novelist, essayist, teacher
Sometimes people ask me why I write. This is a good question, and one I’ll probably spend my life trying to answer. I usually say it’s because when I’m writing I feel as though I’m doing what I am intended to do. I say I write because I’m saner when I do than when I don’t. That one usually gets a chortle, although people sometimes step off to a safer distance. Probably wise. Snort.
Charleston, home of the Bloomsbury Group. Part of my ideal ‘home’
The other day in the Sharpening the Quill Writers’ Workshop I lead every month, I talked about what’s known as the Universal Story in narrative — the common structure beneath all kinds of narrative. It has a triune form (as do most fairy tales and religious imagery, but that’s something for another day) and consists of:
1. a beginning with what is familiar/comfortable … and how the protagonist is separated from the familiar.
2. a middle period of resistance and struggle
3. and finally and ‘end’ containing a transformation and return.
“Story” is more spiral than line.
Perhaps it was Philip Roth’s announcement that he’s throwing in the pen that got me thinking about retiring from writing, but the thought has been skittering about in the darker corners of my mind over the past few weeks. It could also be a merely my usual pre-publishing state of mind. My Best Beloved assures me it is. (Although I have no recollection whatsoever of feeling this way just before my other books were published, when I say this he just chuckles.)
On this snowy morning, rather than spend my time out frolicking with the Rescuepoo in the drifts (which I promise I’ll do in a few minutes, really, Dog… try and be patient!) I feel compelled to enter into the ridiculous fray surrounding what may be the most unlikely literary pairing I’ve heard in a long time — Elizabeth Gilbert and Philip Roth.
There’s a WONDERFUL essay in the New Yorker by Avi Steinberg, concerning the dust up, which you really should read if you’re interested in writing and/or writers at all. It is wise beyond it’s pages. I read it this morning and by, gosh, it got me thinking.
In the Japanese tradition of “Wabi-Sabi” that which is imperfect is considered deeply spiritual and beautiful.
I’m re-reading a great book right now, called THE SPIRITUALITY OF IMPERFECTION. Sounds tailor-made for me, doesn’t it? I know, I know.
This books speaks to me on several levels — as a person staying sober one day at a time, as a writer, and as someone seeking a closer relationship with the Sacred. In a nutshell, this book is about accepting the human condition, and finding meaning even within suffering. Not that suffering is required,you understand, but that suffering isn’t a sign of failure.
Today a woman told me she didn’t think she had a drinking problem because she never drank to feel better, or even to get high, the way others did; she drank so she didn’t have to feel anything. She found her emotions intolerable, and she drank aiming for oblivion. She wasn’t an alcoholic, she said, she was just self-medicating.
Okay. Yup. Sure.
The Stubborn Season, published by Harper Collins Canada
Because I am a little neurotic and insecure and oscillate between wanting to be left alone to write and wanting people to remember I exist — in short, you know, a WRITER — I have a Google alert set up. Sometimes it brings me wonderful things, as it did this morning when I was alerted to a truly splendid review by Nikki Brewer of my first novel, THE STUBBORN SEASON, and you can read it by clicking here.
I had a phone chat recently with a writer friend of mine. We both have books coming out this spring and are both dealing with the pre-publication jitters. His editor called him to say a blurb for the book had come in and it was a really nice blurb, but the ‘blurbist’ had suggested “a couple” of editorial changes. The ‘blurbist’ in question is a pretty well-known author and has a history with my friend so he was second-guessing himself.
Writers are pretty insecure folks (who isn’t?), and since the book business is SO subjective, it’s easy to be sent into an utter flap by such last minute ‘suggestions.’
We wake up this morning to more dreadful news. Riots and attacks in Libya, Yeman, Egypt. Good people dead. Intolerance and ignorance exploding everywhere.
I am prone, as I have said before, to the droops. The world gets me down. Some days more than others, and these days cruelty, selfishness, intolerance, ignorance and self-righteousness abound. An election year in America is enough to make one want to go back to bed and hide under the covers until it’s all over — and that’s without dreadful things like the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other staffers happening.
Students often ask me how I manage to get to the page. They want to know if I light candles, do yoga, drink coffee, read poetry . . . I answer yes to pretty much everything, although I do none of those things consistently. (And besides, I’m not sure any such advice is helpful to the emerging writer, who must ultimately find his/her own way to the page.)
Music to create to . . .
Still, there is one thing I do all the time: I listen to music.
