Life or Art?

At a dance show last weekend, one of the pieces listed a few outside sources as inspiration. One was a story about Marcel Proust and a friend, who had quarreled over life and art: specifically, about whether an artist should be out and about, living life, or sequestered and dedicating himself to the craft. You can guess which side of the argument Proust, one of history’s most famous recluses, took. I can also imagine the friend’s parting thoughts as he huffed out: “You want to be alone? See if I ever visit you again!” I didn’t keep the playbill and was unable to find the specifics for this story, but that was the gist of it.

 

This always comes up, doesn’t it? What an artist should and shouldn’t be doing. Modern manifestations include various articles about how much social media time is too much for a writer, the classification given to some “celebrity authors”—those jetsetters who never turn down a conference or speaking engagement, warnings about the necessity to get your ass in the chair and write, every day, lest the cogs of your creative engine rust up and jam.

But it also brings to mind the oft-repeated instruction: “Write what you know.” How are you supposed to know about anything if you’re not living? Proust had a lot of opinions about a lot of things, most of them seemingly catered, as opinions are, to his own life. One of his common themes was that suffering is the root of all great art. He extolled the virtues of suffering and advised that when it comes, you should give yourself over to it completely. Distilling sorrow was like an exercise to him:

 

"When we endeavour to extract the general qualities from our sorrow and to write about it, we are somewhat consoled...Thinking in terms of generalities and writing comprise for the writer a healthful and indispensable function, the fulfilling of which brings happiness, as do for a man of a physical type exercise, sweating and the bath."

 

Suffering put you in touch with yourself, he argued, and made death seem like a release. And most importantly, it fueled the very best art.

“Works of art, like artesian wells, mount higher in proportion as the suffering has more deeply pierced the heart.”

What do you think? Does a writer need to suffer to write something great, or is empathy enough? How narrow would your writing be if you only wrote of your own experiences? Would it be enough? Where do you find your best inspiration—inside yourself, out in the world, or some combination of both?

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Bee Humble

I’ve been sequestered in my house for the past couple of months, determined to finish a collection of stories I’ve been working on for, well, probably a couple of years now. Or more. Who knows. I’ve been writing them off and on (more off than on), and was relying on inspiration rather than a strict schedule or preplanned outline. They are stories based on a simple premise—that archetypal human stories can present in unexpected ways. Maybe the “Boy Meets Girl,” story refers to two girls, or maybe the boy is already married to someone else. Stuff like that. The stories quickly began to shape themselves around three families and their circles. Then it turned out that so-and-so in story two actually knew the girl in story six, and so that became a thing, the interrelatedness. And at some point, maybe when I had ten or eleven of these pieces, I realized there needed to be some direction, some aim (didn’t there?), so I began to map out where I’d take it, just a few stories at a time. Still waiting for inspiration, for a scene to occur to me, some vivid moment from the life of anyone in the cast, past or present—didn’t matter.

 

Life intervenes, doesn’t it? Even though I began writing these stories to escape the pressures of writing a novel, the process started to take on the same flavor. I decided enough was enough, I needed to get the thing done, inspiration or not. So that’s where I’ve been for a couple of months and yesterday, I finished the first draft. I emphasize: first draft, because some of these latter stories felt forced and I worry that I began to take them on a novel-like progression that was not my original intention. I’ll be very interested to pick it up in a month or so and see if it’s cohesive or whether it’s happily not.

So I was feeling quite proud of myself yesterday, patting myself on the back for those shower-less days, the declined social invitations, the ignored temptations. Yes, maybe there had been setbacks, like being a half-hour late to pick up a certain someone at his soccer practice (who then said: I figured you were working on your book). I couldn’t read anything lengthy and towards the end, I wasn’t sleeping well. But I did it! The world stretched out before me, a new leaf. So many projects to be tackled now, so much to do. I decided to take the dogs on an extra long walk. They had spent many long hours with me while I toiled, never complaining. I put on their harnesses and hooked them to the double-lead leash.

Anyone who’s ever seen me walking these dogs knows the reason why there are harnesses. The dogs do not walk, they jog, and they do not wait for me. The effect is something like being hooked to a dog sled. So we’re walking (briskly) through the neighborhood towards our little lake. I take an unusual turn because someone has their huge German Shepherd at the lake and in general, I avoid contact with other dogs. Because, uh, my dogs will bark and lunge. They are in most respects, entirely naughty. We are just turning around a corner onto a busier street when I notice, suddenly, they we have stumbled into a swarm of bees. Long story shorter: me running, full speed, for two blocks, with bees following. Stop once to try and dislodge two bees from one dog’s hindquarter. Some screaming (mine), more running, until I’m completely out of breath and there are no more bees in my hair or the dogs’ fur. I actually ran into a friend shortly thereafter who, thankfully, had headphones on during her jog and did not hear or see my manic run.

The point, hammered home: you should never be too proud of yourself, or nature will conspire to teach you humility. Best to get back to work on something new. But maybe first I’ll take just one little day off and do something indoors.

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A Writer's Holy Days

November is National Novel Writing Month or, for those in the know, NaNoWriMo. The month-long challenge that began in 1999 with 21 novelists has evolved to a much larger production; lots and lots of writers log in and attempt to finish a complete novel (or at least, 50,000 words) during November. At the NaNoWriMo site (http://nanowrimo.org/), you can sign up and update your word count, socialize and commiserate with other writers, even read samples of what everyone else is doing.

