What does a writer do when he or she can't write? Some desire to create is there but nothing comes; distractions replace inspiration.
It happens to us all, perhaps serving as a break from too much mental activity, a needed dry spell. It is not a cause for alarm.
It has happened to me in my fiction writing in recent months: fatigue and other commitments have gotten in the way of developing several ideas I have for stories.
This week I decided to take action, and the remedy I found most useful: reading something of quality, with style. The novel I chose was the recent work of Andre Aciman, Enigma Variations.
It's too early to tell what I think of the novel, except that it is carefully crafted, full of detailed description, in this case of Italy at some time in the past; and for me, being absorbed in the author's language and dialogue is very helpful in moving out of my lethargy, not that it gives me ideas to borrow but something broader and harder to define: a sense of being connected to the world of words, a sense of borrowed confidence coming from an accomplished author.
I find myself intrigued by Aciman's exotic upbringing in Egypt, the son of Italian and Turkish Jewish parents who spoke mainly French at home, along with Arabic, Italian and Greek. What a cultivated milieu in which the young author was nourished, outlined in his memoir Out of Egypt. I envy such a cosmopolitan background, which is more important to me than his doctorate from Harvard or his teaching in New York, where he now lives, since it has produced a writer of high skill.
Reading anything of quality (I find that many things in the New Yorker give me a jump start when my energy flags) is an often overlooked necessity in the life of any writer. Two hours of reading might produce an hour or more of writing and the sense of relief that the well has not run dry.
Showing posts with label writer's block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer's block. Show all posts
Saturday, May 20, 2017
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
What should I write about?
I remember being a young would-be writer in my twenties thinking, Aren't all the topics taken? Haven't all the great stories been told? Perhaps it was the result of being an English major and feeling hopelessly inadequate.
Of course, I gradually learned that, with knowledge doubling every few years and the range of information seemingly infinite, there is no dearth of material to write about, of people to quote or comment on, of experiences that can be turned into stories.
In my writing workshop recently, a student submitted a piece on visiting a laundromat (launderette) for the first time. She assumed that everyone in America was like her: able to afford their own washer and dryer. But, facing a heavy, stained blanket, she decided that a larger washing machine was needed. She felt out of place at first, unsure what to do.
What she observed was a revealing cross-section of society: of people who avoided her gaze; they did not want to be seen publicly doing private things (folding their underwear). She began to wonder what led a twelve-year-old boy to sort, wash, dry, and fold the family's laundry. She wondered about class distinctions, the haves vs. the have-nots.
The result was a subtle narrative that resembled a short story but was, in fact, non-fiction: it had happened to her. Since it was brief, I suggested it be revised and submitted as flash non-fiction. I had recently read about Dinty W. Moore, who edits Brevity, an online journal devoted to flash non-fiction and who has written widely on this new genre.
I hope my student's work is published there or elsewhere; if not, it showed us that concerns and fears (writer's block) about being original are unwarranted if we just look around at our daily life-world: there are stories everywhere. We don't have to create them from scratch or wait for divine inspiration.
This, I hope, is encouraging to anyone who resembles my younger self many years ago or anyone who is stuck with "what will I write?" After all, it's the approach, the angle and style that we take to the ordinary that can make it extraordinary. What is personal is often universal (maybe always).
Of course, I gradually learned that, with knowledge doubling every few years and the range of information seemingly infinite, there is no dearth of material to write about, of people to quote or comment on, of experiences that can be turned into stories.
In my writing workshop recently, a student submitted a piece on visiting a laundromat (launderette) for the first time. She assumed that everyone in America was like her: able to afford their own washer and dryer. But, facing a heavy, stained blanket, she decided that a larger washing machine was needed. She felt out of place at first, unsure what to do.
What she observed was a revealing cross-section of society: of people who avoided her gaze; they did not want to be seen publicly doing private things (folding their underwear). She began to wonder what led a twelve-year-old boy to sort, wash, dry, and fold the family's laundry. She wondered about class distinctions, the haves vs. the have-nots.
The result was a subtle narrative that resembled a short story but was, in fact, non-fiction: it had happened to her. Since it was brief, I suggested it be revised and submitted as flash non-fiction. I had recently read about Dinty W. Moore, who edits Brevity, an online journal devoted to flash non-fiction and who has written widely on this new genre.
I hope my student's work is published there or elsewhere; if not, it showed us that concerns and fears (writer's block) about being original are unwarranted if we just look around at our daily life-world: there are stories everywhere. We don't have to create them from scratch or wait for divine inspiration.
This, I hope, is encouraging to anyone who resembles my younger self many years ago or anyone who is stuck with "what will I write?" After all, it's the approach, the angle and style that we take to the ordinary that can make it extraordinary. What is personal is often universal (maybe always).
