Sublime Summer

As I slowly shape a syllabus for the fall, finish up with my summer interns, and start fleshing out the bones of my calendar for the year, I panic a little. I am not ready for summer to end. The produce in season, the weather, the slightly more open schedule... all of it is so delightful!

I don't want to waste any lingering opportunities, so this week I tried to cram in as much as I could. I grabbed all the little grape tomatoes left on the vine in my teeny garden. Each one is a shiny and impossibly red orb of goodness. I am putting them in omelettes and tuna salads and veggie sandwiches. Tonight I roasted an eggplant into unbelievable creaminess for dinner. Yesterday I bought an extra half-pint of berries at the store, already mourning their absence.

Today I jumped on my bike and rode feverishly to the beach, not wanting to miss any chance of being outside. At night I am reading as much as I want because my mornings can start just a little bit slower. And finally, I'm trying my best to get a little writing done. As you probably know already, being creative is not something you can just turn on like a faucet. But I do not have time to really "get in the mood" or "find my muse." There are some things I want to write down or at least lay out for future chipping away.

So I have thinned out my schedule for the month, taking a break from some of the consulting I do week to week. I am reading a whole bunch of different things, then scratching down various thoughts and quotes and nuggets.

I'm also trying to figure out how to better integrate writing into my life on a more consistent basis. So as I mentioned in my previous post, I'm trying to learn from far better authors who have gone before me. Here are some of their wise words... though I haven't come to any conclusions yet as to writing looks like for me, their words are moving and motivating.


The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. Anais Nin

Something that irritates you and won’t let you go. That’s the anguish of it. Do this book, or die. You have to go through that... Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance... When you're writing, you're trying to find out something which you don't know. James Baldwin

Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. William Faulkner

I can't imagine not writing. Writing simply is a way of life for me. William Goyen

The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it. Hemingway

As a writer, I do more listening than talking. W. H. Auden called the first act of writing “noticing.” He meant the vision—not so much what we make up but what we witness. John Irving

If you persist in doing something, sooner or later  you will achieve it. It's just a matter of persistence -- and a certain amount of talent. Wm. Kennedy

I am compulsive about writing, I need to do it the way I need sleep and exercise and food and sex; I can go without it for awhile, but then I need it. John Irving

One of the most difficult things is the first paragraph. I have spent many months on a first paragraph, and once I get it, the rest just comes out very easily. In the first paragraph you solve most of the problems with your book. The theme is defined, the style, the tone. At least in my case, the first paragraph is a kind of sample of what the rest of the book is going to be. That’s why writing a book of short stories is much more difficult than writing a novel. Every time you write a short story, you have to begin all over again. Gabriel Garcia Marquez

You are always concentrated on the inner thing. The moment one becomes aware of the crowd -- performs for the crowd -- it is spectacle. It is fichu (done for). Jean Cocteau

At the time of writing, I don't write for my friends or myself, either; I write for it, for the pleasure of it. Eudora Welty

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. Hemingway

I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Hemingway

Dream a Little Dream

I have books all over my house. My home office is filled with three separate six-shelf bookcases, crammed with books (and there is a stacker in the closet that holds a bunch more). My living room holds all of my housemate's books, and my bedroom has another shelf of books on the wall, a maple table with books, and my bedside table has about ten books lined up on it. As I mentioned last month, I have now entered the Kindle world, so now my crazed book ownership can go somewhat underground.

The books next to my bed are my "secret stash," books I have acquired over several years, most of which I have not read. I sometimes wonder if I enjoy owning them more than reading them, because I am unconsciously so hesitant to read them.

I should mention that every single one is about the craft of writing.

If I sit and analyze this a bit (as I am doing right now), I think there are several competing reasons for my resistance to reading them. Most strongly, I think of these books as treasures that I do not want to fritter away carelessly. I want to read them when I can truly enjoy them. I am the sort of person who eats the frosting last when eating a piece of cake. I am good at delaying gratification. These books are the ultimate dessert for me.

But I also know that a rather large part of me is slightly afraid of these books as well. To read them feels like I am claiming that I am a writer, and I am not ready to do that. I certainly love to write, but in no way would I call myself a writer. Yes, I have written some articles, but those are three to four pages at most, and emerge out of my own experience and training. I would not say they truly emerge out of some deeper place, though at times I have twiddled with the edges of it.

Lastly, there is a part of me that feels pressure: once I finish these books, there will be no more excuses. No longer would I be able to say that I cannot start writing until I have learned how to do "it." Believe me, I know that is completely lame and one only learns how to write by writing, and rest assured, I do that almost every day. I just haven't figured out if I want to go further than that. I love everything I am working on in my life, but many times I have had the conversation of whether or not I have at least one book in me...

So this week, I had some space to let myself pull out one of my precious treasures. There is only one other book in the stack that I have read: The Faith of a Writer, by Joyce Carol Oates, that I read this past June during my vacation in Grand Teton.

