May 30, 2004

Bestselling Author and Washington Post Book Reviewer Carolyn See
On Writing and Keeping a Stiff Upper Lip

Interviewed by Byron Merritt

FWOMP: Coming from a "family of failed writers", how did you find success as a writer? Did you have to conduct some voodoo ceremony to rid yourself of the family hex?

Carolyn See: There came a point in my early forties when I noticed my life wasn't really working very well. I was still a freelancer, because my temper was bad and I couldn't get along with editors. My second husband and I had broken up. I was like a car running without oil. Over a period of about 5 to 7 years I cleaned up my act -- with therapy, and also with the aid of an improbable EST-like training that suggested we create much of our own world. If we hate, we get hated, and so on. I also got to see my dad turn from a failed writer into a hugely successful one when he began to write pornography. He finally paid attention to what it was he wanted to write about. After the age of 69, he published 73 volumes before he died. So I began to see "failure" or "success" as relative terms -- how you define yourself, whether or not you think you are happy, etc., etc. Yes, there was some voodoo to it. But I do think that every time you moan, "oh, there is no serious literature anymore, people don't want to read, blah, blah," you're participating in a world where it's ok for people not to read seriously any more. If you hate your job, for instance, change your job or change your attitude. Or be miserable. It's largely up to us, how we experience the world.

FWOMP:: In your amazing book Making a Literary Life, one of your rules is to "Start where you are; life is a genre...". My writers group wrote Monterey Shorts because we wanted to write about what we knew...and WHERE we knew it. Do you think that a lot of writers miss this easy point?

Carolyn See: I think it's tremendously important to notice where you are, in every possible way. I think in the chapter on point of view [In Making a Literary Life - Ed] I address that, as well as the chapters on time and space. E.M. Forster could get whole, wonderful chapters out of who was going to sit with whom in what carriage. Which of three maiden ladies would get to sit on the "Macintosh square." I'd never seriously write about anywhere but California, because I'm California born and bred.

FWOMP:: You talk a lot about the rejection process for writers in Making a Literary Life. You mention sending 'Thank You' notes to editors after receiving rejection slips from them. Does this really work? Can you give us an example of a time that it worked for you?

Carolyn See: I address that in the book. An editor from the Atlantic [Monthly-Ed.] rejected so many things of mine that he finally got fed up and wrote, "Carolyn, you've sent us everything of yours but the family album. Can't you get it it that we're not going to publish your work?" I cried, and then put together a photograph album with myself being a Topanga hippie and my cute little daughters and our chickens and goats and such. He sent it back to me with a weak," very funny." But the next time I was in Boston he agreed to see me and assigned me a piece (that later won a Sidney Hilman Award.)
Also, the same sort of thing happened with Esquire. I sent an editor there such a charming note that he had it on his bulletin board. Another writer friend of mine dropped by his office and said nice things about me. The next week the editor called with an assignment. The point, especially at first, is not to get any one thing published, but to get to know those who will publish you.

FWOMP:: You write novels, book reviews for the Washington Post, teach at UCLA and are the guest at writing seminars. How do you make time for YOU in your life?

Carolyn See: Of course, the person writing the reviews and novels and teaching is certainly me. I love doing that stuff and it's one of my main sources of meaning and pleasure. I also give a lot of meaning to the men, and friends, in my life. But my real source of value is my daughters. We talk once or twice a day and I love them dearly. My grandsons are all marvelous -- two in Stanford, and the little one, Dash, who is autistic and a saintly, heavenly person. So the time I spend with them is for "me."
I don't give much thought to the kind of myth that says women must have time for "themselves." Nobody ever mentions to men that they should take twenty minutes out of the day to soak in a hot bath with bubbles.
I love to go to restaurants and movies and I live close to the beach. I live the life of a (thankfully) prosperous matron these days, having lunch and dinner with my lady friends, going to screenings and the like. Just the usual.

FWOMP:: There are similarities in Making a Literary Life, to Ann Lamott's Bird by Bird. Do you enjoy being compared with that body of work by Lamott?

Carolyn See: I'm honored to be included on the same page with Annie. She's a wonderful writer and a wonderful person. I would hope Making a Literary Life would be a companion piece to Bird by Bird.

FWOMP:: You've mentioned that "writers who write about writing can get pompous." How did you avoid this trap?

Carolyn See: Writers pompous? I think we care so much about what Stephen Spender called "the sacred cloaked vocation of the Poet" that we view it with too much reverence -- which we then extend to ourselves. Put another whole way, we begin to believe our own publicity. Once a writer gets started on that stuff, there's no stopping us! Which is why Ann Lamott was and is such a blessing.

FWOMP:: I started a writers critique group to help me hone my fiction writing abilities. Do you think that these kinds of groups are helpful?