Thursday, February 4, 2016
When writers get blocked
In one of my favorite movie comedies, "Throw Momma From the Train," from 1987, Billy Crystal plays a writing teacher named Larry, who is stuck on the opening of his novel. The movie opens with Larry at his typewriter.
Repeatedly, and with growing frustration, he types, "The night was. . .dark," and then scraps that and goes in search of other equally silly adjectives, hoping for the perfect word that will get him going, as if a strong opening sentence will lead to another sentence, and so on.
What kind of writing teacher is Larry? Maybe he deserves the student from hell, Owen (Danny DeVito), who has a mother from hell; she must be seen and heard to be believed. See the movie if you haven't.
Larry should know that trying to get it right the first time is pointless: there is no writing without revision, and the opening is usually one of the last things to be redone again and again. Equally missing in Larry's amusing notion of teaching is his stereotyped belief that writers must wait for inspiration, and also suffer, curse, waste paper and time, as if the perfect word and idea will magically appear.
Writers in movies often gaze at the stars, waiting for the Muse to inspire them. It doesn't work like that.
As I tell my students, it's normal and acceptable to write bad sentences; writing isn't brain surgery. It's all about redoing the sentences. The first draft is expected to be rough, and it is by forging ahead and "talking" it out on paper (or screen) that ideas emerge that can be shaped into something readable.
Hemingway, who says he revised the ending of "A Farewell to Arms" 39 times, wrote to a young would-be writer that if he completes ten stories, he throws out nine of them: only one is worthy of publication.
Even though Hemingway exaggerated a good bit, and lied, he was a good craftsman, a wide reader, and had sensible advice on the writing process, such as: Put the work aside until the next day. Know when to stop. And know that the draft will always be there for you to rework.
Writing doesn't have to be frustrating. It is not easy to think clearly, and it takes time and patience and an ability to sit still for a while. But it should be enjoyable, in the sense of fulfilling. If it isn't, why do it?
Are the half-dozen unfinished stories, and the eight or nine finished but unpublished pieces in my files signs of wasted time? No, they were enjoyable to do because I take satisfaction in re-writing, line by line, until I have something fresh and worth a reader's attention. I have begun dozens of articles over the years that never got completed, but the time put into them was a learning, and learning should at some level be enjoyable.
I worry about beginning writers who want to be published but don't really enjoy writing or have a sense of language; when they read, they do so for information rather than style. I suggest that they pay attention to the way skilled authors construct articles, stories, paragraphs, and sentences. Being a writer means immersing yourself for several years in the work of good writers before you even consider writing for publication.
Now, how do you know what writers are good? Don't ask teachers like Larry, who, like Owen in that movie, is a wonderful comic invention with no clue about what writers really do.
Repeatedly, and with growing frustration, he types, "The night was. . .dark," and then scraps that and goes in search of other equally silly adjectives, hoping for the perfect word that will get him going, as if a strong opening sentence will lead to another sentence, and so on.
What kind of writing teacher is Larry? Maybe he deserves the student from hell, Owen (Danny DeVito), who has a mother from hell; she must be seen and heard to be believed. See the movie if you haven't.
Larry should know that trying to get it right the first time is pointless: there is no writing without revision, and the opening is usually one of the last things to be redone again and again. Equally missing in Larry's amusing notion of teaching is his stereotyped belief that writers must wait for inspiration, and also suffer, curse, waste paper and time, as if the perfect word and idea will magically appear.
Writers in movies often gaze at the stars, waiting for the Muse to inspire them. It doesn't work like that.
As I tell my students, it's normal and acceptable to write bad sentences; writing isn't brain surgery. It's all about redoing the sentences. The first draft is expected to be rough, and it is by forging ahead and "talking" it out on paper (or screen) that ideas emerge that can be shaped into something readable.
Hemingway, who says he revised the ending of "A Farewell to Arms" 39 times, wrote to a young would-be writer that if he completes ten stories, he throws out nine of them: only one is worthy of publication.
Even though Hemingway exaggerated a good bit, and lied, he was a good craftsman, a wide reader, and had sensible advice on the writing process, such as: Put the work aside until the next day. Know when to stop. And know that the draft will always be there for you to rework.
Writing doesn't have to be frustrating. It is not easy to think clearly, and it takes time and patience and an ability to sit still for a while. But it should be enjoyable, in the sense of fulfilling. If it isn't, why do it?
Are the half-dozen unfinished stories, and the eight or nine finished but unpublished pieces in my files signs of wasted time? No, they were enjoyable to do because I take satisfaction in re-writing, line by line, until I have something fresh and worth a reader's attention. I have begun dozens of articles over the years that never got completed, but the time put into them was a learning, and learning should at some level be enjoyable.
