Writers: Cover Your Mirrors

Recently, I was watching this documentary called Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet. It’s sort of a day-in-the-life view of the way a ballet company is run and into the lives of its dancers—the politics, the training, the sacrifices. The discipline it takes to be a dancer always amazes me. Most start at a young age and are sent away for training. Most love their vocation passionately. At one point during the film, a dancer is discussing the challenges of working with different choreographers. He talks about switching from, say, a classical ballet one week, to a modern piece the next. He mentions a certain modern dance choreographer who likes to cover the mirrors in the studio, because the ballet dancers are accustomed to “correcting” themselves. That is, they are constantly checking in the mirror that the lines of each arm, each leg, are correct. They check their posture, the turn of their feet, the curve of their backs—basically, everything they’ve been trained to do from an early age. The choreographer of the modern piece wants them to focus more on feeling and emoting, and not worry so much about perfection.

I found this so interesting, and it leads my thinking in two directions. First, to an ongoing discussion I had with a friend during my college years. This friend liked to read mostly twenty-first century stuff, had a thing for ee cummings if I remember correctly, and didn’t hold a reverence for the literary classics. I, on the other hand, was resolutely working my way through a list I had found somewhere, something like 500 Classics You Have to Read to Be a Worthwhile Person, and I was finding many of them quite incredible, of course. So our argument was framed around the question of whether you should immerse yourself in what has come before to move forward, if there is a value to studying what the higher-ups have determined to be the canon. I have no answer for this, even now, although I’m happy to have read enough to feel part of the literary conversation. At least the American literary conversation, and enough to dip my toes, perhaps, into a discussion of worldwide literature. But when it comes to writing your own stuff, you really have to find your own way, without regard to what has come before. I would say that each writer’s path is probably different but as long as you’re reading something, all the time, you’ll be okay.

The other way my thinking goes, when I contemplate those covered mirrors in the dance studio, is towards what the choreographer described as emoting. There seems to be, for writers, a delicate balance between looking outward and looking inward. If you are too introspective, too self-aware when it comes to the world, you will probably write the same character over and over. This works for some writers. And I would say that tapping into your own experiences and emotions is very important in the process of writing. Sometimes, however, I think it’s helpful to cover the mirrors and try to look outward. Be a conduit rather than the source. Observe without applying it to yourself. Imagine another way of viewing a situation, another value system, simply perceive without applying your usual patterns of thought. This takes a certain discipline, I suppose, and eventually you’ll have to restrain yourself to a pen and paper or a keyboard, doing as so many who have come before have done. But if you love your vocation passionately, you’ll have no other choice but to keep bouncing from what you’ve learned to the brave new world you want to create, no choice but to keep showing up, day after day, to practice.