I stayed up a little later than usual last night and caught Malcolm Gladwell on the Jimmy Kimmel show. (Perhaps a repeat, but as NBC used to put it, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.)
He was on tour for his latest book, The Outliers. I haven't read it, but it sounds very interesting, like all his work, I daresay. I'm a huge fan. I obviously can't review a book without reading it, so this is only my reaction to the interview.
The subject is extraordinary individual accomplishment--genius, greatness, whatever you want to call it. Gladwell talked about interviewing people like Bill Gates, and looking at the biographies of certain accomplished musicians, athletes, and inventors. I generally liked his approach, as he outlined it: The point appears to be to contextualize individual accomplishment, to locate it in broader social, cultural, and political structures. (As well as certain idiosyncratic structures, i.e. the hockey player/birthday connection. Nothing to do with astrology.)
I'm sympathetic to Gladwell's approach. Tracing the roots of genius was a minor obsession of mine in graduate school: I spent a research seminar tracing the biographies of a particular intellectual circle at Moscow University in the 1830s. And my sense is that Gladwell, in that low-key manner that seems to be a Canadian trademark, finds it (politically) instructive to analyze that something. I tend to agree with this notion. Michelle Obama recently touched on this theme: She noted during her visit to the Department of Education that she was a product of its work. Me, too. I am a Head Start kid.
Anyway, Gladwell discussed the example of Bill Gates, who had access to a computer at a time when 99.9 percent of kids his age didn't. It just so happened that some parent had donated a computer to the school that Gates attended, and he noodled around with it. (Maybe that parent qualifies as a genius? This was in the early 1970s.) Gates was so smitten with the computer that he located a nearby mainframe that was also available for noodling--between the hours of 2 and 6 am. So he set his alarm and snuck out his bedroom window every night to go play with it. (His parents didn't know about this until he was an adult.)
And this was Gladwell's theme: Bill Gates is a bright guy, but he had to have a computer on which to learn. Genius isn't sui generis, a thing all on its own, it is a process: It is talent plus opportunity plus dedication, aka damned hard work.
And here is the part where my ears really perked up: Gladwell emphasized that talent only gets you so far, and that appears to be not very far at all. He said that when you look at extraordinarily accomplished people, what you will find is that they work very, very hard. He referred to something he called the "10,000-hour rule." (I don't know whether he coined the term.) Even the smartest, most talented people only get really good at something, Gladwell said, after they've done it an average of 4 hours a day for 10 years.
10,000 hours = 4 hours a day for 10 years.
I've been pondering this all day, as it pertains to my own work. One thing in particular I've been wondering is: What "counts" towards those 4 hours? If I want to be a writer, does editing someone else's work count? Critiquing someone else's work? Doing research for a project? Or does this mean 4 hours a day, fingertips on the keyboard, composing my own text? Do you think I could call Malcolm up and ask him this?
I would also like to ask him how narrowly the categories must be drawn. In other words, does all that writing of history papers I did in college and grad school count toward my mastering the art of fiction? If it counts a little, how much? Percentage-wise? Or should I have two separate accounts set up: Fiction and Non-fiction?
Just how close to 10,000 hours might I be?
In the end, my reaction to Gladwell's take on this is contradictory: On the one hand, he makes me groan and want to throw in the towel. Really, I think to myself, I have to work that hard? It'll never happen, I don't have that kind of time. There are too many things to do--earning a living, going to the grocery store, vacuuming the carpet. And there are sooo many inviting distractions.
On the other hand, I've all ready put in at least some of those hours. I might as well keep going, right? It would be a shame to waste what I've learned so far. The take-home message, if I choose to frame it this way, is that if I keep going, I've got as much chance as anyone else of getting there. Right?
And, if I die as actuarially scheduled, I have approximately 30 years left to live. That's plenty of time. Actually, according to Gladwell, that's enough time to become extraordinarily accomplished at THREE things. Hmmm....
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
It's Historical? (C'mon Oprah!)