I worry about beginning writers who want to be published but don't really enjoy writing or have a sense of language; when they read, they do so for information rather than style. I suggest that they pay attention to the way skilled authors construct articles, stories, paragraphs, and sentences. Being a writer means immersing yourself for several years in the work of good writers before you even consider writing for publication.
Now, how do you know what writers are good? Don't ask teachers like Larry, who, like Owen in that movie, is a wonderful comic invention with no clue about what writers really do.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Time and the Writer
No one ever has enough time, it seems, especially writers. Yet having too much time in my literary experience is more of a problem than being forced to follow a set schedule. It's so easy to procrastinate if you have an entire summer free, with no deadlines. The result can be the dreaded writer's block.
Most writers, certainly most successful authors, follow a schedule and find that they can do the daily tasks of living, along with a day job, while being committed to their craft in the mornings or evenings or in half-hour segments whenever they become available. Writing, after all, can occur anywhere, at any time.
Some beginning writers assume that, to write, they must stay at home or at their desk full time since successful authors are, presumably, full-time writers. Yet many authors have worked only part-time at their craft, but they have done so regularly.
I think of Anthony Trollope, who produced 47 vast Victorian novels while working full time as a postal inspector in Dublin--a job that he came to enjoy because of the people he came to observe; their gossip and scheming gave him material to build on. Setting a goal of 2,500 words a day, Trollope worked faithfully each morning from 5:30 to 8:30, then went to work.
The type of writing produced may not always have been inspired, but it was a draft that could be revised. Writing doesn't have to be great the first time around; it isn't like brain surgery.
I was reminded the many writers who have other full-time commitments while reading an excellent article online (via the Literary Hub) by a novelist who's also an oncologist, Ray Barfield, M.D. He is one of many people who manage to write as part of an active professional life--because they see that the two worlds are related. It's not a matter of multi-tasking.
Barfield makes some valuable comments about the importance of observation, something he finds that writers and doctors have in common. He says the world of medicine is not made of drugs, equipment, labs, and white coats but of "stories that situate the person, account for the past, impact the future, and offer a sense of what to do next." The good doctor listens and gets to know the patient. He or she is immersed in the drama of human life.
He asks the reader to imagine being in an ER where a man on a gurney is wheeled in, followed by woman carrying a red rose and a sombrero. Whether you are there as a medical professional or visitor, you will inevitably, says Barfield, pay attention to the woman with the rose and sombrero. That's why he says being a writer and being a doctor are so similar: they involve paying attention.
He quotes William Osler: "It's much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than to know which disease the patient has." Interns need to be trained to be curious about the lives of the people they treat; so too writers begin by paying attention to details and end up telling stories about what they see and hear around them.
Writing, then, is not a matter of genius or great talent; it demands many things, including a love of language and certainly an interest in people. And whatever time we can find in our busy lives to record the often amusing, shocking, ironic, or disturbing details of ordinary life might be enough--if we stay committed to the task.
Most writers, certainly most successful authors, follow a schedule and find that they can do the daily tasks of living, along with a day job, while being committed to their craft in the mornings or evenings or in half-hour segments whenever they become available. Writing, after all, can occur anywhere, at any time.
Some beginning writers assume that, to write, they must stay at home or at their desk full time since successful authors are, presumably, full-time writers. Yet many authors have worked only part-time at their craft, but they have done so regularly.
I think of Anthony Trollope, who produced 47 vast Victorian novels while working full time as a postal inspector in Dublin--a job that he came to enjoy because of the people he came to observe; their gossip and scheming gave him material to build on. Setting a goal of 2,500 words a day, Trollope worked faithfully each morning from 5:30 to 8:30, then went to work.
The type of writing produced may not always have been inspired, but it was a draft that could be revised. Writing doesn't have to be great the first time around; it isn't like brain surgery.
I was reminded the many writers who have other full-time commitments while reading an excellent article online (via the Literary Hub) by a novelist who's also an oncologist, Ray Barfield, M.D. He is one of many people who manage to write as part of an active professional life--because they see that the two worlds are related. It's not a matter of multi-tasking.
Barfield makes some valuable comments about the importance of observation, something he finds that writers and doctors have in common. He says the world of medicine is not made of drugs, equipment, labs, and white coats but of "stories that situate the person, account for the past, impact the future, and offer a sense of what to do next." The good doctor listens and gets to know the patient. He or she is immersed in the drama of human life.
