Much thanks to Brian Henry for the levity and encouragement that comes into my inbox each week via the helpful blog Quick Brown Fox.
It's been several years since I first decided to take a creative writing course. I signed up for the continuing education class "Writing the Novel Part 1" at Sheridan College in Oakville. Since then, I've amassed enough notes to light a fire and keep myself warm for decades, or at least roast a few marshmallows.
Here's are some of my favourite bits of advice:
Portrait of Hemingway by artist Ryan Sheffield. I'm not a big Hemingway fan (a bit too 20th century misogynist for my taste) but I do enjoy the following quote...
"As a writer, you should not judge, but seek to understand." - Hemingway
I love this particular quote, because as in writing, in the rest of life, too. Bill Bullard writes, "Opinion is really the lowest form of human knowledge. It requires no accountability, no understanding. The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding."
The characters I love in fiction are the ones an author has managed to make me care deeply about. Fiction, I find, often tells the truth about life, even more so than non-fiction. I realize that if my heart doesn't break a little now and then, if I lack compassion for others, my characters will have a one-dimensional quality. They will always lack flaws, humanity and the capacity for redemption unless as a creator, I discover those same qualities in real people, in this present moment.
As a person, I need to put the breaks on my very quick-to-judge temperament. Sadly, this is not my default setting. Judgement (or, shall we say, discernment, such a nicer sounding word) is a bi-product of high expectations. It's evil cousin, begrudgery, is the armour I enjoy wearing to avoid admitting hurt. I'm learning that anger is an easier emotion to carry than bruised feelings, which seem so wimpy. It’s funny how one can see how counterproductive anger is in fictional characters (hello Anne Shirley) but miss its destruction in one’s own life.
I often pray, “help me be softer” and quickly follow up with “just kidding”. I’m working on “help me understand” but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m terrified of actually being transformed by empathy. I like my worldview the way it is; I like constancy, permanency and solid foundations. But that doesn’t make for an interesting book, or an interesting life. A plot means interruption. A stranger comes to town, someone takes a journey. I’m conscious of my own character arc, and often wish I had a plot outline for life.
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow
In my writing group, we despair and laugh together about convoluted plots, superfluous characters and illogical reactions to the action in the novel, not to mention lackluster beginnings and endings, villains who are not villainous enough or protagonists who are too perfect, and therefore boring. Sometimes we want to give up on projects, on writing, on finding that one perfect sentence. But we don’t. We keep coming back to it, week after week, spurring one another on to submit short pieces, to finish the next outline, to query another agent because we know that any creative endeavor has a beginning, a middle and an end, and like life itself, we can’t see the whole thing at once. It is an act of faith, and like faith, better journeyed with others.
“When you write a story, you’re telling yourself the story. When you re-write, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.” – John Gould, as told to writer Stephen King
I finished my first manuscript earlier this year and then took it away for a week to cut out everything that wasn’t the story. One of my favourite scenes I wrote YEARS ago, and I was having a hard time parting with it, because I was attached to the humour. My protagonist, Vivian, was dealing with the fallout of discovering her husband’s philandering, and while at the dentist, is offered “complimentary services” (this is a new thing– botox and teeth cleaning). So she goes for broke, and comes out swollen and duck-lipped (although her teeth are very white). This forces her into isolation for a few days, where she must confront her hurt, which she’s been suppressing since the beginning of the novel.
I loved the chapter, I loved the creepy dentist and the intersection of vanity and vulnerability etc etc. But in the end, it was 3,000 words that didn’t move the plot along fast enough, so on the chopping block it went.
These days, writing a first draft, I pause and ask myself, “Is this the story?” and if the answer is no, I start the chapter over.
A writer I admire, who may have fallen into obscurity, but who holds a special spot in my heart. http://rrj.ca/the-writer-who-really-schmecked-2/
“You write your first book and go from being a relative unknown to obscurity.” – Melodie Campbell
This was advice I received from that first writing course in Oakville a few winters ago. I remember taking this to heart, because it spoke to the idea that one could not rely on publication for validation. Writers, and indeed, everyone, must come to a place where they realize they are already enough.
I think of this whenever I choose a book at random from the stacks at the library. I feel like saying to the writer, “we haven’t met, but I’m glad you exist.”
I think of this when I meet authors in their day jobs, knowing they will squeeze in their art late at night or early in the morning.
I think of this when I’m at my day job. (More on that in another post.)
I think of this whenever someone who overshares on social media suddenly reveals that (surprise!) nothing is as it seems. The perfectly-curated life is a farce and they are a.) unhappy b.) poor or c.) both. The people I know in real life are possibly happy, unhappy, rich or poor but they are first and foremost known.
I think of this when I recall Anne Lamott telling her Sunday School children they are ‘pre-approved.’
If you write, it has to be for the pleasure of writing the story. If, someday, people you don’t know find pleasure reading the story, how lucky are you? If you sell a million copies of your next book, you’ll fill your bank account. If you keep creating, you’ll fill your soul.
There’s light to be found in dark places, like obscurity.
Thanks for keeping it real Charles Schultz. We miss you.