In the promotional spots for the shows Oprah will be hosting from Washington DC in honor of the Inauguration of Barack Obama, she has been shouting "It's historical!" Now, she is not the only person who has made this mistake. I heard DC mayor Adrian Fenty say it, as well as too many local newscasters to count.
It's historic. That's what you mean, people.
I suppose I might understand the confusion, if you were reading the words, or even writing them, perhaps. Historic and historical are both adjectives and they both have to do with history. But I don't quite understand how, once you've said it out loud, you don't hear the error. Doesn't it sound wrong to your ear? Would you go visit an historical home? Or an historic home?
An historical event, when you get right down to it, is anything that has happened in the past. The typing of this sentence now qualifies as a historical event, because it was an event, and it happened in the past. The typing of that sentence, however, is not destined to be remembered by history. It was not an historic event. An historic event is when the tide of history changes, when something dramatic, lasting, and important happens. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was an historic event. The bombing of Pearl Harbor. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Or September 11, 2001.
An historic event is one we look back on, as the marker, the turning point, the beginning of a new era, a new way of looking at the world, of being in the world. So, the Inauguration of Barack Obama will be a historical event, in the sense that it will take place in a certain moment in time, and that moment will pass into history. It will be an historic event because it will be the first time an African-American man has taken the Presidential Oath of Office, and it will be remembered in history for that. But maybe, just maybe, it will become an historic moment because it will mark a turning point in our country's history, as we turn away from the course we have been on the last eight years and embark on a new way of looking at, and being in, the world.
It's historic. That's what you mean, people.
I suppose I might understand the confusion, if you were reading the words, or even writing them, perhaps. Historic and historical are both adjectives and they both have to do with history. But I don't quite understand how, once you've said it out loud, you don't hear the error. Doesn't it sound wrong to your ear? Would you go visit an historical home? Or an historic home?
An historical event, when you get right down to it, is anything that has happened in the past. The typing of this sentence now qualifies as a historical event, because it was an event, and it happened in the past. The typing of that sentence, however, is not destined to be remembered by history. It was not an historic event. An historic event is when the tide of history changes, when something dramatic, lasting, and important happens. The signing of the Declaration of Independence was an historic event. The bombing of Pearl Harbor. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Or September 11, 2001.
An historic event is one we look back on, as the marker, the turning point, the beginning of a new era, a new way of looking at the world, of being in the world. So, the Inauguration of Barack Obama will be a historical event, in the sense that it will take place in a certain moment in time, and that moment will pass into history. It will be an historic event because it will be the first time an African-American man has taken the Presidential Oath of Office, and it will be remembered in history for that. But maybe, just maybe, it will become an historic moment because it will mark a turning point in our country's history, as we turn away from the course we have been on the last eight years and embark on a new way of looking at, and being in, the world.
Monday, January 12, 2009
No Honor Among Thieves?
What about among writers?
Writers don't just misbehave when it comes to Holocaust memoirs (Misha Defonseca, Herman Rosenblat), or Christmas tales (Neale Donald Walsch), or memoirs of addiction (James Frey), or accounts of growing up white in a poor black foster family (Margaret B. Jones). Don't kid yourself that these famous examples are just a few rotten apples. The truth is, the basket is filled with stinky, fermenting, rotten apples. A good portion of what you're reading on the Internet, and--if you teach--the papers that you are receiving from your students are also fakes, rip-offs, hoaxes, straight-out plagiarism.
Recent ads on freelance sites:
*I have a book, about 100 pages. I want you to go through the book and edit it down to about 75 pages, to make an e-book. You have to change the wording. You will do the first ten pages. If it passes Copyscape, you will do the rest.
*I need a paper edited and re-written. There are comments from the professor on the paper, and you will have to do what those comments say. (BTW, this person had posted 30-plus jobs of this sort. Sounds to me like she's buying her way through a degree program.)
*I have a novel. I want you to edit it. And some parts of it are taken directly from Dorian Gray. I want you to re-word those parts so they're not in Oscar Wilds (sic) words."
*I need a dissertation, media studies. I need you to formulate the topic, then I will approve it, and if it is okay, then you will write the paper.
