A Writing Marriage From Lori Carlson Hijuelos Exploration And Better Understanding

0:00Aero.net ARRO.net it's not just a podcast it's 20 different podcasts with episodes going at all times The goal is to give you the power of choice because how many times have you gotten in the car or at work? You go what do I want to listen to what do I want to listen to oh god? I don't want to hear that. Oh, I'm so tired of hearing the news. Oh, I don't want to hear another actor's interview Oh my god, what am I gonna do? One place Aero.net ARRO E.net enjoy your exploration Hello and good morning. Happy Friday everybody Mr. Collins you have one of the most energetic forceful happy voices I've heard in a long time. Oh Man, thank you so much. It's because I'm I passion for this opportunity to share conversations I hear that in your voice. It's unusual and uplifting and Frankly hopeful. Well, the thing is is that you're holding on to something I there are many times Laurie that that I really do feel like that you have the needle in the haystack and you're saying

1:04This isn't just for me. I want to share this with people and and so now we've got to find those people So all of a sudden, you know, the universe puts us together because the universe was having tea one day And they said we got to get Laurie and Aero together so we can get a conversation started and then it's gonna become a tea party And then we're all gonna sit around talking about writing a marriage and I mean you see how it works Well, you are infectious for sure in the most wonderful way Well, you really are you quite something do you see yourself as being an explorer when it comes to words because it seems like the word Exploration is taken on a brand new image Hmm could be I I actually for this book I was more of an archaeologist than an explorer, but I suppose I was both I don't think I thought of that concept when I was writing though But you you're giving us an opportunity to have a better understanding and that's to me That's a chance that's courage that's confidence that means that you turned around and faced the fire and said

2:07I'm going in I'll let you know what I see when I get in there Well, I've always done that you see I've had a rather Challenging career even though it's been very successful. It's been very tough because most of my books are unique They're unusual books and and when my agent would approach an editor and the editor would ask what is it comparable to she couldn't give an example Because my work has been so different Yeah And I suppose I believe in my my mission. I think that's what it is I never have given up I never thought of it as courage. I just believe in being steadfast. I'm I'm basically a communicator. Yes Oh, now you're speaking my language, Laurie. Oh my god Yeah, and you can't turn it off can you I mean it's like oh, I gotta I'll be right back. I gotta go do something You are funny you have so much energy you're making me feel a little better

3:14I've been having a hard time getting myself off the ground this morning, but you're doing a very good job of it Now now who is your mentor teacher in the way that you know because I always I since 1994 July I was in Carmel, California, and that's how I hooked up with Julia Cameron with the artist way and it's just one of those things Where it's like when you get up you do your daily writing then you go talk with people who understand what daily writing is and Then you make your way to trying to find who's gonna read the daily writing I and I how can you not be inspired by a journey like that? Hmm Well for the last few years I've been living in a small town where there is a very very tiny Group of people who are interested in reading so I haven't found this community of of individuals who think like me there, but of course here you're Surrounded by writers and people who love to read New York City is Such a wonderful place. I love just walking in New York City people always ask me you get you're gonna take a new bird

4:19You're gonna take a cab. I'm gonna walk. I'm gonna walk. I just want to Yeah, it's I think the the finest walking city other than Rome. I love to walk in Rome too So when you're walking around New York City I mean the my my last book was really based on I walked into a comic store which I didn't know was on this road And I saw a girl in there with orange hair that became the subject of my next book I knew right then on the spot. I was gonna write a book I didn't know what it was gonna be about but it had to include the girl with orange hair You have to be the same way. I mean your eyes do the speaking the rest of you just tries to catch up Mm-hmm Something similar happened to me with my last novel. I was in Brussels, Belgium in a lace museum and I love lace ancient lace and I saw this piece and it was identified as A circumcision cloth from the 16th century

5:21Yeah, I didn't know that there was such a thing and it was this intricate magnificent piece of Workmanship and in that very moment I knew I was gonna write a novel about a group of Spanish nuns We're lace makers So yes, it's happened to me See what you just described. That's the connection. I'm talking about that you unveil You speak of things that we see on a daily basis and all of a sudden we're walking through a barns and noble or on Amazon We see a book like this. We're going oh my god. I was just thinking about this How often do you come to New York City? I wish it was more time So I mean it's it's one of those things where they try to keep coaxing me up there But I have this beautiful forest in Carolina and this thing has me by the neck It's as you ain't going anywhere buddy. You're gonna sit here and you're gonna write all day See my writing doesn't come from me it comes from the soil of this of this forest and that I I owe everything to these trees and rocks

