story, "The Child Downstairs," which was included in Narrative Design: A Writer's Guide to Structure. Her unpublished novel, Tale of the Forgotten Woman, was a finalist for the PEN/NELSON ALGREN AWARD and was twice nominated for the Pushcart Press Editor's Book Award. Her latest book I'd Rather Be Writing is a must for every writer's bookshelf and is available through Writer's Digest's Books. Marcia teaches fiction writing workshops at Writer's Voice in Manhattan, where she lives with her husband and son.

 

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How did your book 'I'd Rather Be Writing' come about?What was your "urge" to write this book?

Marcia Golub
This is the only time I have ever written a book that was already sold. I usually work on a novel for years, alone, laughing to myself, crying like a nut. Then, when it is finally written, the hard work begins. Trying to find a publisher is surely one of the punishments dreamed up in Hell for writers who might otherwise have too much fun.

"I'd Rather Be Writing" had a title and a concept before it had me. My agent and my soon-to-be editor were in cahoots, trying to find an author for a book about writing, not a how-to but a how-it-is. They wanted someone with a strong voice and a personal, humorous style to write about the travails of the writing life and offer writer-to-writer advice. I ended up giving craft pointers as well, but I tried to keep my focus on the need we writers have for someone to say, It's okay that you can't turn your creativity on with a flip of the switch; it's okay that you love your kids but wish you could lock them in a drawer till you finish your chapter; it's okay that you've forgotten how to do this thing you love, it doesn't mean you're not a real writer.

 

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Bill Hazelgrove writes in Hemingway's attic --- Is writing space important?Why or why not? Can you describe your writing space to us and what makes it special?"

Marcia Golub
Writing space is essential...in that you have some. But, beyond a place to sit and a place to rest your writing implement there's a lot of leeway. One of my students told me a joke about a writer who couldn't write her novel because she couldn't find a garret. The kind of space you need is an individual thing. Some people need quiet (ME!). Some people need hoopla. The last thing you need is a view. A view is very nice, but a wall is very nice too. There are, however, two things I wouldn't want to look at when I'm trying to write--someone else's face...and my own. So my advice is don't get a double desk, no matter how gorgeous the wood, and don't set your desk facing a mirror.

Now, I happen to have a terrific view of the Hudson River from my desk. While I would never trade it in for a view of someone else's kitchen (which the first apartment my husband and I lived in had), it is apt to be more distracting than inspiring. I find myself looking at the sky for the right word, only to see a hawk being attacked by a bunch of tiny birds. They appear to be sparrows. Or maybe bees. This seems odd. The next thing you know I'm looking for my binoculars and wondering if I should call the Bronx Zoo or the Oracle at Delphi. What I am not doing is writing.

 

Page One
A wonderful point you make in I'd Rather be Writing is that writers are never bored -- Would you elaborate a little on this? Does this mean if you are a writer and you are bored something is wrong?"

Marcia Golub
No, I would never say that...exactly. Just, boredom is a good thing. It makes you use your imagination. I had a boring childhood. I was surrounded by old people who only told juicy stories in a language I didn't understand. I went to poker games with my parents and would listen to these old people bet a penny and two. Then they would start telling about Ida's carrying on with...and suddenly the language would switch and nobody would translate. I was bored then, and I could have stayed bored. Instead, I started thinking about Ida, about how she wore her hair pulled back in a bun that was so tight she looked like a chubby Olive Oyle. I started thinking about this little old lady flirting! With whom, how, why? Before you knew it I had the gem of a story.

Or sometimes it wouldn't be a tidbit that would start me off. Maybe out of pure boredom I would start to describe the wallpaper to myself, only to find there was something unexpected that came out of it, something that wanted to be a poem.

A boring childhood is the best gift parents can give their budding-writer child. I'm sorry I can't give it to mine. I'm too interested in him. When you find yourself bored, try not to give in to the ho-hum. Use it. Describe what you see, hear, smell. Think about the boring people as characters. Imagine some outrageous event occurring to blow away the stuffiness.

 

 

Page One
Why is it important for us to set personal deadlines?
How do you personally use this advice?"

Marcia Golub
Without deadlines time expands to infinity. There's no reason to push yourself. Write today. Write tomorrow. Next week. Next year. Keep waiting for the spirit to move you. Keep waiting long enough and the spirit does move you...to the cemetery. The making of deadlines is a personal thing. Some people react badly to deadlines, personal and other. It's the inner brat. So, you want this finished by Monday? You'll be lucky if I get it to you by Friday. By next Monday. Or never. How's that? I'm never going to finish this. That'll teach you.