No, I am not kidding. And this doesn't even begin to describe all the people who have 10, 50, 100 "Internet" articles that they want the "wording" changed on. It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. If I am seeing these ads every day on the three or four sites I visit, how many does that total up to over a week, a year? I actually feel a little bit dirty when I run across these things, like I've been looking at porn sites.
People have always gotten other people to do their work for them, I know. People have always paid other people to write their papers, people have always tried to pass off stolen fiction as their own . But it's so blatant, so shameless. I could actually make a living doing this. Doing nothing but helping others get past Copyscape. Over the weekend, I was offered $200 to write a graduate-level paper on Marx. That would have covered my kitten's next vet visit, something I've been struggling to figure out how I'm going to cover, and I was tempted. I considered it. I took a semester-long course in Marx as an undergrad. I know his biography, I know his work. I have a Master's degree in Russian history. I could pretty much do Marx in my sleep, even the whole philosophical/intellectual antecedents thing. (Feuerbach, anyone?)
But I said no. Does that make me stupid? Naive? Old-fashioned? I just couldn't do it. I had planned on being a history professor before life intervened with other plans, and I have this honor-code thing in my DNA. I know how hard school can be, how overwhelming. I remember being so stressed out and exhausted that I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out. But I did my own work. Always. (Or took my lumps when I didn't.) And I think other people should do the same.
And, I can't bring myself to bid on or even consider taking these article- and book- "re-wording" jobs. I know what I'm really being asked to do. I'm being asked to behave unethically. I'm being invited to take the easy road, to make some money by simply "reworking" someone else's work.
And the truth is, I worry what this means for our culture, what it bodes for our country. What does it mean when you haven't done the work that got you that college degree? What does it mean when the same (wrong or bad) information just gets recycled and reworded and moved here and there, appearing a in variety of places, and thus seems to be coming from independent sources? Oh wait, I think we have at least one example of this to ponder, don't we? Iraq.
Writers don't just misbehave when it comes to Holocaust memoirs (Misha Defonseca, Herman Rosenblat), or Christmas tales (Neale Donald Walsch), or memoirs of addiction (James Frey), or accounts of growing up white in a poor black foster family (Margaret B. Jones). Don't kid yourself that these famous examples are just a few rotten apples. The truth is, the basket is filled with stinky, fermenting, rotten apples. A good portion of what you're reading on the Internet, and--if you teach--the papers that you are receiving from your students are also fakes, rip-offs, hoaxes, straight-out plagiarism.
Recent ads on freelance sites:
*I have a book, about 100 pages. I want you to go through the book and edit it down to about 75 pages, to make an e-book. You have to change the wording. You will do the first ten pages. If it passes Copyscape, you will do the rest.
*I need a paper edited and re-written. There are comments from the professor on the paper, and you will have to do what those comments say. (BTW, this person had posted 30-plus jobs of this sort. Sounds to me like she's buying her way through a degree program.)
*I have a novel. I want you to edit it. And some parts of it are taken directly from Dorian Gray. I want you to re-word those parts so they're not in Oscar Wilds (sic) words."
*I need a dissertation, media studies. I need you to formulate the topic, then I will approve it, and if it is okay, then you will write the paper.
No, I am not kidding. And this doesn't even begin to describe all the people who have 10, 50, 100 "Internet" articles that they want the "wording" changed on. It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad. If I am seeing these ads every day on the three or four sites I visit, how many does that total up to over a week, a year? I actually feel a little bit dirty when I run across these things, like I've been looking at porn sites.
People have always gotten other people to do their work for them, I know. People have always paid other people to write their papers, people have always tried to pass off stolen fiction as their own . But it's so blatant, so shameless. I could actually make a living doing this. Doing nothing but helping others get past Copyscape. Over the weekend, I was offered $200 to write a graduate-level paper on Marx. That would have covered my kitten's next vet visit, something I've been struggling to figure out how I'm going to cover, and I was tempted. I considered it. I took a semester-long course in Marx as an undergrad. I know his biography, I know his work. I have a Master's degree in Russian history. I could pretty much do Marx in my sleep, even the whole philosophical/intellectual antecedents thing. (Feuerbach, anyone?)