6:22Wow, what a beautiful thought I love that where do you get yours? Who is your muse? What is your muse? Where is your inspiration hailing from? I Would say the Holy Spirit. Oh love you love you love you love you amen Yeah, yeah, I get it. That's that's how it works for me. Yeah, I get it. I get it I think I think I think it's the intention to be a steward when I was growing up that was a message that I heard on a weekly basis to be a steward and I I knew from a very young age that I was meant to be a writer to be working with people globally that I was going to have a very unique life. I knew this And I knew that at Spanish was going to be a part of my life and that I was going to be in unusual circles and being in a small town and

7:23Having my friends listen to me say these things they were amused they would laugh but But I I do it Yeah, I've never been the charlotte, but you know, I taught it Duke Really? Yours yeah That close Yeah Beautiful state It has there and I've always said there's either something in the soil or it's the curve of those back road highways Because I mean you get on those back roads and it's like you you are flowing with jazz and it's just Something about and you can't help but want to be creative Well, yeah, I mean it's a magnificent line So now when when you have a book that's called a writing marriage There's going to be people that are going to walk into a bookstore and the only reason I'm bringing this up like this is because There's a movie out right now called is goddess and they all think it's a religious movie Now it's the furthest thing from that and but yet they're judging it because of that word

8:26G-O-D in the middle of it when you're looking at a book called a writing marriage You know people are going to come I'm going oh really what is Lori up to this time and so so how can we get listeners to understand You are reaching further. I swear to God further than what you ever have How do you know that and what makes you think that because I feel it and because man when I do some research I go digging and and because it's not that I'm looking for dirt I'm looking because I I know and you know there is somebody sitting in a bedroom right now with about six tablets underneath They're better in the attic and they're not going to release it. Why because they're afraid and it's gonna take someone like you Lori to say Don't be afraid. Let it go. It doesn't belong to you Mm-hmm. That's for sure. It that's right. What the message that I conveyed Really did not belong to me. It came from me for others That was precisely what I was thinking when I was writing and I wrote a writing marriage in a church

9:29So I was thinking about the spiritual side of marriage as well as the The regular parts of marriage the sort of business side of marriage the daily part of marriage. I think For me the overriding need was to make certain that Oscar Euelos my extraordinary Brilliant novelist husband would be understood for Future generations as well as his readership now People would understand what his soul was He was as a human being because novels Can give you the wrong impression of a person and in much the same way that an actor can give you the wrong impression of himself or herself Um writers and artists are expressing all sorts of emotions and thinking but the real person is is usually not understood or not or ever never known

10:30Very few people get a chance to meet the author's work. Yeah, um through the author and I wanted people to see that he was such a sweet beautiful generous kind soul Yeah, and that marriage our marriage was so beautiful Please do not move there's more with Lori Carlson. Howellos coming up next You're going to love this book of writing marriage from Lori Carlson. Howellos Is my interpretation of Oscar wrong and please correct me in silly? I felt that he knew and understood his readers and followers But when it came to real life his heart was still back in the writing and because you know how we are as authors Do we ever really leave the story? Because I mean it's almost like when when we put the book down for the day the writing discipline is over And we go about the world we're studying We're looking for things that we can add to a paragraph and am I wrong about Oscar because I really feel like in reading it that

11:36He understood who he was reaching But in that moment where he wasn't writing He sought the people that he knew were reading if you know what I mean Because I mean I'm talking like a writer now because people go why do you do what you do because there's somebody out there that I know needs this Hmm Well, let me think about this Oscar was highly intellectual and that he was a person who read voraciously on all sorts of topics uh, he loved ancient history And he loved science he loved math He loved poetry and art and comic books was one of his passions He was interested in so many subjects so he was truly an intellectual and talking to him was a thrilling experience But He didn't intellectualize the process of writing

12:38Oscar was very much if I may say so laborer he was a Uh, uh, uh, a worker He just got down to business and I don't really think that he thought about Who he wanted to reach Arrow I think what he was thinking about is how he could make people Think better Yep, act better in the world be better strive for Higher ideals these were the things that were on his mind the big issues Love faith eternity what what this means to be on the surface And for Oscar and and people really didn't know this side of him He was very much a person who believed in God's goodness And and strove I think really to