He asks the reader to imagine being in an ER where a man on a gurney is wheeled in, followed by woman carrying a red rose and a sombrero. Whether you are there as a medical professional or visitor, you will inevitably, says Barfield, pay attention to the woman with the rose and sombrero. That's why he says being a writer and being a doctor are so similar: they involve paying attention.
He quotes William Osler: "It's much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease than to know which disease the patient has." Interns need to be trained to be curious about the lives of the people they treat; so too writers begin by paying attention to details and end up telling stories about what they see and hear around them.
Writing, then, is not a matter of genius or great talent; it demands many things, including a love of language and certainly an interest in people. And whatever time we can find in our busy lives to record the often amusing, shocking, ironic, or disturbing details of ordinary life might be enough--if we stay committed to the task.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Inspiration is Overrated
I am not a great believer in artistic inspiration, that is, in writers waiting for the muse to stir them into creative action. I believe in plunging in and getting started.
In addressing writer's block, a topic on my mind this week as I prepare to teach my annual writing workshop, I usually refer to my own experience and the comments of successful authors who value the importance of reading and observing as key ways to develop ideas for fiction or non-fiction. And I value the work of Julia Cameron, William Zinsser, and many others who advise beginning writers not to sit and wait but write: anything you jot down can become the beginning of something to develop.
Sometimes just paying attention to the people around you will be enough to provide an amusing or revealing incident that might figure into a piece of writing. Everyday, it seems, I hear something that I file away for possible use.
Today, a 94-year-old friend nearby, shuffling along toward her church with her walker, came to a low fence around a parking lot that impeded her progress, so she threw her walker over the barrier and then climbed across. It might have been only mildly amusing, if I had seen it instead of hearing it recounted. But knowing the lady involved, and what a determined Irishwoman she is, I suspect many stories could be told about her adventures in living.
So a valuable piece of advice for writers is: observe what's in front of you. Observe it closely. Make note of it. Maybe you can use it in some future writing. If not, the act of writing it out in your journal is itself a breaking down of a fear barrier.
Observing what's in front of us is one of those "centering devices" that keep us grounded in the present moment; the result is that our busy minds are less likely to be scattered and full of the tension that inhibits creativity. Being relaxed, and having no interruptions, is important.
Of course, a certain amount of "stage fright" is inevitable as we compose--and probably healthy as the unconscious mind thinks about potential readers. Getting started, even for an experienced author, can be a challenge. I think of how Hemingway worked: he wrote "one true sentence," then another; and soon he had a paragraph. Some days, that was enough. Even just one thoughtfully composed sentence was enough to build confidence.
I quote John McPhee: "If you lack confidence in setting one word after another and sense that you are stuck in a place from which you will never be set free, if you feel sure you will never make it and were not cut out to do this, if your prose seems stillborn and you completely lack confidence, you must be a writer."
(This is an excellent example, by the way, of those right-handed or periodic sentences in which the main idea is held until the end. We don't use them a lot, but they have a unique emphasis Concern with style is part of the revising process, once the initial draft has been done.)
A writer needs many things, patience and a good sense of humor topping the list; he or she should not expect divine inspiration.
In addressing writer's block, a topic on my mind this week as I prepare to teach my annual writing workshop, I usually refer to my own experience and the comments of successful authors who value the importance of reading and observing as key ways to develop ideas for fiction or non-fiction. And I value the work of Julia Cameron, William Zinsser, and many others who advise beginning writers not to sit and wait but write: anything you jot down can become the beginning of something to develop.
Sometimes just paying attention to the people around you will be enough to provide an amusing or revealing incident that might figure into a piece of writing. Everyday, it seems, I hear something that I file away for possible use.
Today, a 94-year-old friend nearby, shuffling along toward her church with her walker, came to a low fence around a parking lot that impeded her progress, so she threw her walker over the barrier and then climbed across. It might have been only mildly amusing, if I had seen it instead of hearing it recounted. But knowing the lady involved, and what a determined Irishwoman she is, I suspect many stories could be told about her adventures in living.
So a valuable piece of advice for writers is: observe what's in front of you. Observe it closely. Make note of it. Maybe you can use it in some future writing. If not, the act of writing it out in your journal is itself a breaking down of a fear barrier.
Observing what's in front of us is one of those "centering devices" that keep us grounded in the present moment; the result is that our busy minds are less likely to be scattered and full of the tension that inhibits creativity. Being relaxed, and having no interruptions, is important.
Of course, a certain amount of "stage fright" is inevitable as we compose--and probably healthy as the unconscious mind thinks about potential readers. Getting started, even for an experienced author, can be a challenge. I think of how Hemingway worked: he wrote "one true sentence," then another; and soon he had a paragraph. Some days, that was enough. Even just one thoughtfully composed sentence was enough to build confidence.