But what I like best about this month of writer-mania is that whether you’re participating or not, everyone is talking about it. Which means, everyone is talking about writing. And for thirty days, it’s like the best club ever. Or it’s like Ramadan, or Lent, this group undertaking. And like those religious periods, it permeates your life whether you’re doing what you think you should be doing, or what you’d like to be doing, or not. Maybe you’ve jumped in with both feet, notebooks and outlines primed, ready to belt out that complete novel. Maybe you’re working on something, but can only manage 15,000 words over the course of the month. Maybe you’re not writing right now at all, but you’re thinking about it. Hearing other writer’s stories, challenges, and triumphs can only be encouraging. I like to hear about what everyone is writing and how they’re doing along the way. I like to remind myself that so many writers are out there, quietly plugging away, usually without notice.

I have participated in past years, and will be this year, sort of. Autumn tends to be a productive time for me anyway, so I’ve been working on that story collection, the one I keep saying I’m almost finished with. Well, I really am almost finished now, aiming for the end of October. In November, I’d like to get started on notes for the next thing, a novel of BIG IDEAS I’ve been ruminating over in a very dark corner of my mind. So I may not, technically, be writing in November (according to the NaNoWriMo requirements), but I’ll be in it with everyone who is. Rooting you on, feeling your joy and pain.

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Why I Blame the Irish for Halloween

I was feeling badly about feeling badly about this time of year. Specifically: Autumn, and even more specifically, what has become the month-long build-up to everyone’s second favorite holiday, Halloween. Because I’ve never been a big fan of Halloween. Sure, when I was a kid we had a great carnival at my school, complete with games where you could win cheap toys, a booth for face-painting, and a haunted house manned by the upper grades. It’s the costume part that bothered me. After we graduated past the plastic mask and gown phase of our very young years, during which I was often whatever my brother had been the year before (case in point: Speed Racer), we were left to our own devices when it came to Halloween costumes. You had to find something around the house. There were the standards—hobo, witch, “lady” (which basically involved a dress, socks for breasts and makeup)—and if you were more creative, maybe a cat or a cowgirl. I never really liked donning another identity, though, always found it more embarrassing than fun or liberating. I did enjoy the pillowcase full of candy which, back then, we were allowed to eat however quickly we wanted.

Fast forward: adulthood and then my own parenthood. You’d think that perhaps my heart would have warmed for the holiday but really, it hasn’t. I have found many of our own kids’ costumes, especially when they were very little, completely adorable, and yet, the parties and trick-or-treating with all the sweets and parading around—I don’t know, just not my thing. As they grew older, our kids would start discussing and often, stressing about their costumes way in advance of the date. And it's California--it's almost always too warm for whatever costume they've chosen. Afterwards, there are negotiations and downright sabotage (on my part) in regards to the obscene amount of candy they obtain. Because people nowadays hand out insane portions, not the bite-size candy bars we used to get. But that’s another rant.

I did some reading about the history of Halloween, hoping it might get me in the mood. I had the general gist of it: ancient harvest celebrations merged with Christianity’s All Souls’ Day. This is true. The origins of the holiday date back to a Celtic festival called Samhain (pronounced sow-in). About 2000 years ago, in the area that is modern-day Ireland. The celebration was for the new year, which began November 1, and to mark the transition from summer to winter. They believed that during this transition, ghosts returned to earth and it was a good time for the Celtic priests to divine the future.  Costumes were worn for protection from ghosts, and pranks and games were played.

And then yes, Christianity came and blended in. In 1000 A.D., All Souls’ Day was moved to November 2 in what is widely believed to be a Christian coup to replace the Celtic traditions with church-sanctioned ones.

Halloween made the jump from old world to new but by the middle of the 19^th century, it wasn’t widely celebrated in America. Not until the immigrant infusion of the late part of the century, especially the millions of Irish fleeing the potato famine, did Halloween become an American institution. Again, the Irish. Any parent with school-age children knows that now, ghouls and monsters have been replaced with superheroes and celebrities, that trick-or-treating is all about the treating and not really the tricking. Borrowing from European practices, things like superstitions and the wearing of costumes have been appropriated and made into the huge consumer spectacle we have today. 

So do I like Halloween more, having read about its origins? Not really. But here’s a nice little video to get you in the mood, in case you do. The history of Halloween, in a minute:
 

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To Edit or Not to Edit...

“I don’t strike out much. I write on... I do one draft. I do the editing in my head first. I very seldom change paragraphs and things around. I’ve heard that it’s very useful for people who do move things about to have a computer, but it wouldn’t suit me because I just write on.”

 

That quote is from Muriel Spark—-prolific, English author of biographies and novels, a great Dame who died in 2006 at the age of 88. What an organized mind she must have had to be able to edit before setting pencil to paper! She also maintained a stubborn writing process. She did all of her writing with specific pencils in notebooks she ordered specially from an Edinburgh stationer. If only we could all have such willpower and confidence.

 

I attended the Southern California Writers Conference this month, where I gave a workshop on editing. Not the kind you do in your head but the other kind. I like the setting of a workshop because it allows me to share ideas but I always come away with information for myself too. Writers have many different methods, unique strengths and weaknesses, and processes that range from disciplined to haphazard. But we were in agreement about the difficulties of editing. How do you gain the subjectivity you need to be ruthless with your own work? Where do you begin in the process, when the task seems so daunting? How can you cut big swaths of your most evocative and heartfelt scribbles?

 

I have no definite answers. It helps me to separate tasks and keep the writing far from the editing. During the process of writing, it often feels like I’m repeating the same imagery, the same phrases. It’s difficult to ascertain things like pace and progress. So I’m always pleased during a re-read when it seems to make any sense at all. Sometimes, I’m even very, very happy when I read for the first time. But that’s delusional and probably means I need to put it away for several months while I regain my grip on reality, right? Just this morning, I re-read something I wrote and while it had some glimmers of hope, I was apparently having a real issue with verb tense that day. She had done this or that, while he did it, and I felt the need to review some basic rules of grammar.

 

Not a good day for editing, today. Best to “write on.” Save the scrutiny for another day and just keep going.

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