13:40convey that in his writing he was a compassionate writer His care if you read all of his works you'll know that even though his characters had major flaws Oscar felt kindly toward them He had mercy for his characters. He was he was a very loving creator And you got to spend time with his unpublished work that would be like my wife coming inside this studio I've got 32 years of daily writing I always tell her just go through the book What was I thinking go to the books? It's all written in the books go to the raw writing What did you feel when you went to the unpublished works? I mean we're talking about the stuff where the perfectionist had to wait on the sidelines Hmm Well it was It was heavy. Yeah, and it it was Emotional very emotional going through his

14:42His archival matter there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of boxes Yep To answer this more specifically regarding blue antiquity I Was stunned by the similarities between his major characters protagonist Victor Micalo and himself because Victor Was Oscar in a different profession in a different guy's but victors thinking was very much Oscars thinking and And this this individual is a scholar whose passion is archaeology Oscar was not a scholar although In the formal sense of the word I would say he was first and foremost an artist who had scholarly leanings But Victor is the son of Cuban immigrants and he makes it in a certain way he becomes well known in his field

15:47And in his area of interest is the life of Christ Now that was kind of a surprise to me because even though Oscar Was Catholic and believed In the Trinity and was very much interested in The saints and and the life of Christ. I had no idea that The center of his this master work was truly about that and faith And then coming upon all of the Ancillary materials that he was reading and and researching for this novel that also surprised me because Oscar was collecting pictures of saints and many books about Jesus Uh, I wondered was Oscar thinking about mortality because Victor Victor knows that he's going to die and keeps this knowledge to himself

16:47And Oscar from the time he was young had been told by physicians that he would not have a normal life expectancy Because he had nephritis as a child and his His system had been compromised but Oscar ended up dying not not of any kidney issue or renal issue was A massive heart attack Uh, but I wondered if Oscar might have been In the know so to speak if he had an understanding of When he was going to die Because it was so precious and so eerie as I was reading about this character Does that answer your question? It does and it takes me so deep into so many questions And probably the biggest one that is just screaming to be asked is that as that author Oscar as well as yourself We because everything that I do is in the name of Christ

17:48Everything that I do and I felt like that that I was structured in the way Okay, dude you can write about me all you want you can talk about how your love for me is the greatest thing You can save people's lives, but you're gonna have to put it in the language of somebody who was walking the street Non-believer and did you guys do that with your writing as well? Where it's like you you got the original idea you got that message But then you had to do what I call hidden speak and you twisted a little bit and all of a sudden it becomes a novel And it's not so you know glory based or anything like that But you still kind of push it forward in a way of saying I did my job Lord. Thank you so much for showing up for the other creative side of it Hmm Well, what the writing or the art that comes from one whether it's music or painting or writing has to come from a healthy soul Yes, so rather than think about how to Let's say compose or manipulate raw material into saying What you are I think you have to

18:50act Out your faith you have to be that example. Yeah, and I came upon this book published in 1957 by chance in My mother's church in James Stone, New York where I wrote the book because I wrote the book in a church library. It's actually a cathedral Uh, and it's the title is the radiant life and I devoured that book in one sitting it was written by a British minister A Methodist who said why is it that people of faith go around moping and look so miserable right Right that anybody who meets you should see radiance in your being that is the message That you you are walking around showing others that God is love and light And if it's not being shown on your face and in your actions something is truly wrong with your Alignment yes. Yeah, so that that's how I would respond to that

19:55I don't think it was let's say a conscientious decision to show Faith in the writing but to be the person you could be Essentially proud of yeah, and hopefully that person is creating something reflecting the light That reminds me of Stephen Ferticou is my pastor at elevation church here in Charlotte and he he always gets up there You know how you elevators are It's the energy that you bring into it you gotta bring they know that you're from elevation because they see it and it's just And because they can they can see it and but they don't know how to identify it but man they can tap into it You're a preacher yourself my goodness you have such a talent for speaking It's that it's 46 years of radio. I mean, you know It's because I'm so so much in love with authors and and with writing and the ability to write and I can't figure out why people say I care

21:01Right, I'm I've got block. I've got this and I go that why are you using these excuses if that's your excuse Put it in a book do something put it in a paragraph and just see what it looks like and smell it Hmm My question for you is how do you reach people where they are to Make them curious enough about reading again because My experience and let's say James Stone, New York where it was born is that people don't read right oh they read Headlines they read the first paragraph of the headlines and make up a decision. That's their reading nowadays Yeah, but they're not reading literature at all right How does one Encourage the average American to find time to be quiet to sit down and edify His brain and elevate his soul. How do you do that? I think one of the steps that I was guided toward and I and I really did feel this because I because I've been in radio for 46 years