I quote John McPhee: "If you lack confidence in setting one word after another and sense that you are stuck in a place from which you will never be set free, if you feel sure you will never make it and were not cut out to do this, if your prose seems stillborn and you completely lack confidence, you must be a writer."
(This is an excellent example, by the way, of those right-handed or periodic sentences in which the main idea is held until the end. We don't use them a lot, but they have a unique emphasis Concern with style is part of the revising process, once the initial draft has been done.)
A writer needs many things, patience and a good sense of humor topping the list; he or she should not expect divine inspiration.
Sunday, September 14, 2014
When writers don't write
As I finish my first novel, hoping to end the long process sometime next year, I find myself taking breaks, sometimes weeks at a time, when I do no work. I feel no compulsion to hurry since I have no deadline, no editor or agent breathing down my neck (fortunately). I can take my time and think.
That's what writers have to do. Too often I suspect less experienced writers feel obligated to finish whatever they start as soon as possible, recalling their school assignments or the deadlines in their past. My wife, Lynn, has finally finished a short story that she began more than ten years ago. It needed time. Like me, Lynn thinks about her work off and on all the time.
Like much of our writing, various pieces of fiction sit on the back burner, simmering. We can lift the pot whenever we wish and when we do, we will invariably add, delete, and polish what we find there. Other pieces of writing are on the front burner: a month or two is enough time for them. (Non-fiction tends to require much less time: there are no characters to worry about, fewer descriptive details to add or delete, etc.)
So I was glad to find on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog a piece by Bill Hayes, advising writers not to write: not only can it be good for one's writing, he says, but it can be good for the writer. Some respondents were surprised at this advice, yet it is in keeping with what I have long been telling my students.
A reader responding today to the post by Hayes says, "I can go for months without writing a single word and then suddenly out of the blue I get inspired and write dialogue. . ." He/she reminds us that writing is about thinking: "To feel good about my writing, I have to spend time away from the keyboard and journal. I have to be curious about the things happening around me. . ."
In other words, a piece of writing, of any length, has to breathe. Horace, or one of the other ancient Roman writers, advised letting any manuscript rest for nine years before finishing and publishing it.
That's a bit extreme. But it's true that the overall process cannot be rushed; the creative-thinking activity comes at odd times and places (that's why I have little pads of paper in most rooms of the house since I never know when I will have an idea that I overlooked, a comment I need to add, a description that's missing in my draft of a novel).
To those who face writer's block, I think the advice here about slowing down, enjoying the process, and not feeling pressured to go public with your work would be helpful. Isn't much fear about the writing process based on worry about being able to complete it "on time"?
Being a writer is more than just writing: it becomes part of your life. Or I should say your "lives"--the real, everyday world of reality around you and the imagined reality of the story you are creating. I know that my work benefits from multiple revisions, each one coming after a suitable hiatus so I can read what I have composed with a fresh perspective. None of this can be hurried.
That's what writers have to do. Too often I suspect less experienced writers feel obligated to finish whatever they start as soon as possible, recalling their school assignments or the deadlines in their past. My wife, Lynn, has finally finished a short story that she began more than ten years ago. It needed time. Like me, Lynn thinks about her work off and on all the time.
Like much of our writing, various pieces of fiction sit on the back burner, simmering. We can lift the pot whenever we wish and when we do, we will invariably add, delete, and polish what we find there. Other pieces of writing are on the front burner: a month or two is enough time for them. (Non-fiction tends to require much less time: there are no characters to worry about, fewer descriptive details to add or delete, etc.)
So I was glad to find on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog a piece by Bill Hayes, advising writers not to write: not only can it be good for one's writing, he says, but it can be good for the writer. Some respondents were surprised at this advice, yet it is in keeping with what I have long been telling my students.
A reader responding today to the post by Hayes says, "I can go for months without writing a single word and then suddenly out of the blue I get inspired and write dialogue. . ." He/she reminds us that writing is about thinking: "To feel good about my writing, I have to spend time away from the keyboard and journal. I have to be curious about the things happening around me. . ."
In other words, a piece of writing, of any length, has to breathe. Horace, or one of the other ancient Roman writers, advised letting any manuscript rest for nine years before finishing and publishing it.
That's a bit extreme. But it's true that the overall process cannot be rushed; the creative-thinking activity comes at odd times and places (that's why I have little pads of paper in most rooms of the house since I never know when I will have an idea that I overlooked, a comment I need to add, a description that's missing in my draft of a novel).
To those who face writer's block, I think the advice here about slowing down, enjoying the process, and not feeling pressured to go public with your work would be helpful. Isn't much fear about the writing process based on worry about being able to complete it "on time"?
