Category Archives: Role of the Writer

Another Mystical Consideration

26 Wednesday Aug 2015

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Following my last post, I’ve got one other mystical consideration for you as you work to live as a writer*.

There needs to be attention given to the pace at which one lives in order to consistently produce creative work.
When professional or family life gets hectic, taxing my emotions and energy, I tend to slough off on my spiritual disciplines of prayer and reading scripture. I let time get the upper hand. This equation of being busy and non-meditative represents a great downward slide that is terrible for creative work.
I’ve had highly productive spurts in the throes of depression or when in a position of being victimized by the demands of my outer-life. Usually these spurts have come in the form of poetry or flash fiction. But they’ve been short and hot, like magician’s flash paper.
Circling back to the last post, a hectic pace does not allow for consideration and attention to whatever it is you’re handling. Nuance and focus are replaced by high volume (multi-tasking^) and spotty quality.
Long-term deep thought requires physiological space. That space will not come naturally or as a result of simply sitting down to write. You’ve got to plan for it. You’ve got to live your life in a way that will allow contemplation. Writing requires it.

*So that is two posts in a row where I’ve, as I put it last time, waxed mystical. Some of you are going to appreciate this sort of material, many of you won’t. That doesn’t really matter to me. I’ll tell you what I think you need to hear, dear reader. But since I tend to focus on the practical, craft-oriented, tangibles of getting the work done, you’ll likely find little of this in the future.
A little of this goes a very, very long way.

^Multi-tasking is for computers, not people.

You Are In No Position

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

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“You are your own worst critic.”
This is assumed to mean that you are harder on yourself and on what you produce than anyone else. This is probably true. You know more than anyone else. You see mistakes or hear a missed note. You know your vision for what you’ve created and this vision is your measure of success.
You probably do have some degree of understanding if something is working or not, but that is where it ends. You are entirely too familiar with and invested in your work to know how good or bad it is. Your understanding is subject to all sorts of tampering. You’ll find your own criticism of your work is usually more about meeting some ideal you’ve imagined than a fair evaluation of the work you’ve actually done.

While I can still stand behind this definition and agree that it has some value, I think there is a more helpful meaning. There is one that can do more to guide us and provide a bit more nuance, one that puts our focus where it should be.
I think the phrase means that you are in no position to evaluate your own work. Criticism of your own work is not good criticism. It is flawed. Your criticism is not balanced. It can’t be. It is not objective.

It is surprising how often my peers walk into the graduate writing workshop and make small talk before class starts about the work we’re about to workshop – their work. They say it is awful, just not good at all. Sometimes this depreciation of their work devolves into apologies and discussion of the next draft, as if this draft – the one we’re about to look at – is a loss.
This is not only bad form, but it is also making a terrible assumption. While it assumes that you can objectively evaluate your own work, it also assumes that the discussion we’re about to have in workshop is academic, that the outcome is set.
I’ve gone into a workshop submission very unsure of the quality of my writing and found my readers appreciated it more than I did. I’ve also gone into workshop with a piece that I thought was working quite well, only to received feedback that it wasn’t – feedback I could objectively only agree with.

You are your own worst critic, so find someone else to review your work. Put your energy into finding your own best critic, and then trust them to do their job. Make them your reader.
Your job is producing work. Focus there.

English Grammar – Principles and Facts

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

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Confession: I know/remember little about English grammar. Like math, I think any of the grammatical structures I learned in my formative years have since leached out of me like salt from a marathon runner.

This is on my mind because late last month I was in a graduate writing class and we were looking at a poem by W.B. Yeats. As we worked though Yeats’ use of metaphor and line breaks, our professor suggested we look at Yeats’ use of verbs. I looked down at the five stanzas lying in front of me. Instead of looking at Yeats’ verbs I began clearing the cobwebs – verbs…verbs…oh yes, action verbs…verbs ‘do something’ – it was like I was having to remember how to figure a percentage or convert a fraction to a decimal.
(BTW…Corporate America is who I blame. They have stupefied me with an excess of emails and meetings.)
My wife edits my writing. All my drafts go through her. This blog post was proofread and edited by her. You are fortunate for that. She said she is trying to teach me to quit spreading commas like grass seed.
I feel like a plumber who doesn’t know the difference between the fresh water line and the sewage main; doesn’t know when to use putty or epoxy. Does that metaphor carry? Does the one I used in the first lines about the marathon runner carry? Do I need to study up on metaphor, too?

So, I am going to take action (no word play intended). I have what I think is a good English grammar text called “English Grammar – Principles and Facts” by Jeffrey P. Kaplan. I got it at the bookstore at IU Fort Wayne about 20 years ago. It is fairly readable. I think I’m going to begin to hack my way through it.
My motivation is more than avoiding feelings of stupidity, although that will be a fine peripheral outcome. I want to be able to look at my writing from a technical as well as aesthetic perspective. Grammar is important. It affords predictable clarity to writing and gives ideas structure. I am a writer. I ought to know how the words I’m using are related to each other and see where I can improve the mechanics.
Tough to argue with that. [sentence fragment]

The Writer and I Know Very Little

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

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There are many ways in which the work of crafting fiction is very different from living life.
One of these is in the following adage – It is more important to sound like you know what you are talking about than to know what you are talking about.
In life we call people who live like this con-men/women or psychopaths. An attorney, truck driver, or thoracic surgeon who lives this way will likely eventually end up in jail. But in fiction it is a skill, even a great asset to be able to pull this off. At some point constructing a great story demands it.
How about an example.
I have a colleague who is working on a novel (it is shaping up very nicely!) about a newly-retired, washed-up, Afghani drug lord. A selection I read lately takes place in Hong Kong. After reading the selection I told the writer that I was impressed by the way this character – whom I had read in other settings – seemed so comfortable in this place, moving around with ease, navigating the city and going from place to place in his highly entertaining, character-specific way. I explained that I thought he’d melded character and setting very well.
I later learned that this writer has never been to Hong Kong, that such a place might as well be on the moon. This writer had done a thoroughly convincing job of sounding like he knew what he was talking about. I felt like I was reading about Hong Kong. I felt like I might, when at dinner with friends, be able to speak knowledgably about street life in a city 8,000 miles away. But then, I’d be living the adage. Risky business.
In the end, I was reading a story set in a place that looks like and has the same name as Hong Kong, a fictional place that both the writer and I know very little about. This conspiracy, this is one of the delights of fiction.