But I said no. Does that make me stupid? Naive? Old-fashioned? I just couldn't do it. I had planned on being a history professor before life intervened with other plans, and I have this honor-code thing in my DNA. I know how hard school can be, how overwhelming. I remember being so stressed out and exhausted that I thought my eyeballs were going to fall out. But I did my own work. Always. (Or took my lumps when I didn't.) And I think other people should do the same.
And, I can't bring myself to bid on or even consider taking these article- and book- "re-wording" jobs. I know what I'm really being asked to do. I'm being asked to behave unethically. I'm being invited to take the easy road, to make some money by simply "reworking" someone else's work.
And the truth is, I worry what this means for our culture, what it bodes for our country. What does it mean when you haven't done the work that got you that college degree? What does it mean when the same (wrong or bad) information just gets recycled and reworded and moved here and there, appearing a in variety of places, and thus seems to be coming from independent sources? Oh wait, I think we have at least one example of this to ponder, don't we? Iraq.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
What Good Prose Looks Like (Or: Stockholm in Winter)
Sunday, December 21, 2008
I've Got the Ideas: You Do the Work
Yes, I'm up on my hobby horse again. I ran across more ads, people offering their fantastic ideas for the poor idea-less writer to whip up into a best-seller. (With generous royalty split to come, of course.)
Why does this bug me so much? I guess because an idea is like an opinion, which--as they say--is like an *sshole: Everybody's got one. And it bugs me so much because it seems to discount the work a writer does. As if an idea is enough. The idea for a novel doesn't mean much until there is a novel. The idea is a starting point, a jumping off point, simply the beginning of the real work.
And maybe it bugs me so much because when it comes to writing, ideas aren't the problem. As if a writer doesn't have tens, hundreds, thousands of them a day, a week, a month. I have tons of ideas--big and small--and I struggle with them, everyday.
I struggle to get them down, struggle to make them clear to a reader, struggle to put them into a compelling form. One of the big ideas I've had for a long time is what I call--in my head--the intergenerational transfer of violence. The idea is the result of growing up in a family reeling with the after-affects of World War II. My mother was born in 1941, in Russia, literally in the middle of war zone.
She came to the States in 1951, along with her parents and three siblings, after spending five years in a DP camp. Now they were safe. Now they could concentrate on pursuing the American dream. Right? Well, sure. But these people had issues, to put it mildly. And because I lived with them, some of those issues became my issues.
I think of WWII as being, somehow, my war too, although I wasn't born until 1964. I'm not sure when the idea crystalized for me, or why it is so important to me. But it is. And I've been struggling for most of my adult life to transform that idea into an amazing piece of fiction. Or non-fiction. But to transform it, anyway.
I've approached it from many different angles: Academically (degree in history and Russian). Psychologically (therapy). Aerologically (travel to Russia). Pop-culturally (watch practically every WWII movie ever made). I'm engaged, searching, always. I write, I do research, and I grind to a halt. Repeat. But I don't seem to come any closer to wrestling the idea to the ground.
Now, I don't actually think I could just hand this idea off to another writer, and ask him to execute it for me. But even if I could, I wouldn't. It's my idea, for good or bad. It's apparently my task in life to struggle with this. I learn in this struggle, I occupy my time with it, I come back to it after breaks for other things.
And maybe that, in the end, is what so bugs me about these posts: they seem to me to be based on a premise that is wholly divorced from the reality of creative work, a premise that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the creative process. The idea is not the thing. The struggle with the idea is the thing. That is what produces the novel.
And the particulars (age, race, gender, family, history, culture, education) a writer brings to their struggle with an idea is what makes the novel worthwhile, what makes it interesting, engaging, and compelling for the reader. An idea isn't a relay baton, that can simply be passed from one person to another. You can no more give me an idea that results in the novel you have in your head than I can give you an idea that will result in you having the same dream I had last night. A novel is a kind of dream, made tangible.