Being a writer is more than just writing: it becomes part of your life. Or I should say your "lives"--the real, everyday world of reality around you and the imagined reality of the story you are creating. I know that my work benefits from multiple revisions, each one coming after a suitable hiatus so I can read what I have composed with a fresh perspective. None of this can be hurried.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
When the Writer's Well Runs Dry
I have been unable to write much of anything lately. Blame the busyness of the coming holidays and the lack of quiet time. Or it may be just the necessary fallow period that many writers go through. It's not a matter of concern.
Sometimes they call it writer's block, but I see these dry periods when nothing quite interests me enough to focus on it as opportunities to observe. And wait.
Today I observed wintry trees--maples and sycamores--reminiscent of my northern youth. I keep reminding myself that we in central Florida do indeed have four seasons, as the cool weather and scattered yellow leaves attest.
What happened after this observing, other than memories of my St. Louis growing up? Not much. Then I connected it with gratitude. I was grateful to the universe for these beautiful trees. When all else fails, I can fall back on being grateful for more things than I care to enumerate.
I like the idea (advanced by David Steindl-Rast and others) that gratitude is the heart of prayer. True prayer for me is not asking for favors but affirming that life is good despite all the problems and realizing how fortunate or blessed my life has been. Usually this is done without words.
What else can writers do when the well runs dry? Invariably, in my case, reading some the vast material on the Internet will get me started reacting to something, or I will have a nagging question from a movie or book. Questions themselves can get writers moving, too.
I thought of this as I watched again Terence Malick's remarkable film,
The Tree of Life. I recommend using subtitles since the narrative is whispered, like a prayer.
There are many questions about memory and time, death and love, loss and hope in this richly imagistic film. What other movie, I asked myself, poses so many major questions about the meaning of life or presents its narrative and images in a cosmic context of time and eternity?
The film, like everything, has its flaws, but I am grateful to have seen it and to have had the leisure to see it again. I am grateful for the odd or imperfect things in nature, as G. M. Hopkins says in his poem "Pied Beauty."
When my friend John lent me last week the new collection of poems by Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings, I was struck by their bold clarity and colloquial directness. I was reminded at times of Rumi, yet the voice of this American poet (new to me) is original. I wanted to write about the poems, but what response can I there to such memorable pieces of art? And: how did these poems emerge? What is the creative process that leads some people inward and then outward into verse?
All I can say is that I am grateful to have questions to think about, even if I don't feel moved to write. The well is never really dry; it just seems that way.
Sometimes they call it writer's block, but I see these dry periods when nothing quite interests me enough to focus on it as opportunities to observe. And wait.
Today I observed wintry trees--maples and sycamores--reminiscent of my northern youth. I keep reminding myself that we in central Florida do indeed have four seasons, as the cool weather and scattered yellow leaves attest.
What happened after this observing, other than memories of my St. Louis growing up? Not much. Then I connected it with gratitude. I was grateful to the universe for these beautiful trees. When all else fails, I can fall back on being grateful for more things than I care to enumerate.
I like the idea (advanced by David Steindl-Rast and others) that gratitude is the heart of prayer. True prayer for me is not asking for favors but affirming that life is good despite all the problems and realizing how fortunate or blessed my life has been. Usually this is done without words.
What else can writers do when the well runs dry? Invariably, in my case, reading some the vast material on the Internet will get me started reacting to something, or I will have a nagging question from a movie or book. Questions themselves can get writers moving, too.
I thought of this as I watched again Terence Malick's remarkable film,
The Tree of Life. I recommend using subtitles since the narrative is whispered, like a prayer.
There are many questions about memory and time, death and love, loss and hope in this richly imagistic film. What other movie, I asked myself, poses so many major questions about the meaning of life or presents its narrative and images in a cosmic context of time and eternity?
The film, like everything, has its flaws, but I am grateful to have seen it and to have had the leisure to see it again. I am grateful for the odd or imperfect things in nature, as G. M. Hopkins says in his poem "Pied Beauty."
When my friend John lent me last week the new collection of poems by Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings, I was struck by their bold clarity and colloquial directness. I was reminded at times of Rumi, yet the voice of this American poet (new to me) is original. I wanted to write about the poems, but what response can I there to such memorable pieces of art? And: how did these poems emerge? What is the creative process that leads some people inward and then outward into verse?
All I can say is that I am grateful to have questions to think about, even if I don't feel moved to write. The well is never really dry; it just seems that way.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Where does good writing come from?
Listening to four short plays performed last night, the work of a friend, Lenny Roland, led to a brief discussion with the playwright.
