Today we’d like to introduce you to Jack Remick.
Hi Jack, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My writing life began when I studied poetry at UC Berkeley with Thom Gunn. He taught me the essence of originality when he asked me why I was copying the style and substance of other poets–dead, of course. Jack, he said, when you inhabit another man’s universe it will always be smaller than the one you create for yourself.
After that wisdom, there was no going back to imitation. After years of work, experimentation, and exploration of the writing world–which involved three trips to South America and their exposure to both Indigenous and Colonial lifestyles–I returned home carrying a load of understanding and desire that had not driven me before. Life in South America gave me three novels: No Century for Apologies, which won Honorable Mention for the Hoffer Grand Prize; Gabriela and The Widow which was a finalist for the Book of the Year Award; as well as a Finalist for the Montaigne Medal and One Year in the Time of Violence, a novel that follows a Gringo living in the time of the Colombian Violencia with all its horror and political chaos.
I have been a college instructor, a grammar school teacher, a social worker, a community activist, a tunnel stiff, and a bus driver. My writing world expanded with each life experience until I was able to write a ground-breaking novel titled Citadel. Enraptured with fiction, I had ignored poetry until events unfolded which led me to write Josie Delgado, a Poem of the Central Valley and Satori. With each publication, I understood more of Thom Gunn’s wisdom. I have collaborated with many writers to produce work that has found a place in the Writer’s How-to Pantheon, but the major contribution is The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery, with Robert J. Ray.
On the heels of writing success, I entered the world of radio and have worked for several years with Marsha Casper Cook and her Michigan Avenue Media. There is a saying in the world of screenwriting–Be kind to the people you meet on your way up because you will see them again on your way down. That bit of wisdom has been my guide as I offer, free of charge, my weekly Masterclass in Interactive Rewriting. I met many writers on my way to my limited success and I am more than happy to share what I know with younger (sometimes older) writers anxious to see their work in print. Several of my students have published work that I do not hesitate to recommend in my reviews of said work. I continue to teach and to write.
My latest novel, Man Alone (2023) asks the question–what is happening to men in our culture? Why are so many men lost and alone? Why are so many young men rejecting education m favor of violence and the marginalized life? At this time, I am writing the follow-up novel to Man Alone–The Last of the Best–while at the same time reading the work of other writers and producing blurbs, reviews, and critiques. I think that it is my job and my duty to encourage, protect, and laud writers as they venture into the dangerous world of words.
A friend once told me that it is easier to rewrite history than to rewrite a novel. I believe that adage, but it doesn’t deter me from pursuing the ineffable and beautiful beyond reality that lies on the other side of experience.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No writer, deep in the throes of a third or fourth rewrite, thinks it is a smooth road. I have discovered ways to put words into play with the realization that there are, at any point in the writing, three stories. One–the story that I want credit for. I wrote this, it is mine. Two–the story that needs, indeed demands you write it. Three–the story readers want you to write. I always go with Two because the story that needs to be written is always original, powerful, a flow of intuition and insight from the unconscious–in other words, a gift.
I tell myself, and other writers, that Discipline is your obligation to the Gift. Don’t squander your uniqueness by writing what is expected. Now that is a hard road. Struggles? Yes. Every day. Rejections? Yes. All the time. But as John Gardner said, The future is disguised as an infinite number of impossible obstacles. That’s the writer’s life. Overcoming impossible obstacles. In my file cabinet, I have sequestered thirty novels that will never find a home. But that does not discourage me as it should not discourage any writer. You write more than you will ever use, more than will ever see print. It is the doing that makes the writer, not the publishing of words long after they have found a place on the sheets of paper.
The issue here is that ideas often are ahead of a writer’s techniques. This means that the writer with a great idea, but no idea of how to get it into words will probably let it go too soon and that means rejection. I believe that writers who let the work go too soon, are setting themselves on a hard road, and were they to wait, the techniques might reveal themselves. In my classes, I tell writers–I cannot teach you how to write. But I can keep you writing while you acquire the techniques that will let you seize your ideas with good words. As Natalie Goldberg told everyone who ever took one of her workshops–Writing gets more writing. Mind connects to mind. Wise woman, Natalie Goldberg.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Up to this point, everything I have told you is, in fact, about my work. I am a novelist, essayist, poet, short story writer, and teacher so I would like to give you an idea of how I approach work. I write a lot about the writing before I ever start a scene.
Right now I’m in a new novel and I have 138 pages of writing but no novel. No scenes. I have written an ending, but chances are it won’t be the final ending. I always write an ending first because the ending is a template for the opening. The novel comes out of the writing about the characters and what they want. To me, all characters are consumed by three things: Want, Need, Can’t. If I can find out what a character wants, I can translate that into the story. If I know what a character needs, I have a handle on the psychology and the structure of the mind.
If I know what the character can’t have, I get a feeling for action, because of the Antagonist—the character who wants what the protagonist wants and so you have conflict and conflict leads to one of two resolutions: either the protagonist (I use that instead of Hero just to be contrary) clams up, closes up and lets the bad guy tromp all over her or she stands up and nocks an arrow in her bow and kills him. To me, the story is a competition for a resource base, and fiction is the artful infusion of the past into the narrative present.
This means that I have to know a lot about the characters, so I write about them—where they were born, what kind of ice cream they liked as a kid, how they dressed, how their mother mistreated them, how their father raped them, how that uncle destroyed their innocence. Then, that done, you have a pretty good start on dialogue. How? “Where did you get that scar?” Joe asks Ellen. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. Okay, now we have the secret that Joe will do his best to ferret out, and Ellen will fight Tong and Hammer not to reveal it. So the past comes into the present and through revelation, the story gets told.
The resource base is that secret. The story is about competition for a resource base (the resource base can, of course, be more complex—money, land, even a jeweled falcon from Charles V to the Knights Templar). Joe in the end knows that Ellen’s scar came from that violent encounter with the uncle in the basement when he ripped off her crucifix and cut her with a chisel. Joe either accepts Ellen’s ravishment and loves her to death or he abandons her as impure, unclean, damaged. I have two collections of short stories, several screenplays, and a dozen novels and every story gets the same treatment. Without that process, the characters are empty and uninteresting.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
Yes. Networking and mentors are an essential part of becoming an artist. I have been lucky to have had three artists in my life–Thom Gunn, J.S. Moodey, and Jarvis Bastian. Thom Gunn was a poet; Moodey also. Bastian was a trombonist with a deep curiosity about everything. Without those men, my life would be a mess, a tangle of experience with no way to express it.
It is probably true, but difficult to realize the saying: when the student is ready the teacher will appear. Because of the lessons I learned from Gunn, Moodey, and Bastian, I stayed alert, listening, waiting, and always ready to take dictation from the masters. Mentors lead to networking. Networking leads to greater exposure to new ideas and to mentors with the skill to impart them. At the root of all success, there is fear. Mentors guide you past fear into knowing and through knowing into confidence.
As I said in another question, Gunn told me about imitation and living in another man’s universe. Moodey taught me the essence of density when I asked him if he had ever written an epic poem. His answer stunned me: Six lines or eight? he said. So, two mentors, two world views: Originality. Density. Bastian taught me to question everything and to settle only for what works, and by works he meant driving the art to another place beyond fear.
In music–I am a pianist as well as a poet–truth lies beyond fear–Look at Coltrane, Bastian told me, Look at Monk. All living beyond and over the abyss. No fear there.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://jackremick.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jack.remick/
Image Credits
Jerry Jaz; Russ Spitkovsky; and Meredith Bricken Mills
