Ten Cents on the Nest of Snakes

Weighing in lightly on the nest of snakes debate raging over over Chris Jones's latest posting over at his always worth reading blog, http://sonofboldventure.blogspot.com/2011/04/absolute-truth.html all I have to say is this:

As writers, I think most of us are motivated by either being for or against something, and that we write either "because of" or "in spite of." I've usually been an "against" and "in spite of" writer, but have recently trended more toward the "for" and "because of," but . . . whatever. The key for all of us is to find the reason to do this, and to keep down the distractions that prevent that from happening, because any time we're not focusing on the work, we're not focusing on the work.

How we reach that place is very personal, and perhaps unknowable, even to ourselves. That, in and of itself, can at times be a distraction, so tred carefully.

The Book and the Plow

When do you know it is time to write a book?

For any non-fiction writer, that question actually represents two questions. For the writer who has not written a book, the question concerns ambition. For the writer who already has, it is a question of craft. In this case, I’m considering ambition.

Whether he or she will admit it or not, most writers, in any genre, and at every level, from the writer who toils on in secret to the newspaper columnist or the magazine feature writer, wants to write a book. Having people read your work is like giving a performance, but having your work appear in book form is like making a recording. Even the best deadline based journalism can be swallowed up in the undergrowth, but books are trees.

Apart from the obvious – you write a book when you have something to say – and the practical – you write a book when you have a contract to do so - the best reason to write that first book is that it will help you grow as a writer. I believe writing a book is about the best lesson in writing any working writer can have. Writing is, in itself, essentially an act of learning and writing a book takes that to a completely new level, both in terms of what can be learned about a subject and what you learn about writing itself.

The transition for any short-form writer – by “short-form” I mean anyone who generally writes pieces under ten thousand words – into writing book length is dramatic, like going from prose to poetry. The tricks and patterns of writing you can get away with while writing in short-form can trip you up in a book.

I might be more sensitive to this than most people. As series editor of The Best American Sports Writing, I read a great deal of longer feature writing both about sports and about anything else that catches my eye. After doing this for twenty years there are many writers now whose work and style I can recognize within just a few sentences and who have produced significant and lasting work. Yet many of these writers have either not written books or done so with only tepid success. What makes their work so affecting when read in six or eight thousand word bursts four or five times a year often doesn’t work in a book. The style that captivates for eight or ten pages can become redundant and tired when spread across 200 pages, the method of transmission formulaic, and the level of observation predictable. There is a reason so few character actors successfully transition to leading roles – the shtick becomes wearisome – and why leading men and women often seem awkward in small parts. Accustomed to playing a large room, when confined they seem to shrink out of proportion.

This is what can happen to writers who suddenly go from writing eight thousand words to eighty thousand, or to one hundred and eighty thousand. When the writer has to inhabit the consciousness of a reader for days and not just a few minutes or perhaps an hour, that relationship changes. Another metaphor – it’s the difference between a one night stand and a relationship, a date and a life.

Not all writers can make that transition. I had an agent tell me once that he rarely accepted journalists as clients for just this reason.

Writing a book changes the process in ways you cannot foresee. Here’s one example: When writing in shorter forms interview with subjects are common, but an interview of more than several hours are rare. But in a book, given the demands of those many thousands of extra words, you sometime share the opportunity – and the responsibility - to go much farther. On at least three occasions while working on book projects I have ended up interviewing someone for upwards of twenty-five hours over a period of months. In each case I got their basic “story” early on in the process, in the first six or eight hours. But what I found remarkable (and surprising) was that each time, as the interviews continued far beyond the point at which a writer would normally interview a subject for a magazine story, right at the point that I felt there was nothing left to learn, each subject dropped down a line of defense that I hadn’t even known was there and gave me something absolutely essential. I’ve had the same experience while doing research. After spending a year or more accumulating material at a level far beyond what I would do for an article, the transformative information that I really needed finally begins to coalesce

So when do you decide to write the book? Most writers know long before their readers when they’ve stopped growing and are writing the same way over and over. When you begin to be bored with only going so far into a subject and feel you are only driving past it - staying a couple of nights there in a motel, as opposed to actually living there - that’s the time to challenge yourself, before the self-loathing kicks in, before you are sitting there thinking “I really should write a book someday.”

