Wednesday, July 13, 2011

What I Learned from Clive Cussler or His Clone

All---

A few years ago, I met Clive Cussler.

Actually, I'm not sure it was Clive Cussler.  I didn't even connect the dots until very recently.  In case you're not familiar, Clive Cussler is a huge, blockbuster best-selling author, best known for his series of thrillers about diver, treasure-hunter, and lady's man Dirk Pitt.  His books incorporate history and science with a James Bond sort of playfulness and a Robert Ludlum pace.  He has sold more millions of books than even seems like a real number.

None of that came up when I met him.  Or his clone.

I was on a domestic flight at the time, sitting next to an older gentleman, whose general fitness and charisma spoke of an active, rich life.  As we got talking, he told me stories about places he'd been and things he'd seen.  He had a great eye for detail in the stories, which were engagingly told.  He was less detailed and less engaging about what exactly had brought him to those places or exposed him to those things.  He'd been around the world.  He'd grown up in California, he lived in Arizona.  He loved classic cars.  He was pretty clear that what he did now was collect cars, but not about much else.

I'm not an expert on Cussler's biography, and I was just enjoying the conversation with the man on the plane, not probing him for information, but given his appearance, age, personality, and the few general facts I have, I like to think there's a good chance it was Cussler himself.

But this isn't a story about meeting a famous writer.  This is a story about how I met Clive Cussler and one of the few things we didn't talk about was books or writing.   Sometimes as writers, I think it's easy to focus so much on our writing, that it's all we talk about and all we think about, and the next thing you know Amazon.com has close to 12,000 eBooks self-pubbed in which writers are writing about writing.  If you're writing or have written a book about writing, I'm not criticizing that.  It's a a fine thing to do.  But I wonder if it's what you wanted to write when you started writing?

We blog about writing.  We tweet about writing.  We FB about writing.  We make friends with writers.  We go to writing conventions.  We join writers' social groups.

All fine things, all things I do or have done.

But it narrows the world frightfully.

Romance writer Roni Loren, writes terrific blog posts about writing, but she also talks about hot guys and family life and healthy eating.  Zimbabwean ex-pat Andrea Eames blogs about fashion and style as much as more than she blogs about writing.  Literary craftsman Scott G. F. Bailey blogs about writing, but he also blogs about whatever he's reading, as well as plays he's seen, and whatever else is on his mind.  Darkly comic literary writer Aliya Whitely blogs about her writing, but also about vegetables and video games and she tweets ridiculously sharp verbal humor.  Writer of published crime novels and women's short fiction, Frances Garrood blogs about horses, shopping dollies, houses, politics, the elderly, and the entire tapestry of life.

There are other writers who maintain a diverse activity set, but I run into more and more of us who get dragged into the LaBrea tar pits of writing.

Ben Sisko said it, and I've repeated it, and I'll repeat it again: "I'm no writer; but if I were, it seems to me I'd want to poke my head up every once in a while and take a look around; see what's going on. It's life, Jake! You can miss it if you don't open your eyes."


Assuming it was Clive Cussler I met, and not his clone, that's the kind of writer he is.  The kind who can tell stories about China and Mexico.  The kind who has stories about boats and bicycles, about hunting and kidnappings.  The kind who can fill a flight with entertaining stories, without ever once talking about books or writing.

That's the kind of writer I try to be.  I don't usually make it.

.Nevets.

14 comments:

  1. I don't meet famous people, but if I did, I think I'd want to talk about anything but whatever theyr'e famous for just to let them get away from it!

    And I'm a published writer of CRIME novels? What crime novels? Where can I buy them? Oh - and what's a shopping dolly?

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  2. I SO agree with this. Tunnel vision is not a good thing for writers. We write about life - we need to experience it first.

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  3. I get really fed up of reading about writers. I think we over-analyse terribly. And I can't bear novels in which the main character is a writer. It's hardly imaginative, is it?

    Thanks for the mention, dude.

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  4. @Frances - Yeah, at the time I didn't know I was meeting (or possibly meeting) a famous person, but I like to think I would be the same way.

    As for your books, *hanging head in shame*. I winced when I wrote the sentence because I still haven't gotten my hands on your books and it's stuck in my head that someone once called them crime novels, but I actually don't know first hand. I'm a bad friend.

    So, please, correct me. How would you describe your books?

    @Michael - Crisp summary there. :)

    @Aliya - Agreed and you're welcome, and I just saw that darn h I put on your name again. I wish I knew why my fingers always do that. I know how to spell your name if asked, but my fingers always want to put an h. It's obnoxious.

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  5. In answer to your question, Nevets - brilliant, that's all. Just brilliant.

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  6. Love this post. And not just because you mention me. :) It's so easy to get caught up in just talking about writing. I realized that's what I was doing for a while and made a conscious effort to broaden what I was talking about when I realized I'd become one-dimensional writer girl. All of us (hopefully) are well-rounded people. We shouldn't be afraid of sharing more parts of ourselves than just the writer.

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  7. This is a great post because it's so true. As writers we tend to have tunnel vision. But there should be so much more to us than simply writing.
    Thanks for the reminder.

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  8. @Frances - Of that, I have no doubt.

    @Roni - Thanks! I think one of the things that makes blogging and social-networking feel like a burden to so many writers is that they end up boring themselves with their one-dimensionality.

    @Elena - Thanks so much for stopping by! If you have running and parenting going on as well as you're writing, it sounds like you have a full load of life!

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  9. I love this. Everyone should read it, because you are spot on, sir. I'll admit that I've gotten to the point where if I can tell a post will be about writing (of the dry sort), I won't even open it.

    Perhaps I've gone the other way in my own blog. Can't remember the last time I really wrote about writing...hmm, not sure I ever did, honestly.

    I like to think that was Mr. Cussler, and I'm forever jealous. :)

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  10. @Summer - Thanks! There are times when I do the same thing. Scan my blogroll, see a bunch of things that I know are dry rehashes of writing topics and move on. Those posts have their place, but I'm worn out on them.

    Just clicked quickly over to your blog and will be back later. Desk totems rule when used sparingly. (Clutter breaks my brain.)

    Whether it was Mr. Cussler or Mr. Cussler's identical cousin Patty, he was a great story-teller and that was the most fun flight I've ever had.

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  11. I should write more about swords on my blog.

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  12. @Michelle - Yes, you should! That would be awesome! :-D

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  13. This is an incredibly good point. I think I should make a point (I'm too lazy to look for another phrase, so let's just say pun intended) of making at least one post every now and then that's not about writing.

    (Why is your follower tool/device hidden in the corner? It took me until now to find it.)

    And finally, I second that. It would be awesome if Michelle wrote about swords.

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  14. @Jake - Thanks, glad you liked the post! Also, thanks for the feedback on the follow gadget. I have rearranged!

    And swords are pretty much awesome.

    I think the favorite thing I ever wrote for a serious radio news broadcast was on a piece we did about Christmas traditions and I wrote a setup that included the phrase, "In the shadow of a Christmas tree and a two-handed Scottish Claymore..."

    ReplyDelete

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