Where do your ideas come from? she was asked. It was obvious that they come from having a good ear for the off-beat and interesting potential of everyday life. Driving to the airport, dealing with the frustrations of telephones, or trying to cope with hospital bureaucracy can provide a writer with material. As Lenny said after the performance, "There is material everywhere."
She meant her family, with its various crises, which she turns into comedy; or her friends, which are also the stuff of close observation, notetaking, and writing. There is a popular myth about writers waiting for the muse of inspiration to strike them--and being frustrated when it doesn't. All we have to do is look and listen to the world around us and write.
And rewrite. Like every writer, Lenny emphasizes what the audience could not guess: that each line of each play was altered, moved, and recast as it was read aloud and performed.
Why write plays, I wonder--the most difficult of literary genres? Fiction allows the writer to explain and describe characters, setting, and action that the playwright must convey solely in dialogue. Having written in various genres over the years, Lenny, a great lover of Broadway shows, wanted the challenge, I suppose, of bringing her characters to life through speech. This requires a discerning ear and a wide exposure to various types of people and speech patterns.
Every writer has his or her own reasons for writing, his own method and approach, yet we all share the need to be read or heard. I am glad that Lenny Roland, whose plays were performed by professionals from the Mad Cow Theatre in Orlando, had an appreciative audience as well as skilled readers.
For the rest of us, who work alone with little recognition, often for years, the best reward can be satisfying ourselves that we are enjoying the process of creating something new. And there is always the possibility that a friend or two will comment on the pleasure our work has afforded them. This, not publication, is all that matters. Well, most of the time.
Where do your ideas come from? she was asked. It was obvious that they come from having a good ear for the off-beat and interesting potential of everyday life. Driving to the airport, dealing with the frustrations of telephones, or trying to cope with hospital bureaucracy can provide a writer with material. As Lenny said after the performance, "There is material everywhere."
She meant her family, with its various crises, which she turns into comedy; or her friends, which are also the stuff of close observation, notetaking, and writing. There is a popular myth about writers waiting for the muse of inspiration to strike them--and being frustrated when it doesn't. All we have to do is look and listen to the world around us and write.
And rewrite. Like every writer, Lenny emphasizes what the audience could not guess: that each line of each play was altered, moved, and recast as it was read aloud and performed.
Why write plays, I wonder--the most difficult of literary genres? Fiction allows the writer to explain and describe characters, setting, and action that the playwright must convey solely in dialogue. Having written in various genres over the years, Lenny, a great lover of Broadway shows, wanted the challenge, I suppose, of bringing her characters to life through speech. This requires a discerning ear and a wide exposure to various types of people and speech patterns.
Every writer has his or her own reasons for writing, his own method and approach, yet we all share the need to be read or heard. I am glad that Lenny Roland, whose plays were performed by professionals from the Mad Cow Theatre in Orlando, had an appreciative audience as well as skilled readers.
For the rest of us, who work alone with little recognition, often for years, the best reward can be satisfying ourselves that we are enjoying the process of creating something new. And there is always the possibility that a friend or two will comment on the pleasure our work has afforded them. This, not publication, is all that matters. Well, most of the time.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Writing in the New Year
One of the first things I read on this first day of the new year was an interesting statement--for anyone who writes--from John McPhee (in the Paris Review, reprinted in today's NYTimes):
"I think it's totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."
As I work on the beginnings of a piece of fiction--a rare venture for me--I appreciate this admission by a noted author. Each piece takes us back to the beginning, in a sense, and we have to remind ourselves that, despite the misgivings, we really do know what we're doing, that our experience as readers and writers will lead us eventually out of the pit of writer's block. That McPhee uses the word "rational" is curious since the issues involved are largely emotional: fear of the blank page, of wasting time, of facing our inner selves.
One of my Christmas gifts was a book by the master stylist Gay Talese, A Writer's Life, in which he confesses--after explaining the slow, "Stone Age method" by which he works to create what look like effortless sentences--that he produces prose "with the ease of a patient passing kidney stones."
Hyperbole aside, his admission is refreshing, and he rewards himself after a morning of such labor by having a fine lunch in a New York restaurant because writing, as he and many others have attested, is indeed hard work. He lingers over each sentence, he says, "until I conclude that I lack the will or the skill to improve upon it..." The results are invariably wonderful--for the reader.
Part of every writer's challenge, as McPhee's statement suggests, is that combination of distraction, loneliness, and restlessness often called acedia, which is not (despite what Kathleen Norris suggests) a type of depression but of fear: like the early medieval monks in the desert, the writer facing an entire morning of work, freezes. There is too much time and yet not enough, perhaps. How do I begin to make myself clear, and how can I stay focused on the task at hand and not be lured by the beauty of the day or the inviting phone call?