True Story

Try this one on. I was once in midstream, about a year and a half into writing a book, my first significant, major publisher book, when my editor left and I was reassigned to another editor. Met with him for lunch. I had 150,000 words in my hand, what turned out to be about half the first draft of what later ended up being a 250,000 word book.

Handed it to him. He glanced at it, dropped it on the floor and sniffed, "This is a picture book. I want maybe 20,000 words."

I walked out, stunned. Career done. A year and a half wasted. Started drinking. Kept drinking. Twelve hours later I e-mailed my former editor, and was surprisingly lucid. She called me the next morning, said to hang loose, she was making some calls. The publisher called me an hour later, apologized. Pulled the editor off the project.

The book eventually built my house. But it was one hell of a 24-hours, one I care never to repeat.

That being said, every time I finish a book, I feel like there are no words left in me, nothing with a shred of originality, the most innocuous phrase sounds contrived, the most un-innocuous sounds pretentious.

It takes 6-12 months for me to write long-form again, for the language to refresh. It's like my brain goes dry, and no blood flows through my fingers.

Happy Birthday Fenway Park

Fenway Park has many birthdays, but one of them took place today, February 26. That's because one hundred years ago today the land upon which Fenway Park sits was acquired at public auction by General Charles Taylor of the Boston Globe Taylors for $120,000 The rough plans that architect James McLaughlin had been working on for more than a year now had to be configured to fit upon a specific building site.

Known as the “Dana Lands,” the property was part of a parcel that had originally been owned by attorney Francis Dana, a native of Charlestown, a leader of the Sons of Liberty, a delegate to the Massachusetts’s Provincial Congress in 1774, a member of the Continental Congress in 1777, and in 1778 a signer of the Articles of Confederation.

I tell this story and many many others you will find nowhere else in my next book due out this fall, the defintive story of Fenway Park, entitled Fenway 1912: The Birth of a Ballpark, a Championship Season and Fenway's Remarkable First Year

For more see my Fenway 1912 facebook page, or order a copy of Fenway 1912 at www.glennstout.net

Hold It Right There

Earlier today a friend asked me a question about writing and restraint, which was inspired by a post by Chris Jones on his blog http://sonofboldventure.blogspot.com/2011/01/words-that-arent-there.html.

I’ve always thought it important to note that “In the beginning was the word…” not “In the beginning was the words…” Now I know that's not the biblical interpretation but it has always seemed to me that, as far a writing goes, that truth and wisdom are best delivered in brevity, and that sometimes, the more words we use, the farther away we move from wisdom. Thumbnail version: Know when to stop.

That’s one of the reasons I think that writers of any stripe should read poetry – it not only provides tangible lessons like economy, sound and rhythm, but it also teaches that the negative space in writing – what’s not there, and the heartbeat of recognition that takes place over the empty space at the end of a line or a phrase - is as important as what is on the page. The way we connect with a piece of writing is how our brain fills in the blanks.

It’s like backing away from a painting rather than standing too close.

OCTOBER'S SAD LEXICON

After Franklin P. Adams' Baseball's Sad Lexicon, I give you a version for recent Octobers:


These are the saddest of possible words,

“Rivera now pitching the ninth.”

A flurry of fastballs thrown straight that then swerve,

“Rivera now pitching the ninth.”

Ruthlessly turning a comeback to rubble,

With control that is epic and makes the mind boggle,

A pitch that is heavy and nothing but trouble,

“Rivera now pitching the ninth.”

[with apologies to the Twins]

HISTORICALLY BAD

He’s just not that good. Not anymore.

