Better Than Dead

I once had a writing teacher tell me I was an incredible prose stylist—which was a pretty heady thing to hear from a teacher. But don’t worry, it didn’t go to my head. Truth be told, I didn’t like or respect him much—he was arrogant and needlessly and publicly cruel to a rather fragile young woman in the class whom I rather liked. So that mitigated my egoboo somewhat. I was considerably younger then and although I could write me some purdy sentences and liked writing them they weren’t getting me anywhere in particular. The striving for that literary style and for the approval it brought was choking off my own voice, my true writer self. At a certain point I moved away from the jewel-like sentences in favor of character and later plot.

Don’t get me wrong. The five-year old in me will always want approval, I’ve just had to learn to move beyond that, to do what I do even if nobody likes it. Otherwise, I choke myself into paralysis.

I am first and foremost a character-driven writer. Once an interesting character has their hooks in me, elaborate plots seem to spring fully blown from my head like tiny Athenas. I’m sometimes cursed by the weight of these plots and don’t necessarily always pull them off. In at least two novels I realized I had tried to write a duology or trilogy in one book. Neither of those has gone much of anywhere in quite some time. It’s exhausting even to think of breaking them up and doing massive rewrites.

Then came the years of caregiving and no writing at all and that was agonizing. It’s taken me a very long and arduous time to get back to anything like a regular writing practice—and I am still far from where I was. Part of me, especially when I read a work by an incredible prose stylist, wants to go back to writing jewel-like sentences. But the important part for me is to be true to my own voice and my characters and keep moving forward. I can throw in the pretty here and there, and I enjoy that, but the important thing is getting something on the page on a regular basis and worrying about the pretty and the atmosphere later. Call it what you will, but that’s a survival instinct for me, especially in these times of diminishing time. A person, a writer, can only be what they are and should be grateful to still be producing. I know I am.

Random quote of the day:

“That time
we all heard it,
cool and clear,
cutting across the hot grit of the day.
The major Voice.
The adult Voice
forgoing Rolling River,
forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge
and other symptoms of an old despond.
Warning, in music-words
devout and large,
that we are each other’s
harvest:
we are each other’s
business:
we are each other’s
magnitude and bond.”

―Gwendolyn Brooks, Paul Robeson

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Desus and Mero, Beyoncé, or the Marine Corps Marching Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Most of us only find our own voices after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people.”

—Neil Gaiman, Keynote Address, University of the Arts, May 17, 2012

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“I think ‘finding your voice’ is a false concept. It leads you to believe that it’s out there somewhere, like it’s behind the sofa cushions. I think your voice is always inside of you, and you find it by releasing things into your work that you have inside. I grew by allowing aspects of myself that I had previously excluded into my poetry.”

—Billy Collins, The Paris Review, Fall 2001, No. 159

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“Style results more from what a person is than from what he knows.”

—E. B. White, The Paris Review, Issue 48, Fall 1969

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Laurel and Hardy, Ariana Grande, or the Salvation Army Band. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

The first time I had a writer’s block of years’ duration was after my father died. I realized, in hindsight and after the words started flowing again, that I was blocked because I needed to redefine myself as a writer. I couldn’t tell the same old stories in the same old way. I had changed; my subject matter had changed; my voice was developing in new ways. When the words came back, it was to write something totally new—and when they came back, they came in a flood. I could hardly transcribe fast enough.

The good news was, after the torrent of words started flowing again, I was able to return to some of the older ideas and reshape them to my new self.

Now I am in the midst of another writer’s block of years’ duration. The words stopped first when I became so consumed by taking care of my mother that I didn’t have time for anything but caregiving and my job and trying to keep life together. My mother has been gone two years now, and still the words won’t come. I’ve poked hopefully at several of the things I’d been working on before crisis descended on our lives, and although I like several of those things, nothing happens.

A couple of weeks ago I had the same old epiphany: I need to write something new. I’m not the same person. I have a new subject matter. What that subject matter is hasn’t emerged. It’s not time yet. I still have to be a while longer in the space I’m in. I suspect, as with the last time, when those new stories emerge, they will come to me instinctually rather than intellectually. I won’t figure out the new subject matter in my head because it’s a soul process. And whatever it is, whenever it happens, it will be exciting to see.

Patience is what’s required of me now. And the ability to let myself be. And see.

Random quote of the day:

“Poetry is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”

—Adrienne Rich, What Is Found There

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“You kind of evolve into your voice. Or maybe your voice is out there, waiting for you to grow up.”

—Tom Waits, interview, National Public Radio, March 1, 2011

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

“You come by your style by learning what to leave out. At first you tend to overwrite—embellishment instead of insight. You either continue to write puerile bilge, or you change. In the process of simplifying oneself, one often discovers the thing called voice.”

—Billy Collins, quoted in Ben Yagoda, The Sound on the Page

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Random quote of the day:

 

“Some people hear their own inner voices with great clearness.  And they live by what they hear.  Such people become crazy…or they become legend.”

—Jim Harrison, Legends of the Fall

 

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.