This is not my style. My style is to make a deadline based on my son's and husband's schedules. Vacation coming up? I want to finish the first draft by then. Conference with the teacher? Can I put the corrections into the computer by then, so I can read the whole thing over fresh the next day?

That's how I operate. I make arbitrary deadlines, then allocate my time accordingly. I work myself up into a frenzy, trying to meet this deadline. In the back of my mind I know I can get more time, if I need it (I know the boss). But if I don't do this two things happen: I don't take my writing seriously...and others don't either. Without deadlines there's not enough stress to get me moving, and not enough drama to keep friends and family from eating up my time.

 

Page One
Is cooking and writing that much alike? What do you mean by overcooked files? Can you re-cook those long forgotten ideas?

Marcia Golub
I don't think cooking and writing are alike at all. I am a lousy cook. I hope I am a better writer. Cooking works for me as a metaphor for what has to happen to a piece of writing before it is ready for public consumption. I put my first drafts away in a file called Cooking, and I leave them to simmer, if you will, without me. I want enough time to go by for me to forget them, so I can regain objectivity in order to revise. Revision is what makes a writer, and it is the hardest thing we have to do. You thought that first draft was hard, when you weren't sure what you wanted to say or how to say it? That's nothing. Just wait till it's time to revise. So we try to come up with ways to read what we've written without reciting it from memory. Cooking--that is, putting it away long enough to forget what you've written--is the best way to do this. After something has cooked for a while, it's time to taste it--read it back and add spice. You'll probably have to put it back in the Cooking file again afterward, and the process can go on this way for quite a while, till the piece is cooked and ready to share.

The question you ask about re-cooking those long-forgotten ideas is very interesting. Most of the time, it seems to me, you can't re-cook them. That's why it's important not to let a story cook too long. A month is good, a year...eh, I don't know, could get dried out. You want enough time to go by so that you can be surprised by your writing. You forgot about the old man's shiny pants seat, but you like it. And that thing about the garden in the afternoon light, which felt so labored while you were writing it, hey, it works, it really works. But what you were trying to say about the girl's relationship to her father, that's not clear. And not necessary. It comes across better on its own, without you telling the reader what to think. Your comments at the end muddy it.That's the sort of thing that happens if you leave something to cook long enough, but not too long.

But if you wait a really long time, then take out a first draft...you can still see the good things but you may not be able to remember what the idea was, exactly. You have this charred black substance in the bottom of the pan. It looks like it was once tomato sauce, but maybe it was supposed to be soup. Whatever, it's inedible now. Sometimes what happens to a really old first draft is that something in it will stir your imagination, so you can do another first draft, an original inspired by what came earlier.

 

Page One
Why do you write and who have been your greatest inspirations?
What was the last book you read?

Marcia Golub
Oh boy. I started writing because I was bored. A boring childhood is a boon to creativity, and if you have parents, like mine, who are not overly interested in you, that is another gift. You don't feel your efforts are being judged and condemned. No one is reading over your shoulder. As long as you eat and go to school, it's okay for you to shut the door and do whatever it is you do alone in there.

The other aspect of childhood that made me a writer also has to do with my parents being older. I spent much of my childhood worrying that they, and my aunts and uncles and all their friends, that whole weird world, would die. I wanted to hold on to it, to them, and my way of doing that was by writing.

That was why I started writing. It is not why I still write, although I do try to capture things in my writing that would otherwise vanish. My son's childhood, for example, the precious world he has opened to me that, before I was a mother, I had never known. I used to see kids from the outside, how cute, how sweet. But having your own kid, hearing him acquire language and say the funny things he never meant to be funny, watching his body elongate over time, to look at the boy and still see the baby--I write to catch some of that before it's gone.

But I write now mostly because I have a need to be known and find it difficult to do this in conversation. By known I don't mean famous. I mean revealed--my mind, my perceptions, my imagination, the stuff that never comes out while talking about the weather. The person I most want to be known by is me. And the best way to know myself is to write. Living without making yourself known feels like waiting.

In terms of reading, I tend to read a bunch of books at a time--usually a novel, a non-fiction book, a collection of stories, the ever-growing pile of magazines and periodicals that THEY keep sending. As a result, it takes forever to finish anything. I did, however, just finish "Daniel Deronda" by George Eliot. All I can say is...I survived. It's not that I hated it. I didn't. In fact, I found it very interesting, historically. Reading about Jews from the perspective of a 19th century English author whose views, while sympathetic, reflected the bigotry of that time and society, was particularly interesting in light of 20th century history. But man, what a lot of pontificating goes on in them 19th century novels! Didn't anyone ever tell George Eliot to show, not tell? I'm glad I read it. I am even gladder I am not still reading it.