Carolyn See: It totally depends on who is in the group and what your goals are. There should be an agreement that criticism should be CONSTRUCTIVE. There should be a minimum of back stabbing. And people should have a clue what they're talking about.
Does that sound grumpy?

FWOMP:: As a successful author, do you still receive rejection slips from time to time?

Carolyn See: Not exactly. But there are ideas that don't pay off, or magazine pieces I'm asked to write and rewrite, and then they never publish them. It's kind of like childbirth, REALLY. I didn't know until I had a darling autistic grandson that one out of four kids are born with a little something "wrong" with them and one out of ten are born with something really, really tweaked with them. It's something we don't know about, or choose not to know about because it's so distressing. But the writing process is much the same. Actual, straight-out acceptances are rare.

FWOMP:: As a writer AND book reviewer, do you feel that one has made you better at the other and vice versa?

Carolyn See: Only in that -- as I'm writing a novel, I hear the bad review of it drumming along in my head. But that would probably happen anyway...

FWOMP:: If you could become a speech writer for our current President, George W. Bush, what words might you try and put on the paper?

Carolyn See: "I'm sorry."

FWOMP:: You mentioned in a March 2003 interview with Writer Advice Magazine that you wrote your first story when you were 17 and your first (unpublished) novel at 29. Can you tell us anything about these stories? Do you still have them tucked away somewhere?

Carolyn See: The story was full of self loathing -- based on an event when I was in high school when I said no to dancing with a blind man...
The novel, A Waiting Game, came close to getting published a couple of times. It's a very young work. The opening is "The Surprise Apartment is the prestige apartment of the neighborhood. It is always being painted with the cheapest kind of paint..."

FWOMP:: Maturing is part of becoming a successful writer. You've obviously matured from the writing of Mothers, Daughters to Making a Literary Life. Did you have to go through the standard 'struggling artist' period to achieve this advance?

Carolyn See: Mothers, Daughters is my least favorite novel. But I don't think "maturing" is necessarily the right way of describing the process, because too many writers write their best work first. (Hemingway is a prime example.) I don't think it's any of our business, frankly. Our only call is to show up and write. We have very little control on how anything turns out.

FWOMP:: In Making a Literary Life one of your rules is to write 1,000 words a day. No matter what. Many writers say "I can't do that. I write when I feel the urge." Can you explain the importance of daily writing to these critics?

Carolyn See: People should do what's best for them. For long term projects -- like novels -- I think it's a good thing to get some momentum going and then try to stick to it. (It's 100 words a day five days a week, by the way.) I personally think it's good to do it. Because if you wait for "inspiration," you may have a pretty long wait.

FWOMP:: Have you found any ups and downs to being with a "Big Gun" like Random House versus a smaller publisher?

Carolyn See: I've never been with a "small" house. Little, Brown, Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill -- they're all big. The crucial question is whether or not they have any publicity function or not. Many houses are so primitive and provincial that they only sell books in the Northeast-- the rest of the country doesn't exist for them -- or they're just too dignified (???) to try to overtly sell books. Of the bunch I've been with Random has by far the best publicity department...

FWOMP:: You've written both fiction and nonfiction and I've read that you enjoy writing fiction more. Can you tell us why that is?

Carolyn See: I prefer fiction because I get a little tired of the sound of my "own voice," which brays out loud and clear from the nonfiction. In novels you get to listen to other voices, which are generally a revelation -- in some small way.

FWOMP:: The New York Times once gave a book of yours a poor review, but this seemed to have phased you very little. In fact, you seemed to have grown since then. Do you feel that The New York Times Book Reviews are out of touch with today's literary climate?

Carolyn See: I've gotten good reviews and bad reviews from all over. The one thing I know from being a weekly book reviewer for years is that reviews don't count except as chatter in a long literary conversation.  And I don't think New York reviewers are necessarily "out of tune," or whatever. It's always just a person reading a book. I don't necessarily think that process is governed by region...

Or, maybe it is, I don't know.

FWOMP:: You write a lot about suffering and the choices we make to not allow ourselves to suffer if we see fit. But you also instill a great mix of comedy in your writings. Is humorous suffering a part of your life?

Carolyn See: I don't seem to be able to avoid suffering -- how I wish I could! -- but I don't want to "valorize" it in any way. So the best thing I can do is laugh at it, when I can. It's like: You can kill me, but you can't impress me, so don't even try.

FWOMP:: Anyone can find your great advice for writing in Making a Literary Life. But what's the worst advice you've ever given (accidentally or no) to a writer?

Carolyn See: I suppose -- giving encouragement to those who should be discouraged? But, in general, my feeling is: If you want to write, you should. I do feel, sometimes, that people have expectations that may be unrealistic. Or, maybe people hear what they want to hear from me, rather than what I'm saying.

FWOMP:: Is there a website where readers can find out more information about you and your writings?

Carolyn See: My web site is www.carolynsee.com.

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