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This Writing Life: Summer is Fiction

By Anthony Connolly 16 Comments

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.

Summer means fiction.

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.

Summer means fiction.

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.

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Anthony Connolly
Anthony Connolly
A former teacher, Wm. Anthony Connolly is a writer living in Millsboro, Delaware. He's a fan of writing, reading, philosophy, arts, and music—and is also interested in education and coffee.
Anthony Connolly
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Filed Under: Blog, Writing Life

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About Anthony Connolly

A former teacher, Wm. Anthony Connolly is a writer living in Millsboro, Delaware. He's a fan of writing, reading, philosophy, arts, and music—and is also interested in education and coffee.

Comments

  1. Monica Sharman says

    May 30, 2013 at 5:59 pm

    Inchoate. I think that word could grow on me. 🙂

    Reply
  2. Anthony says

    May 30, 2013 at 6:03 pm

    It sounds great and looks like a million dollar word.

    Reply
  3. Megan Willome says

    May 30, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • Anthony says

      May 31, 2013 at 11:11 am

      See my notes below… I meant to reply to your message… grrr

      Reply
  4. Anthony Connolly says

    May 30, 2013 at 7:27 pm

    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

    Reply
  5. Anthony Connolly says

    May 30, 2013 at 9:43 pm

    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

    Reply
  6. Maureen Doallas says

    May 30, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • Anthony Connolly says

      May 31, 2013 at 9:45 am

      Awesome. See my other note

      Reply
  7. Anthony Connolly says

    May 31, 2013 at 9:42 am

    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.

    Reply
    • Maureen Doallas says

      May 31, 2013 at 1:40 pm

      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.

      Reply
  8. Anthony says

    May 31, 2013 at 12:52 pm

    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

    Reply
  9. Mark Ettinger says

    June 3, 2013 at 10:07 am

    Fact or fiction
    when fact is fiction
    are you reading
    fiction or fact
    profound diction

    Reply
    • Anthony says

      June 3, 2013 at 10:23 am

      Love the wordplay.

      Reply
  10. Mark Ettinger says

    June 3, 2013 at 10:17 am

    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.

    Reply
    • Anthony says

      June 3, 2013 at 10:27 am

      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.

      Reply
  11. Charity Singleton Craig says

    June 5, 2013 at 2:56 pm

    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!

    Reply

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