22:06I didn't know what it was like to be with people because in radio you envision people and so so there For I took a job at a grocery store because I just wanted to be with real people and the one thing that I learned They were never happy to see me, but by God they they loved it when I saw them You know what I mean by that and I swear to God that's how you get to people is that and when you've got that you say By the way, there's a new book out called the writing marriage. I'm thinking you need to pick it up You are one of a kind my friend Okay, but you but you know what I mean though it starts in the conversation And so we've got to get the conversation started primate up get that motor running and get that monkey on that track All right, so you're saying to be very proactive. Yep Uh, all right People want to be led you know that people want to be led I mean that's like when Jesus sat down at the well with the woman that woman wanted to be led

23:09She wanted to be shown a different way she wanted to go back to the people so that she could have a message for the people And she did and it changed everybody and it was all because of a conversation at the well that everybody else would have just shunned away from Well now see that's an interesting way of thinking about that encounter because I would have thought that she wanted to be seen Oh, I'll give you that Yeah, I think that's what the Christ was able to see who she was and she was shocked right Yeah, and then go and then go beyond what he saw to tell her what she could be That's right, but that of course then of course did Take uh her places. That's why she went back and told everyone so you're right to see us also being led See and that and that's just like when Jesus sat down on his knees and he wrote in the sand in my heart as an author I said that was the very first writing instrument he wrote in the sand Why aren't we all writing because he did it in the sand and everybody read it

24:14That's right You see how weird we are we are weird being writers because we understand the calling and we acted upon it Yeah, well the writing life is it's not so simple Listen, it's complicated. It's complicated You you spend so much time alone with your thinking That can be good that can be bad Mm-hmm how did Oscar handle a situation like that when it came time for I don't want to say a long time because when you're going in there with those characters Those characters are very much in your ears Well Oscar had two sides to him. He was perfectly comfortable and happy Being in his office writing eight hours a day if not ten and Being in another world with his characters and he had also a very social side to him it was Unstage he was very much the showman and I think if you saw him

25:17Let's say reading at the 92nd Street Y or any venue around the country You would probably have the impression that he was comfortable uh communicating being Affable upbeat and sharing with his readers, but I would say more than that he was of a solitary sort He very much lived in his head and loved being in his head thinking about His collections history Memories what life could have been like if he had been born in Cuba He often talked about that mm-hmm, but yeah, I mean he was He had both sides to him And the fact that you understood that because I often wonder people always go, And you're lucky to have my wife Lee in your life and I'm going you have no idea how lucky I am because I don't know How she puts up with me as a writer I do not because because you're right We live in so many different worlds mentally and physically that when we come popping out

26:20It's like oh my god. You're still here. How about that? I love you. Thank you for being here all these years Well, I Being a writer myself. I understood the pressures that he was facing Only ten times more than me and I accommodated his needs because I understood them And and of course I was so in love with Oscar. He was my soulmate. I explained that in the memoir Uh, that it was just in my mind a privilege to be his wife I loved every day. We had together Yeah, every day was a gift to be with my husband He was just a very very special unique individual with multi-talents Who had a grasp of reality that most people don't and then A language to convey that which was thrilling

27:20To be able to communicate on such a beautiful level on such a Creative level. Yep, and I was the recipient of that so I never thought of it as being a burden to be married to my brilliant Husband I really thought I was one of the blessed ones Wow Where can people go to find out more about you because 25 minutes with you is never going to be enough And I'm going to ask you that we get back together again very soon because I love where you are I love that you're open to talk about it because so many people go oh, yeah, I'm a writer We'll talk about it. No, no, no, that's why I love about you. Lori is that you're willing to share the experience That's why we're on the surface to shame. Oh god. I love your heart. Oh my god. You're saying the right things Holy Thanks, erro. I'm really enjoying talking to you. I have a new friend now Wow Thank you, will you be brilliant today? Okay, and thank you for blessing my life today

28:26And I know that it's going to reach out there. This is outreach and full-forward motion Thank you, erro. I just appreciate you and your message and what you've done for my book and for me today And I would love to come back to talk to you. Will you be brilliant today? Okay? Thank you. You too, erro