It was Ernest Hemingway. It was typewriters and fresh white paper. A special hat, a cold drink and a rolled-up copy of Esquire’s Summer Fiction issue under my arm.
For me, writing fiction will always be the fruit of a summer season. It was the season I began to write; it is that one crystalline period in my life that now forever links the inchoate desire to tell stories, by placing one well-earned word in front of another, to my present vocation.
It was about reading new authors – John Cheever, Toni Morrison, and Brett Easton Ellis, alongside vanguards of the art – Hemingway, Austen, and Salinger. This was when you carried around thick paperbacks, the pages rippled with the humidity. Pages dog-eared, coffee-stained and scribbled upon. At work, on the beach, on the road, summer meant fiction. It was a time to review your writing career, even if you were only pretending to have one—and taking its temperature against the white-hot stars of the page. Only the high pile of pages, boldly composed, filling the days and summer nights because you simply had to get the words out, matched the stack of books for the season. It was summer and the heat was there and your imagination only needed the shade of a good story. Summer is the what if…
Still, summer means fiction.
Even though I write every day and I’ve published a few novels and received a rich education in creative writing, I always find summers a time for digging deeper, for reigniting the original passion fueled by good books from the past and, let’s be frank, the sneaky reads from the dangerous summers between wonder and reality. Every summer I compile a list of books I’ll read, all of them fiction; and I’ll set aside time every day to work on my craft, to hone the characters, ponder the plot and fiddle around with points of view. I consume eBooks now by Stephen King, Junot Diaz, George R.R. Martin and Alice Munroe, alongside a few well-thumbed old favorites who deserve a revisit. And so slowly over the succession of summers my own voice and understanding flourished like one of those bright clouds growing in immensity over the scorched earth. Each summer I again tend to the creative ground of fiction, this long tradition, this writing life.
Being a writer means knowing where you came from, and where you intend to go from there, if only in a loose kind of way. For me, that’s summer. Fiction is summer. And as I write this I am revising my debut novel, The Jenny Muck, which is to have a new life very soon, and as I do the toil day in and day out, I marvel at how the summers have taught me to be a writer.
To never give up.
To work with generosity.
To work ceaselessly at the craft like someone learning piano learns the chords and the keys – slowly, persistently, until noticing music.
To write utter nonsense at times and still be happy because it’s mine and no one else’s.
And so much more, of course. Summers taught me to write for myself. And they taught me to write for someone I love. To write the books that weren’t written. Summer toughens me against rejection and brings me joy in reading and writing. Summer: a time to recall the thrill felt opening a new book on a steamy night under the stars years ago, and feeling it again now—my fingers hovering over the keyboard. These are the stories of summer.
Summer is fiction.
And you?
Photo by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission. Post by Anthony Connolly.
__________________________
Treat yourself to a beautiful writing summer?
Sign up now for one of our three new Creative Writing workshops, starting June 17.
- Memoir Notebook: Voices (or, How to Write Spiritual Memoir) - October 10, 2014
- Memoir Notebook: Advice for New Memoir Writers - August 1, 2014
- Memoir Notebook: Double I/Eye - July 4, 2014
Monica Sharman says
Inchoate. I think that word could grow on me. 🙂
Anthony says
It sounds great and looks like a million dollar word.
Megan Willome says
I’m going to the beach in a week, and I’m consumed with what fiction to bring. A friend recommended a book which I loved and finished in one day. Oops.
P.S. It was “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” by Maria Semple.
Anthony says
See my notes below… I meant to reply to your message… grrr
Anthony Connolly says
You should try the web site: whatshouldireadnext.com, enter in the names of authors and books you’ve liked and it will cue up a bunch more like it… I’ll post my list here later I’m off for dinner
Anthony Connolly says
Summer is Fiction Book List
Inferno by Dan Brown
Joyland by Stephen King
You Are One of Them by Eliot Holt
Selected Stories of Anton Chekov
The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
Middle C by William Gass
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
The Lighthouse by Alison Moore
The River Swimmer by Jim Harrison
Pitch Dark by Renata Adler
Love, In Theory by EJ Levy
All That Is by James Salter
Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy
Best book I read last summer:
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walters
Maureen Doallas says
Summer is a plot
rippled with
steamy words
of love, fiction
scribbled slowly
thick fingers hovering
dog-eared
over a stack
of paper clouds
coffee-stained
in the humidity.
Anthony Connolly says
Awesome. See my other note
Anthony Connolly says
Maureen I am so impressed. Simply love it. It’s not officially summer until my class begins 😉 so it totally fit into Spring is Poetry, which I think is what TS Eliot once said.
Maureen Doallas says
You know I enjoy playing with prose and reimagining it in poetry. Thank you for so many wonderful words to consider. I truly enjoyed reading your essay.
Anthony says
And there’s this: The annual summer reading issue by the New York Times, out this Sunday. Here’s an advanced look:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/book-review-podcast-annual-summer-reading-issue/?smid=pl-share
Mark Ettinger says
Fact or fiction
when fact is fiction
are you reading
fiction or fact
profound diction
Anthony says
Love the wordplay.
Mark Ettinger says
I’m not much of a reader. My ADD or whatever mental anguish it is that I’ve acquired, only allows me to write. Oh yes, and do photography.
10,000 photos I call the ADD pile. So pretty.
If only my life was fiction – I could re-write it. I think if I wrote my auto-biography, people would think it’s fiction. That’s ok I guess, people seem to want to believe fiction over reality. Is it because the stories are better? Thanks for letting me ramble.
Anthony says
I am Bipolar II Disorder so my concentration for reading nor writing is that great. it comes when it comes. God willing. The chief distinction between fiction and nonfiction for a writer is impulse. To either diverge from the truth, in service to greater truths or converge on the truth. Here’s an exercise to demonstrate this: 1. Write down your real name and time yourself. 2. Write down your pseudonym and time yourself. Number 1 is nonfiction (converge) and Number 2 is fiction (diverge). With my bipolar disorder I can do both (a bit of a pun there).
Take care, keep writing.
Charity Singleton Craig says
Beautiful. Summer evokes some lovely writing memories for me, too. I’ve taken vacations just to write, and I’ve found vacations more enjoyable because I chose to write about them. And yes, lots and lots of fiction is what summer is all about!