This is the great challenge of the contemplative life, which English professor John Plotz discussed wisely in The New York Times Book Review last week. Solitary, cerebral, sedentary work of any kind, especially writing, can lead to acedia. When you add in our conscious or unconscious sense of readers (who are likely to be critical), the fear intensifies. The early monks knew how to anticipate and deal with the problem, and it didn't keep them from continuing to live contemplatively.
What I tell my writing students is that, as much as we can gain comfort from the struggles of other writers, we must adopt a positive attitude toward ourselves and our work. Any start we make, any draft, any sentence we write is a step in the right direction; the roughest of outlines can help us bridge the gulf between creativity and despair.
So my new year's wish to anyone who writes is that you have the courage to forge ahead. There's no other way to write than to write: maybe just one sentence will lead to another...
The difficulties of the solitary work of a writer are real but utterly human and nearly universal. Be skeptical of those who dash off essays in 30 minutes. Value revision. Reward yourself for any good sentence you produce; rejoice over every paragraph you have revised.
Any beginning you make is a beginning. Build on that and keep going. The rewards of the struggle will become apparent; eventually, you will enjoy the process, as Talese surely does despite his agony. As every good writer does, even those who say they hate to write but love to have written. (I enjoy both; generally, the process of producing an article is more rewarding than its publication.)
To give up or postpone writing might be to deny that part of your soul that needs nurturing, just as the soul of the contemplative needs the daily exercise of silence and prayer. Any struggle is holy: it leads to wholeness. I see writing as a spiritual activity, in case you haven't guessed. Happy new year!
"I think it's totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to start something. Why not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."
As I work on the beginnings of a piece of fiction--a rare venture for me--I appreciate this admission by a noted author. Each piece takes us back to the beginning, in a sense, and we have to remind ourselves that, despite the misgivings, we really do know what we're doing, that our experience as readers and writers will lead us eventually out of the pit of writer's block. That McPhee uses the word "rational" is curious since the issues involved are largely emotional: fear of the blank page, of wasting time, of facing our inner selves.
One of my Christmas gifts was a book by the master stylist Gay Talese, A Writer's Life, in which he confesses--after explaining the slow, "Stone Age method" by which he works to create what look like effortless sentences--that he produces prose "with the ease of a patient passing kidney stones."
Hyperbole aside, his admission is refreshing, and he rewards himself after a morning of such labor by having a fine lunch in a New York restaurant because writing, as he and many others have attested, is indeed hard work. He lingers over each sentence, he says, "until I conclude that I lack the will or the skill to improve upon it..." The results are invariably wonderful--for the reader.
Part of every writer's challenge, as McPhee's statement suggests, is that combination of distraction, loneliness, and restlessness often called acedia, which is not (despite what Kathleen Norris suggests) a type of depression but of fear: like the early medieval monks in the desert, the writer facing an entire morning of work, freezes. There is too much time and yet not enough, perhaps. How do I begin to make myself clear, and how can I stay focused on the task at hand and not be lured by the beauty of the day or the inviting phone call?
This is the great challenge of the contemplative life, which English professor John Plotz discussed wisely in The New York Times Book Review last week. Solitary, cerebral, sedentary work of any kind, especially writing, can lead to acedia. When you add in our conscious or unconscious sense of readers (who are likely to be critical), the fear intensifies. The early monks knew how to anticipate and deal with the problem, and it didn't keep them from continuing to live contemplatively.
What I tell my writing students is that, as much as we can gain comfort from the struggles of other writers, we must adopt a positive attitude toward ourselves and our work. Any start we make, any draft, any sentence we write is a step in the right direction; the roughest of outlines can help us bridge the gulf between creativity and despair.
So my new year's wish to anyone who writes is that you have the courage to forge ahead. There's no other way to write than to write: maybe just one sentence will lead to another...
The difficulties of the solitary work of a writer are real but utterly human and nearly universal. Be skeptical of those who dash off essays in 30 minutes. Value revision. Reward yourself for any good sentence you produce; rejoice over every paragraph you have revised.
Any beginning you make is a beginning. Build on that and keep going. The rewards of the struggle will become apparent; eventually, you will enjoy the process, as Talese surely does despite his agony. As every good writer does, even those who say they hate to write but love to have written. (I enjoy both; generally, the process of producing an article is more rewarding than its publication.)
To give up or postpone writing might be to deny that part of your soul that needs nurturing, just as the soul of the contemplative needs the daily exercise of silence and prayer. Any struggle is holy: it leads to wholeness. I see writing as a spiritual activity, in case you haven't guessed. Happy new year!
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