This new one is pictured above: Writers Dreaming: Twenty-Six Writers Talk About Their Dreams and the Creative Process by Naomi Epel. First off, let me say, this is a funny little book. It was published in 1993, and quite possibly the most quaint thing about it is how often each writer refers to working on a word processor. My, how times have changed.

And I am not sure one can really call it a book as much as a collection of interviews. Epel has apparently hosted a weekly radio show called "Book Talk," and she is also a "dream researcher" (right, I don't know what that is either). Writers Dreaming compiles the notes from her interviews of writers and how dreams have influenced their work.

I will tell you that I pay attention to my dreams. I do not see anything magical in them. They are not crystal balls that I consult to figure out my future. As a mentor has told me, Dreams are simply your unconscious trying to figure yourself out. So I pay attention to my dreams to find out what is really bothering me, what I am afraid of, what I am yearning for, etc.

Let's be clear: I do not plan on sharing any of my dreams with you! But I want to tell you that this book, quirky as it is, actually has some great things to say about writing and how it works. I am learning a lot as I read.

Here are some examples:

• Isabel Allende: Maybe I'm a writer because I'm desperately trying to clean up my mess. Here's another one: Without my demons what will I write about?
• Maya Angelou: I do believe dreams have a function. I don't see anything that has no function, not anything that has been created. I may not understand its function or be able to to even use it, make it utile, but I believe it has a reason.
• John Barth (I have never heard of him either): Those rituals of getting ready to write seem to conduce a kind of trance state.
• Richard Ford: I'm trying to cause people to be interested in the particulars of their lives because I think that that's one thing literature can do for us. It can say to us: pay attention. Pay closer attention. Pay stricter attention to what you say to your son. Pay stricter attention to what you say to someone you love.
• Sue Grafton: As I write I keep a journal for each novel that I work on... I'm finding now that some of the freest writing I do is in the journal because psychologically that feels like playtime.
• Spalding Gray: So what I had the students do first was to speak their stories, their autobiographic story, into a tape recorder. Then I'd have them transcribe it and begin to work on making the transcription like writing. My theory was, and it works, that they will find their personal voice in that way because it is their voice. (Is that brilliant or what??)
• Allan Gurganus: Writing is a kind of free fall that you then go back and edit and shape. I think the best things that I've ever got as a writer come frequently all in a burst.
• James W. Hall: There's this romantic picture of writers, sometimes, that you either are going to be a great writer or have a great life. And you have to choose one or the other. I don't think that's true for me. I don't believe that that has to be an either-or choice. But you have to consciously decide that. You can't let your ordinary life drift and just sink into the creative world all the time.

That last one is perhaps the greatest advice for me. I will never forget, after having spent several academic quarters plowing through Coleridge (opium addict, bipolar), Hemingway (shot his head off), Fitzgerald (drank himself to death), Sylvia Plath (suicide), et cetera et cetera, coming to the conclusion that I could never be a great writer because I was simply too normal! I have operated under that assumption for nearly thirty years. So Hall's statement is a gift. 

Consider tracking this book down on half.com or finding it in your library. It's worth the time, in my opinion. I'm only about halfway through it, so you may be hearing from me again on this subject...

Creative Autobiography - Question #1

I'm reading a great book these days (thank you, Greta Bruneel!) titled The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp.

Early in the book she provides a questionnaire for readers to better understand their "creative DNA." In other words, what makes them tick creatively... what "story" you're trying to tell, why you do the things you do, where you are strong and where you are weak.

Ms. Tharp emphatically calls the reader to honesty, and no giving in to the urge to impress others. In her book, this exercise, a "Creative Autobiography," is for yourself only.

But I loved this first question, and it sparked great memories in me. So occasionally, I may share my Creative Autobiography answers with you.

Question #1: What is the first creative moment you remember?

I remember the wonder of reading and learning. I remember the awe I felt for my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Woolwine. She would read a story to us at the end of every day. And the first story that I remember holding me on the absolute edge of my seat was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Looking it up in Wikipedia, I see that it came out in the US in 1964. I was in 2nd grade (7 years old) in 1968, so that wasn’t too far away. And my own copy of this book looked just like the cover here.

Glorious memory. I remember looking forward to the end of the day and getting to listen to her tell us about the golden ticket, Charlie Bucket, Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Mike Teevee and Violet Beauregarde. I remember not caring about time or where I was or whether I had friends. I was completely alone with the story. It was a safe and enchanting place. It was escape.

I distinctly remember trying to picture the Chocolate River and August Gloop falling in and clogging the pipes; Veruca Salt getting thrown down the chute for wanting nuts, and Violet Beauregarde getting big and blue. I remember Charlie’s difficult life and the wonder he felt at getting a golden ticket. I related well to Charlie because he was an overlooked child, and I was too. I was quiet, we moved a lot, I didn’t have many friends, we didn’t live in a warm and familiar home. I remember the world of words and books and imagination opening up to me for the first time through this book. This was the year I really learned how to read and I would just BURY my nose in books.

For me, creativity = imagination. So my first creative, AKA imaginative, moment that I remember was listening to Mrs. Woolwine in 2nd grade reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to our class. And I never wanted it to end.