Senegor Writes

 All fiction requires some research. Sometimes it is minimal. For my Appassionata story, I decided on a metaphor as a foreshadowing device, two street dogs copulating, a small dog mounting a big one. I know nothing about dogs. No problem, Google to the rescue! Within minutes I  had a vivid scene involving a bat-eared bulldog and an Australian shepherd with a luxuriously shaggy coat.More often, research is complex and elaborate. For my story about a night bus from Istanbul to Fethiye I spent many days on the internet looking up maps of Turkish highways, towns along the route, and details[...]

I did finish Appassionata, my complex story about Alberobello in Puglia, Italy, set to various classical pieces for solo piano. Once I had my back stories for the three major characters, my story unraveled easily and went in some surprising directions I myself could not have predicted two weeks ago. In the meanwhile much of the music I used blended well either as accompaniment to the narrative or as crucial metaphor.I used a Chopin Nocturne, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G minor and all three movements of Beethoven's Appassionata for the story. Two Schumann pieces from his Carnaval also have a brief[...]

As I devour my writing lectures, I struggle with a difficult story that has already failed twice. The teacher is giving general instructions about plot, character development, settings and action in a way that I would have found confusing if I were a novice college student. I am not. I know most of what he is saying because I have discovered it by myself through experience. There are little pearls here and there however, or concepts that  succinctly summarize certain issues. One of them is, iceberg.I generally approach a story with a few little kernels of inspiration as a starting[...]

Several years ago, I wrote about a visit to Buyukada in Turkey, an offshore island in a chain known as the Prices' Islands that Istanbul dwellers use as a summer resort. It is a scenic place with hillside villas, beaches, a lively boardwalk full of outdoor restaurants and an ornate, fin-de-siecle pier. There are no motorized vehicles in the island except for fire and police, all transportation via donkeys, horse driven carriages and nowadays by bicycle.The essay was to be a chapter in a book I conceived as a memoir-travelogue that I never finished. It described the traditional fayton tour[...]

Abraham Verghese, doctor, Stanford professor and accomplished author (if you haven't read his Cutting For Stone, a masterpiece novel, please do) once famously lamented about the endless writer workshops he has attended and how he now resists them with little success. I recall this as I embark on yet another course in writing that I downloaded from the The Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company) entitled Writing Great Fiction, Storytelling Tips and Techniques by James Hynes,  a series of lectures by a university professor.When it comes to artistic endeavor I have always been a lone wolf and shunned the company[...]

I no longer have the luxury of writing at a leisurely pace and taking a year to complete a story. I have set a deadline of Autumn 2015 for publication and engaged an editor. I now have to work like a pro. While I am presently indeed more productive, I grapple with several issues. Foremost among them is my inability to work on more than one project at a time. Once I start a story I live in its fantasy world which I frequently visit day and night, while driving,bicycling, waking up from sleep, shaving, drinking coffee or wine. I[...]