On Being Open

Monday, July 20, 2009

I've been thinking lately about what it means to be open--specifically what it means to be open to other writers. I've been on the receiving end of amazing acts of kindness over the years, and I've also been on the receiving end of the sort of parched, sour behavior that really says: there's only room for one of us out there, so get out of my way, I'm not going to even talk to you, much less help you. I'm going to horde all of my limited resources for myself. It's easy to see which of these two types of people behaving in these two types of ways is happier. Openness and generosity is the product of an unclouded mind--a mind at peace. And the nastiness comes from fear, anxiety, envy, competitiveness. I have tried to learn, over the years, from the former, and to understand the latter as a cautionary tale.

Our friend Frank McCourt died yesterday. Not only was he a brilliant writer, an unparalleled storyteller, a funny, droll man who at the same time knew how to wring every possible emotion out of a situation--but he was also astoundingly kind. He had time for everyone. He gave of himself, and gave, and gave--and guess what? There was still room for more. More great writing. More political fund-raising for our local congressman. More hours to show up for events such as this one, which support a community after school arts organization. He was a special person, one I feel lucky to have known. His loss is tremendous and will be felt across the many lives he touched.

What is this thing, this openness? Who do some of us naturally lean in that direction, while others slam the door closed? Why does it seem, to some of us, that being open will cost us something of ourselves, when in fact, what it really allows is more room? Frank rarely said no. His answer to most of what was asked of him was a resounding yes--whether that yes was to an invitation to a book party for a younger writer, or a benefit where his presence would be helpful, or a comment for the back of a book jacket, or just simply a fun evening out. I have no doubt that those yeses--that spirit--fed his work. Openness, kindness, generosity of spirit. Something to remember and keep remembering.

On Self-Protection

Thursday, July 16, 2009

I've heard it said that writers have one less layer of skin than most normal people. We walk around just a bit more of ourselves exposed to the elements, to snippets of overheard conversation, to something we see on the street, to the remarks of perfect strangers. Really, it can't be any other way. That sensitivity is also where the work comes from. But sometimes the sensitivity can be hard to take, especially when it comes to dealing with the response to our work out there in the world.

Lately I have been thinking of my new book as a very young, unprotected child--perhaps a child just learning to walk--shakily moving away from me. It's still many months before publication, but I can feel it: the way it will be come something separate from me, something other, something that people will have opinions about, will weigh in on. It won't be for everybody. Some critic will take a swipe at it. Recently, there was a kerfuffle on Twitter about a writer who publicly lost it after receiving a negative review. The immediacy that Twitter allows, combined with the possibility of a brief public melt-down going viral, created a big mess for her. But I've got to say, I know how she felt. A bad review is a little bit like a kid being mean to your kid. When I have seen a child be even slightly cruel to my son, I hate that kid. I want to kill him. And not to take the books-and-babies metaphor too far, but it's a bit like that with a piece of writing. It's something close to the writer's soul, something nurtured and protected until ready to see the light of day--and then--SLAM. Wow. How to avoid feeling vulnerable to that?

A few months ago, a writer who had written the single most vicious review I had ever received--over ten years ago it still stings--friended me on Facebook. No note, no nothing. Just a friend request. I stared at it for a few minutes, the words of his review as fresh in my mind as if I had received it that morning. (A universal truth for writers seems to be that we never remember a single word from our good reviews. Only the bad ones stick.) Eventually I did accept him as a friend. Why? I don't really know. Maybe enough time had passed. Maybe I was trying to be a bigger person. Maybe I wanted to show him that I didn't care.

But I do care--we all care. Whether it's a review or a remark or a misunderstanding or even perceived indifference, we do care more than most people. To go back to the Martha Graham letter I quoted from the other day, we writers do walk around experiencing that queer, divine dissatisfaction. Someone once said--I think it was Valerie Martin--that there are three kinds of dispositions: a good disposition, a bad disposition, and a writer's disposition.

So what are we to do with our dispositions? How are we to protect ourselves, our shivering, naked selves from our sensitivity to all that is? I think the only answer, if there is one, is this: we wrap ourselves in the writing. The work itself is our cloak and our shield. It's all we've got. And the rest of it is none of our business.