Applause

24 Wednesday Oct 2012

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I knew a guy in college whose name was Paul. Paul was a classical piano major. He practiced diligently for six hours a day – 3 in the morning and 3 at night – 7 days a week. He had discipline of which I knew nothing. When the time came, I went to Paul’s senior recital. He was serious that night as he sat down at the piano and played. He was also very expressive; his whole upper body pitched and leaned with the tone and pace of each piece. It was impressive. When he finished, he stood by the piano bench and bowed while everyone cheered. We then went into the lobby for refreshments.

I spoke to Paul later that evening. I told him that he had done very well. Paul said thanks. Then he went on to say that while all the people at his recital had been so enthusiastic, they had no idea what had gone into the evening. There had been no one applauding him each time he went into or came out of the practice room. Only he knew what it had taken to get there, and the applause was nice, but did not mean as much as those applauding thought it did.

On the list of things that motivate us to do our creative work, applause cannot be one of them. The praise of others cannot be guaranteed, nor should it be necessary. If it comes, good. But it will likely not come or come infrequently and unpredictably. Even when it does come, those doling it out are really praising you only for what they can see and hear. Applause is simply a few folks noticing, observing what you are doing in the moment. Applause has little to do with your reason for doing. I think this was Paul’s point.

Write What You Know, Seriously

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

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I recently had a conversation with one of our pathologists at work. He and I have had several conversations – great conversations. He is a very good conversationalist. We usually talk about ideas and their impact. Heady stuff. Bless his heart for entertaining me.

During this last conversation I learned that he has written most of a novel and several short stories. He went on to describe several engaging plots – stuff I’d like to read. While he surprised me with this revelation of creative work, he did not surprise me with the subjects he has covered in his writing – military history, airplanes, boats, guns, medicine. You see, I have had several conversations with this guy and he knows a lot about these things – way more than I do, and I’ll bet more than you do too.

Here is what I told him. Here is what I believe. I told him that he is uniquely positioned, most qualified, to be writing the plots he outlined for me. In fact, he should be writing these plots. When you have developed knowledge in an area, and you have an urge to write, you need to do it. You are sort of ripping us (the reading public) off if you don’t. You can do humanity a service. So, why in the world wouldn’t you?

Write what you know. Seriously. It is what others will find most interesting. It is what you have to give. What you think is pedestrian, your old-hat is, in fact, your best material. And readers are waiting.

The Thoughts We Have

29 Wednesday Aug 2012

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My brother and I had a good talk late one recent evening about the value of writing. Not creative writing necessarily, but journaling, writing for discovery. We discussed how many of the thoughts we have are of no value. They are truly unknowable because they never make it into language. We cannot really understand our thoughts without writing them, or at least, writing them is the best way to crack the code of our thoughts. When we write about anything – a problem, a feeling, a story idea – we find certainty. We find out what we know and we are able to poke at it, test it, outside our minds where there is objectivity. Language forces a structure, requires logic, drives conclusion and understanding. I don’t know of a better, so easily accessible tool for developing oneself.

But how does this relate to creative writing? The ideas you have for a story, until they are on paper, cannot be trusted. Many, many times I have had ideas that I thought were great, really going to make a difference in my story. I sat down to write them and there was nothing, there was only an imagination. Just as many times I have had only a phrase or a simple image come to mind which I nearly dismissed as a cobweb. But when I picked up a napkin to jot it down it opened up to all kinds of possibilities – sometimes forming cornerstones and critical turning points I had not seen coming.

You cannot trust what is in your mind. That space in there is too complex, too secluded to be a place where things come to be. Learn to pay attention to the scraps that the machine discards and don’t let it fool you into believing that it is the source of understanding.

Writer, Editor

01 Wednesday Feb 2012

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One discipline of writing that is very difficult is developing the invaluable ability to get an unfinished idea down on paper.

It is so tempting (and often automatic) to give in to yourself – your most immediate reader – and start editing as soon as an idea hits the front of your brain. To allow a pure idea all the way through to the paper without any editing is nearly impossible. But it is a rare and treasured thing. For it is not the quality of the expression or the idea that is so important to capture, it is what might come of one word or some other detail in that unfinished, raw scribble.

One reason this aspect of the discipline is difficult is that we have been trained, especially in business, to refine everything before release, and to refine as soon as possible. We are groomed to interrogate a thought or idea as soon as we have it, to strengthen and polish it, and then – only then – allow it to see the light of day. For many of us, this way of working is part of what makes us successful in corporate life. But, such auto-editing is designed to produce quality analytical output, not quality creative output.

There are many raw thoughts, raw words, that should not be trimmed back, that are truest without being refined. As we tromp around our creative orchards, it is not about well-trimmed trees and weed-free brambles. It is about spotting the nubs along each branch, recognizing them for what they are, and making space for them to take off. dm