Generation NaNoWriMo

Lately I was invited to speak, along with two other local authors--Cheryl Carpinello and Jerry Fabyanic--about our experiences as professional writers to students at the Rocky Heights Middle School. My sons are in their thirties, and so I have little recent experience with young teenagers. I was curious about our audience and before the talk I shared my thoughts with Judi Hoist, their teacher and faculty advisor. Obviously, things have changed since I was an adolescent. Demographers and sociologists like to group populations by age and tag them with attributes to differentiate them from their predecessors--BabyBoomers, Generation X, Y, Millennials, etc., Though the students at Rocky Heights fall outside the scope of Millennials (born between 1983 and 2000) but since they share many of the same cultural traits--access to the Internet, cell phones, social media--they are for the moment classified as Millennials.

My perceptions were framed by the whining I've heard from older generations about Millennials--that they're helpless without a connection to the Internet, that they're spoiled and feel eminently entitled, and they're clueless about the world. However grownups have been complaining about the younger generation since ancient times.

The children now love luxury.

They have bad manners, contempt for authority; 

they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.

Socrates

Plus I've seen how my sons and their peers have stepped up to their responsibilities and challenges as have all generations before them.

This particular group of students was from the school's NaNoWriMo club. What impressed me was that they not only knew about National Novel Writing Month, but they actively participated in the event and in writing year round. Before the talk, Hoist proudly showed me a dozen books written and published by her students. The examples were indie-published by Amazon and showed a level of craft and application that eludes many adult wannabe writers that I've met.

The session began with Hoist counting noses and briefing the group about our visit. They then filed into the library and took seats. Hoist handed out snacks the students munched on and this seemed to have calmed them down. I counted 40 students with only five boys among them, and while it might be easy to draw the conclusion that boys are not as academically oriented as girls, in fact, the robotics club was going on at the same time, and there the boy/girl ratio was reversed.

Carpinello, Fabyanic and I were allotted an hour and a half, and beforehand we worried that the session would drag along. But once the Q&A began, the students proved eager to ask detailed questions and quiz us about our takes on various aspects of writing and publishing. What we didn't do was talk down to the students since they had a surprisingly keen grasp of the subject. The Q&A further deepened my impression of what these young scribes were capable of. Their questions focused mostly on the technical aspects of writing: asking about when and why would you use 3rd POV versus 1st person POV, what should go into a prologue, when is too much exposition?

The time quickly passed and at the end we sold a few books. The girls were especially drawn to Carpinello's high fantasy stories. On the way out we passed a rehearsal for the school play, and those students were every bit as serious about their craft as were ours in the NaNoWriMo club.

My takeaway from all this? Anecdotes about slackers and losers among the next generation make for interesting but misleading news stories. The next wave of leaders and movers are diligently at work and getting ready to take control when their time comes.

Guest Blog : Dennis Palumbo

Donis here. I am inordinately pleased to welcome today's guest blogger and one of my favorite mystery authors, Dennis Palumbo. Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), Dennis is now a licensed psychotherapist and author. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime (Tallfellow Press). His acclaimed series of crime novels (Mirror Image, Fever Dream, Night Terrors and the latest, Phantom Limb) feature psychologist Daniel Rinaldi, a trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh Police. All are from Poisoned Pen Press.

The Unknown

By

Dennis Palumbo

After 27 years as a licensed psychotherapist, and almost 40 as a working writer, the one thing I know for sure is that I don’t know anything for sure.

Maybe it’s the result of seeing hundreds of patients over the course of my practice, encountering such a wide variety of people, issues and experiences. Maybe it’s the hard-won acceptance of the idea that few things can be reduced to black or white, true or not true, but rather some mixture of the two. Maybe it’s just that I’m getting older.

I was thinking of this a few months back, while serving as a panelist at a local writing conference. I was seated between a talented, successful mystery novelist and an equally talented, successful screenwriter. The audience was made up of sincere, passionately attentive people who seemed to be yearning for something from the panelists: Some answer. Some blueprint for success. Something we three veteran writers Knew For Sure.

What struggling writer doesn’t yearn for this? I’ve taught countless writing workshops over the years, and was always moved by questions like “What are editors looking for nowadays?” “Is it better to write in the morning or evening?” “Should a writer always outline first?”

In other words, What Did I Know and When Did I Know It? The funny thing is, I used to try to answer those questions, as ultimately unanswerable as they are. I could understand from personal experience the yearning behind them, the struggle to find a path through the dense forest of a writing career, or at least to identify some markers.

Not that there aren’t things to teach, and for writers to learn. Things having to do with craft, consistency, perseverance. Things that we all need to learn and re-learn, one unceasing lesson that lasts as many days as we do.

But the most important lesson, the one truth that experienced writers know, is that there’s a limit to knowing. Which means there’s a limit to safety, sureness, technique. Regardless of the pragmatic tools you forge, the creative gifts you were given at birth, the teachers you meet along the way, sooner or later you bump up against the Mystery: the Thing That Can’t Be Known.

Because the truth is, good writing is a combination of the above-mentioned factors, yet it transcends them all. It’s bigger than the sum of its parts. You can do everything “right,” approach the work with talent, diligence and craft---and yet while on Monday the writing sings, on Tuesday it sucks.

Why? I don’t know. More importantly, you don’t have to know. You just have to keep writing.

St. John of the Cross, describing a mystical union with the Almighty, said, “I came into the Unknown, beyond all science.” That may be well and good when it comes to mystical unions, but what does it have to do with making your characters richer or solving some tricky plot problem? More than you might think. Regardless of experience, level of talent or career success, every writer “comes into the Unknown” the moment he or she begins to write.

It’s part of the compact made between the writer and that which is being written. It’s an agreement that reads something like this: “I (the writer) bring to this work my talent, craft and professionalism. I also bring a fair amount of life experience, emotional baggage, grandiose fantasies and inchoate dreads. I’m also throwing in some pragmatic understanding of the marketplace, a few story turns my agent suggested, character nuances from my writing group, and a couple jokes I’m recycling from that last novel (or screenplay, short story, whatever) nobody bought. Finally, I offer my blood, sweat and tears, enough good will to float a hospital ship, and a vague sense of wanting my authentic voice, whatever it may be, to shine through the material.”

And what can the writer expect from the other party to this compact? The Muse, the Unknown, whatever you want to call it?

Not much.

In fact, expect nothing at all. Except the occasional miracle. The great, pitch-perfect line of dialogue. The surprising story turn. Those infrequent moments when you look at something you’ve just written, something wonderful, and say to yourself, “Where the hell did that come from?” And your heart soars.

Talk about a risky business! You pour all your talent, energy and commitment into writing, and there’s still no guarantee that anything good will come of it. And when it does, most of the time you won’t know why it does.

Good writing is damned mysterious, as much to the writer as anyone else, which is probably the source of its power to move, enthrall and inspire.

I say “probably,” of course, because when it comes to writing, you never know.
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Visit Dennis’s website at www.dennispalumbo.com