On Doggedness

Monday, July 13, 2009

I have a love/hate relationship with the word doggedness. It means something more than discipline, but also implies a rather dull aspect. Dogged: tenacious, single-minded. Like a dog with a bone. But when it comes to a writing life, I think doggedness is underrated, and belongs on the list of characteristics every writer must ultimately have. I would say some of the other necessary characteristics, in no particular order, are:

Talent
Discipline
Patience
Fortitude

I was going to add "a strong constitution" to this list, but that one isn't strictly necessary. Just preferable, if a writer wants to live a long life. Maturity is helpful too, though I think maturity probably is included in the patience and fortitude departments. But so what do I mean by doggedness? How is it different from discipline? Discipline involves sitting down. Not making breakfast or lunch dates. Not answering the phone. Discipline means that your butt stays in the chair for a certain number of hours each day. Doggedness, on the other hand, involves staying the course. Putting on blinders to all that distracts you. Chewing and chewing on an idea like--yes, like a dog with a bone. Okay, and I hate to say this, but it's true, and most of us who teach writing won't publicly admit it--the all the doggedness and discipline in the world will only get you so far if you don't have talent. And talent is the thing that can't be taught. Craft can be taught, yes. But talent is ineffable. It's either there or it isn't. And some people have more of it than others. I've seen writers with buckets full of talent throw it over because they don't have the discipline or the fortitude or the doggedness. Or--and perhaps this belongs on the master list too -- the DESIRE. The burning, mad desire to do this thing, to organize words on the page until they form a picture. Until they make a kind of greater sense than you had even intended.

But one last thing about doggedness. In Ted Solotoroff's great essay "Writing in the Cold: The First Ten Years" he wonders where some of his most talented students have gone. Why he never sees their work in print any more. Why they seem to have disappeared. Perhaps writing in the cold was too much for them. They were talented, and determined. Certainly they had once been in the hands of a great teacher. Doggedness might have come in handy for Solotaroff's students. If the talent is there, the discipline, the willingness to stand a thousand small insults, the desire to be alone in a room creating, creating -- then add a small dollop of doggedness, and from that, maybe, just maybe, a lifetime of writing will emerge.

On Focusing on Results

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The other day, I had a long talk with a writer friend who's having a tough time. "If only I could see the future," she said, "then I'd feel better." I stopped myself from answering: "Wouldn't we all?" Wouldn't we all like at least a peek into a crystal ball? A life spent writing, more than most sorts of lives, is one lived as an act of faith. A glimmer of an idea becomes a sentence. A sentence builds to another sentence, then another. A paragraph. A few flimsy pages. Sometimes the whole mess gets thrown away. Other times, something begins to happen. A feeling, a sense of momentum, a shimmer around the edges that makes us thing that maybe, just maybe we're on to something here. So we keep going. If we're writing a book, the few flimsy pages become a pile of pages. The pile of pages becomes a novel, or a memoir, or a collection of stories. But still...there are no guarantees. Every writer I know has some version of the "if only's".

If only that literary magazine would accept my story.
If only I get that fellowship.
If only I sell this book.
If only I can sell it to a particular publisher.
If only they pay me _____.
If only they print enough copies.
If only it gets reviewed in ______.
If only Oprah picks it.
If only it becomes a (regional, national, international) bestseller
If only it moves from #16 to #7 on the list.

I promise you, all of these "if only's" are real, even though some of them might seem preposterous. When I was getting ready to publish my first novel, my agent at the time told me that she had an author who was #3 on the bestseller list, but was obsessed with #2 and #1. I was perplexed, somewhat disbelieving. Surely, I thought, a writer who has reached those heights of success would feel satisfied. (I still kind of think this.) But it did illuminate what I think is a universal truth for all of us writers, which is that nothing is ever enough. I've experienced this myself. I've received some great piece of news -- a rave in The New York Times Book Review, a second printing, a movie option -- and my mind almost instantly leaps to the next thing. Happy, certainly. Relieved, to be sure. But also, grasping. Wanting more. Wanting to see the future. Full of more "if only's".

I understand why this happens. It happens because in order to write anything good--anything that feels alive--a writer has put all of herself into the writing. Heart, soul, intellect--all in there. So what external result could possibly be enough, after years of immersion, years of struggle, of solitary grappling with the page? The answer is that there IS NO ENOUGH. The crystal ball, if we had one, would show us a landscape of peaks and valleys, ups and downs that are useless information for us.

All we have the right to hope for -- a teacher once told me -- is the chance to do it again. And again, and again. With no answers, no guarantees, no knowledge of the future. Only "a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching, and keeps us more alive than the rest."