As I write this Rex Sox pitcher Josh Beckett, arguably the staff ace entering the 2010 season, has started fourteen games and accrued an earned run average of 6.67.
Those startling numbers sent me on a search. And here is what I discovered: In the one hundred and ten year history of this franchise, of all the hundreds and hundreds of Red Sox pitchers that have taken the mound in a given season, guess how many have started as many as fourteen games and ended the season with an ERA higher than Josh Beckett’s 6.67?

Uh…. One – and just barely (more on him later).

Josh Beckett has not just been bad in 2010, he has been historically bad. Unbelievably bad. Mind-bogglingly bad. Hall of Shame bad. Horribly, awfully, painfully, even proctologically bad. I don’t think any pitcher in the history of baseball has ever pitched so much, so poorly, at such a high salary as Josh Beckett has in 2010. For all the wrong reasons it’s a season for the ages.

On the day he was drafted, a reporter for a Florida newspaper asked Beckett about fellow pitchers and Texas natives Nolan Ryan, Roger Clemens, and Kerry Wood. Responded Beckett “Yeah, I’m gonna be better than those guys.” At times that seemed possible, even likely.

But that was then. Forget 2003, and the way he beat the Yankees in the World’s Series while pitching for the Marlins, and 2007 when he won twenty and pitched the Red Sox to a championship.

We’re talking NOW, or more accurately, ever since the Red Sox broke their own rule about negotiating a contract during the season. In April Theo Epstein signed Beckett to a contract extension covering 2011 thru 2014 worth $68-million, a deal made before his previous contract, which ran thru this season, had even expired. Think they would like to re-visit that?

Since that time he has been so bad there are, really, no words in the dictionary to describe it. But there are in the Baseball Encyclopedia and on BaseballReference.com.

How bad has Josh Beckett been? Using ERA and a minimum of fourteen starts as a measure, every other pitcher in Red Sox history - with one notable exception - has been NABAB - Not As Bad As Beckett. Matt Young in 1991? Sixteen Starts and a 5.18 ERA, but Not As Bad As Beckett. Danny Darwin in 1994? Thirteen starts and 6.30 - NABAB. Frank Castillo in 2002? NABAB. Ramon Martinez in 2000, Jerry Casale in 1960, Gordon Rhodes in 1935, Frank Heimach in 1926? You can look ‘em up, NABABs all. Even the immortal Joe Harris, who went 2-21 for the 1906 Red Sox, was NABAB – his ERA was a sparkling 3.52, a number Josh Beckett and Theo Epstein would both kill for. And the list goes on and on and on and on.

Somehow this historic achievement has gone unnoticed. In a season best defined by the disabled list it has been easy to overlook Beckett’s expressionless appearances on the mound. Then again, they’ve often been so brief he’s been easy to miss. The fact is even with all the injuries, if Josh Beckett was pitching like an average starting pitcher, rather than a historically bad one, the Red Sox would be making plans for October.

That’s not even the worst part. Because the Sox signed Beckett to an extension before his current contract had expired after putting up one of the worst seasons in Red Sox history, Josh Beckett will rewarded over the next four seasons by becoming the the highest paid pitcher in team history. Which genius thought that was a good idea? The Red Sox can only hope is that Beckett is hurt and his contract is somehow insured, because the only thing worse than a pitcher performing the way Beckett has thus far is a contract that guarantees he’ll be around for another four years no matter how poorly he pitches.

Yet there is still a faint glimmer of hope. Remember, there has been one Red Sox pitcher even worse than Josh Beckett. Like Beckett, he too enjoyed some early success that had everyone whispering “Hall of Fame.” Then one year he went 2-9 in fifteen starts with an ERA of 6.75.

The Sox sent him back to the minor leagues. And two years later he was pitching the way everyone thought Josh Beckett would be pitching this year.

You might remember him, because that guy who was the worst starting pitcher in Red Sox history, 2-9 with a 6.75 ERA in 2008, is now 14-5 with an ERA of 2.36.

His name is Clay Bucholz.


This column appears in the September edition of Boston baseball. Glenn Stout’s Fenway 1912, will appear in 2011. Baseball Heroes, the first title in his juvenile series “Good Sports,” will be available this fall.