Not scheduled for release until January 2004, The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters, an epistolary novel by Elisabeth Robinson, has already received excellent reviews.  If you are developing a wish list for holiday gifts, I recommend putting this book on that list.  It is a pleasurable read, by turns hilarious and poignant, and it is thoroughly life affirming.  Moreover, reading letters to experience a character’s love life, family life and career proves not only thoroughly engaging but instructive about approaches for generating you own good writing.  In the book, narrator Olivia Hunt writes lyrical, spirited letters over a period of a year and a half to her colleagues, some celebrities, her family members, a lover and friends.  I believe that borrowing from the occasions and strategies of these letters can help you create writing that results in essays and poems, stories and back-stories.

In the character of Olivia, readers experience a passionate woman using her core to bring her family together and set her personal and professional life on track.  At the center of the book is Olivia’s relationship with her sister, and the book opens with a letter that is almost a preface.  Written by Olivia thirty years before the time of the novel, it is to her as yet unborn sister.  “My name is Olivia Hunt,” she writes:

I am your sister.  You are inside mom.  Jim is our brother.  He’s OK for a boy.

I had a dream about you.  I was in the canoe.  My hair was in a braid but it was a snake too. You came out of the lake.  You crawled up my snake braid.  You got in the canoe.  You look like me.  The canoe tipped over but we could talk under water.

And after listing activities she is looking forward to sharing with her sister, (playing in the tree fort, playing dress up in the attic, pretending they are princesses and brides), Olivia closes her letter with these words, “I like writing this letter. It’s like you’re here. Only you’re invisible.  I love you already, Olivia.”

 Many writers say that their best work is addressed to a special reader they imagine wanting to talk to, a reader they know would be thrilled to read what they have to say.  “I like writing this for you,” they seem to be saying to that special person.

Suggested Strategy #1
Start an essay, story or poem by addressing it to someone in particular, someone you can imagine is waiting attentively for your words.  Think of your writing as establishing your relationship more firmly, as explaining why you like relating to the person you have addressed your work to.  Write as a way of showing who you truly are, how you think, what you like and why you like talking to this person in particular.  Tell the person you have selected about the circumstances in your life that led to the writing and why it feels good to let them know about these things.  You will be writing about yourself with them as witness and deep listener.

If you don’t have anyone you feel like addressing with an essay, story or poem, or to try another strategy, write a letter to an as of yet uncreated work telling it what you think of your relationship to it!  For example, you could begin: Dear Poem or Dear Story, or Dear Specific Character.  Continue,  “I am your author.  You are not inside me or outside me exactly. You reside in the tip of my fingers. You are invisible now but….” From here tell the story, poem, character all about itself and what you will be doing together.

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In present time of the novel, Olivia and her sister Maddie are grown. Olivia is having trouble as a Hollywood producer and “home grown, get it done” Maddie inspires her to take the bull by the horns and contact the celebrities she wants in her film.  Olivia writes to Robin Williams, Danny DeVito and John Cleese, explaining that she is sending them the script for a movie about Don Quixote and the impossible dream because she believes they are perfect for roles in the script.  “Please forgive me for taking the liberty of sending you this script,” she writes the Englishman Cleese.  “If you are reading this letter, I’m already ahead of the game,” she begins in her letter to De Vito.  And “If you’re reading this it means I haven’t been arrested for trespassing on your, may I say, exquisite lawn,” she writes Williams:

Please forgive me.  It’s really not like me to do something so rude, something so insane, but my sister reminded me that Stephen Spielberg got his start by hopping the fence at Universal, and she just about challenged me into doing this, so I hope in the spirit of giving a fledgling producer a chance, you’ll read the enclosed script…”

Suggested Strategy #2
Sometimes addressing someone you wouldn’t really write to by playing with language and actions associated with them can help you generate material.  For fun, write a letter to a character, historic figure, or popular icon that you think might be able to help you with a project in your life.  I might write to the Statue of Liberty for help in understanding the present direction of my country or to David Letterman for help in learning to remain alert late at night.  I might inform the Statue of Liberty that, “I am among the tired if not the poor, and I find myself huddled, not with the masses, but in front of the TV, trying to make sense of things beneath the media’s spin.”  I might begin the letter to Letterman this way, “I have tried tapping my pencil on the desktop, placing a coffee mug of water before me, but by 11 at night, I am tired and my eyes are closing.  I know the wee hours are the best for creativity, the time when others are not as voraciously using air…”  Tell the figure you are writing to what it is they might offer from their position and experience.  Think about what would entice them to help you and why you think so.  Be silly and inventive. “Blame” your invitation or gutsiness on someone else if you want and explain why you are following through on your idea of requesting their help.

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In the middle of the book, Olivia writes to her friend Tina during a flight to London on December 26.  Olivia knows that Tina and her husband Stephen are trying to get pregnant.  She writes that Tina’s learning she is pregnant is surely the Christmas present Tina wants.  Next, Olivia describes the Christmas she spent at home with her parents, her sister and her sister’s husband and the tension throughout the event, starting during the ritual hanging of the tree lights by her father.  I don’t want to spoil the plot by telling you more, but I want to have you consider this:  After she writes about her family’s holiday, Olivia tells Tina about refusing to visit the man in her life in a town called Dixon for the holiday week following Christmas.  The movie she is helping produce is yet again in trouble. Her job, she feels, demands that she go to Rome:

When I told Michael I couldn’t come to Dixon, he didn’t say anything for a while.  He listened, and even to my own ears, I sounded defensive.  Then he said, this is who you are, Olivia. This is what you do.  He sounded resigned.  I didn’t want to hang up but we weren’t talking anymore, we were both just listening to nothing.”

By beginning her letter with a acknowledgment that Tina wants nothing more than to get pregnant and then writing about her own behavior of ignoring her boyfriend to save her movie, Olivia draws the parallel between herself and her friend Tina. They are both interested in birthing something important to them.  But Olivia also writes:  I know you’re thinking it’s because I don’t love Michael enough. The right man would change that reflex in me. Like Stephen has changed you; if you weren’t married, you would have taken that promotion, right?” Olivia is asking Tina this question as if to say, despite our marital status, we are cut from the same cloth; right?  We are ambitious, skilled, and desire bringing something new into the world.

Suggested Strategy #3
When you are writing, think of someone you care for who makes different choices than you do.  Write to them showing that you understand and appreciate a particular choice. Then tell them about a choice of your own they might not agree with.  How can you explain it to them? What might you say that could help them understand that they actually think similarly?

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Come January, find a copy of The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters.  I believe that you will enjoy the story and find even more of Olivia’s letters good sources for successful writing strategies.