The idea is simply a catalyst. It is both transformed by and transforms the person who holds it.
As far as I'm concerned, if there's an idea you're struggling with, especially struggling to execute creatively, you are lucky. So many people don't have any ideas about anything. This is a clue from your subconcious, a delivery of raw material, and you should take it seriously. (I would say it's a sign from the universe, but I don't actually think the universe gives a flying f**k about us.) It means you have work to do, research to do, thinking to do. Your struggle with this idea is a gift, and you should treat it as such.
Why does this bug me so much? I guess because an idea is like an opinion, which--as they say--is like an *sshole: Everybody's got one. And it bugs me so much because it seems to discount the work a writer does. As if an idea is enough. The idea for a novel doesn't mean much until there is a novel. The idea is a starting point, a jumping off point, simply the beginning of the real work.
And maybe it bugs me so much because when it comes to writing, ideas aren't the problem. As if a writer doesn't have tens, hundreds, thousands of them a day, a week, a month. I have tons of ideas--big and small--and I struggle with them, everyday.
I struggle to get them down, struggle to make them clear to a reader, struggle to put them into a compelling form. One of the big ideas I've had for a long time is what I call--in my head--the intergenerational transfer of violence. The idea is the result of growing up in a family reeling with the after-affects of World War II. My mother was born in 1941, in Russia, literally in the middle of war zone.
She came to the States in 1951, along with her parents and three siblings, after spending five years in a DP camp. Now they were safe. Now they could concentrate on pursuing the American dream. Right? Well, sure. But these people had issues, to put it mildly. And because I lived with them, some of those issues became my issues.
I think of WWII as being, somehow, my war too, although I wasn't born until 1964. I'm not sure when the idea crystalized for me, or why it is so important to me. But it is. And I've been struggling for most of my adult life to transform that idea into an amazing piece of fiction. Or non-fiction. But to transform it, anyway.
I've approached it from many different angles: Academically (degree in history and Russian). Psychologically (therapy). Aerologically (travel to Russia). Pop-culturally (watch practically every WWII movie ever made). I'm engaged, searching, always. I write, I do research, and I grind to a halt. Repeat. But I don't seem to come any closer to wrestling the idea to the ground.
Now, I don't actually think I could just hand this idea off to another writer, and ask him to execute it for me. But even if I could, I wouldn't. It's my idea, for good or bad. It's apparently my task in life to struggle with this. I learn in this struggle, I occupy my time with it, I come back to it after breaks for other things.
And maybe that, in the end, is what so bugs me about these posts: they seem to me to be based on a premise that is wholly divorced from the reality of creative work, a premise that is a fundamental misunderstanding of the creative process. The idea is not the thing. The struggle with the idea is the thing. That is what produces the novel.
And the particulars (age, race, gender, family, history, culture, education) a writer brings to their struggle with an idea is what makes the novel worthwhile, what makes it interesting, engaging, and compelling for the reader. An idea isn't a relay baton, that can simply be passed from one person to another. You can no more give me an idea that results in the novel you have in your head than I can give you an idea that will result in you having the same dream I had last night. A novel is a kind of dream, made tangible.
The idea is simply a catalyst. It is both transformed by and transforms the person who holds it.
As far as I'm concerned, if there's an idea you're struggling with, especially struggling to execute creatively, you are lucky. So many people don't have any ideas about anything. This is a clue from your subconcious, a delivery of raw material, and you should take it seriously. (I would say it's a sign from the universe, but I don't actually think the universe gives a flying f**k about us.) It means you have work to do, research to do, thinking to do. Your struggle with this idea is a gift, and you should treat it as such.
* * * * * *
Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats. I read newspapers, textbooks on crime. I talk to private investigators, police officers, jail administrators, doctors, lawyers, and career criminals. Ideas are everywhere.
--Sue Grafton
--Sue Grafton
Monday, December 15, 2008
I've Given Up on Women's Magazines
I am a CokeZero addict. Love it, can't get enough of it. About a year ago, I noticed that the bottle caps had little codes on them, codes to be entered into a loyalty program. Why not? I spend enough money on Coke, I might as well get something free in return. So I went to CokeRewards, and I signed up, and I started saving the bottle caps, and about once a week, I go to the site and enter the codes.
After so many months of this, I had quite a few points, and a little time on my hands one day, so I looked around the site for a way to spend my points. They were out of stock on the only t-shirt I liked and I work at home so I have no use for an insulated lunch bag. I'm not interested in iTunes downloads or video games. Then I saw the "Magazines" tab. Oooh. I love magazines.
So I clicked on the tab, brought up images of the magazines on offer. Glossy covers, famous people: Elle. Vogue. O: The Oprah Magazine. People. Marie Claire. Cosmopolitan. Glamour. I have, at one time or another in my 40-plus years, had a subscription to each of these magazines. And I had enough points to take two, or three, maybe four of them. Which ones did I want?
I perused the covers, growing increasingly dismayed. I'd read these articles before. All of them. Nothing sounded good, nothing looked interesting. I don't need a list of the 100 best beauty products: I consider it a successful morning if I manage to put on a coat of powder and a little lip gloss. If I want a new diet plan, I'll go to the diet shelf in my library. I don't really care what celebrity moms think--about anything. I don't need a list of ten do's or ten don'ts. I've pretty much got the do's and don'ts covered by now.
I don't know what happened to me. In my 20s, I couldn't wait for Cosmo every month. I kept an eye on the calendar, anticipating its arrival, and I practically ran to my mailbox on the day I was expecting it. In my 30s, I got marginally more serious, in the context of a woman's magazine, that is: Vogue, Marie Claire, Jane. And then the subscriptions began to run out, and I just didn't renew them. I thought that I had given up women's magazines for financial reasons, because I couldn't afford everything, and there were other magazines I wanted more: Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The American Scholar, Granta, The Sun, The Atlantic Monthly.
But now, on the CokeRewards site, there were no financial considerations. The magazines were FREE. They would have cost me nothing but points, and the time it took to fill out the subscription forms. And yet I couldn't be bothered. Not for a single one.
Do you hear that Hearst? You couldn't give them away.
After so many months of this, I had quite a few points, and a little time on my hands one day, so I looked around the site for a way to spend my points. They were out of stock on the only t-shirt I liked and I work at home so I have no use for an insulated lunch bag. I'm not interested in iTunes downloads or video games. Then I saw the "Magazines" tab. Oooh. I love magazines.
So I clicked on the tab, brought up images of the magazines on offer. Glossy covers, famous people: Elle. Vogue. O: The Oprah Magazine. People. Marie Claire. Cosmopolitan. Glamour. I have, at one time or another in my 40-plus years, had a subscription to each of these magazines. And I had enough points to take two, or three, maybe four of them. Which ones did I want?
I perused the covers, growing increasingly dismayed. I'd read these articles before. All of them. Nothing sounded good, nothing looked interesting. I don't need a list of the 100 best beauty products: I consider it a successful morning if I manage to put on a coat of powder and a little lip gloss. If I want a new diet plan, I'll go to the diet shelf in my library. I don't really care what celebrity moms think--about anything. I don't need a list of ten do's or ten don'ts. I've pretty much got the do's and don'ts covered by now.
I don't know what happened to me. In my 20s, I couldn't wait for Cosmo every month. I kept an eye on the calendar, anticipating its arrival, and I practically ran to my mailbox on the day I was expecting it. In my 30s, I got marginally more serious, in the context of a woman's magazine, that is: Vogue, Marie Claire, Jane. And then the subscriptions began to run out, and I just didn't renew them. I thought that I had given up women's magazines for financial reasons, because I couldn't afford everything, and there were other magazines I wanted more: Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The American Scholar, Granta, The Sun, The Atlantic Monthly.
But now, on the CokeRewards site, there were no financial considerations. The magazines were FREE. They would have cost me nothing but points, and the time it took to fill out the subscription forms. And yet I couldn't be bothered. Not for a single one.
Do you hear that Hearst? You couldn't give them away.
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