Truth, Politics, and an astrological chart

A few years ago, a friend who was into astrology did a birth chart for me, then we met for coffee to talk about what she’d discovered.  It was fun, and I loved her for it, but honestly don’t remember much of what was predicted, except this:   just at the end, she pointed to one part of the chart and said that I would have a 14-year “fantastic” period during one phase of my life.  I nodded and said something along the lines of “that’s nice.”  She shook her head, put her hand on my arm, and said, “No, listen, I mean fantastic -- like win-the-lottery fantastic.”  At the time, I smiled and said “Well, then, could it start now, instead of five years from now?”

That day, the day the 14-year ‘fantastic’ period of my life is supposed to begin, is now 31 days away.  I was making some plans with friends for that day when the memory hit me - the beginning of my own personal “golden era” about to begin, if we believe the prediction.

I’d like to believe it, but it’s a tough call. The reasons why it’s a tough call are a little hard to explain, because I’d like to be an optimist, really I would, but feeling my optimism under seige lately.

I used to say that I taught for a living, and wrote for my life.

That has, for the majority of my adult life, been true. I love teaching, but writing is oxygen.  It is the air I breathe into my soul.  And it’s been tough, lately.  A number of things contribute to that - a series of injuries (I’m clumsy, apparently) took both energy and time.  I started a new job that requires both emotional energy and time, and….. Well, there’s the state of the world.

I had been working for months on the third book in a series I began some years ago, and had begun to get a handle on the main character, and the story arc, when….. November 8th.  I’ve been, with a few brief periods one way or the other, a lifelong moderate.  I read and research issues and candidates, ignore the ads placed by campaigns, and follow their promises and claims.  I keep politics out of my professional life, and avoid discussing it with others.

Or, I should say, I used to do things that way.

I believe in approaching my civic duties with rationality and research.  While neither of the available candidates passed the “smell test” coming out of my research, one was far and away worse than the other - mountains of verifiable lies, encouraging violence at his rallies, and advocating racist and xenophobic policies.  And he won.

I have tried to keep politics out of this blog - it’s about writing, not about social issues, not about candidates, not about left vs right or conservative vs liberal, or the GOP vs the DNC.  

But what happened was this - while I engaged in (and continue to) voicing my opinion about proposed policies from DC, I tried to keep it as I always had - a thing separate from my life, separate, specifically, from my writing.  But I couldn’t.

In working on the manuscript, I had characters who did not live in isolation, who live in a world that has a government, has people who disagree, has police who abuse power, has corruption that impacts the lives of ordinary people like my characters.  As I’d sit to write, the “ghost in the room” became the day’s headlines, the next onslaught against civil liberties and freedoms.  It all swam in my mind and ran over into the scenes and dialogues I was writing.  I tried to stop it, tried to ignore it, tried to crumple those scenes and reinvent the validity of the world my characters inhabited, as opposed to the one I inhabit.

It didn’t work.

Eventually, I put that story away for a while to give me time to consider how to go forward.  What I realized is this - I have always believed in fiction that speaks the truth about the way the world really is, and while my characters (and their story) has little to do with politics, it does have to do with a group of people who are different, who discover their shared differences and form a community, and whose existence as a community frightens those on the outside to the point where they are both ostracized and targeted. All of this makes it extremely relevant to the world around us, and I needed time to think about how I want that to proceed on the page.  So the drafts went in a box and went on a shelf while I consider, and I turned my thoughts to some shorter works and editing of other manuscripts to ready them for submission.

Each day, as I sit down to work on these tasks, or sit down to journal/brainstorm about the direction of the boxed manuscript, one thing becomes clearer to me:  keeping politics, social issues, etc out of my thoughts about writing is and has been one of the greater mistakes of my life.  

If writing is about pursuit of the truth (and I think it is) then can there be anything more relevant than the state of our country, of our government, of our leadership, when our country is so thoroughly divided?  How can characters live separate from that and live in truth?

So, I’m out.  The lifelong moderate has gone radical, and she’s writing about it.  That is not to

say that all my writing will be about politics, or that my characters will be revolutionaries - but if they live in world that is frightened of them because of their difference, there is a social environment that caused that fear, and that is a truth very relevant to our world right now.  I am still taking more time before I return to that manuscript.  I want to protect the truth of the fictional world they live in equally as much as I want it to reflect the realities of our world, so time to think and feel the truth is required.

But as for leaving my political position in the closet, I can no longer do that, neither as a human nor as a writer.  I am part of the resistance.  I believe in a country dedicated to freedom that we welcome refugees rather than fear them, that we help the sick and the elderly, rather than taking away their benefits to offer tax cuts to the rich, that we nurture freedom of the press, hold them accountable, and protect their right to full access to public officials and to air both video and audio of those encounters as well as to write about them.  I believe in a country where our leaders work for us, not for their own pursuit of power or partisanship.  

We don’t have that country right now, but we can.  There are things all of us can do to help protect our freedoms and ensure our rights.  If you spend twelve seconds on social media in any two -day period, you know what those things are.  I believe that the absolute best thing each of us can do is to protect the truth.  Playwrights and actors bring it to the stage, artists and dancers and musicians let it shine from your work, and writers write the truth.  Not all truth is political, not all those works need to be about politicians and the powerful to enrich the lives of those who enjoy the arts rather than create them.  But if we ignore that part of the truth, the political part, we are not being fully honest.  Whatever you do, do it with a heart and mind dedicated to it being truthful.  That is, for my part, how I am moving forward. I think, in spite of the violence, the police brutality and killings, the oppressive legislation, the lies and the assaults on freedom, it is this that will bring about my fourteen years of fantastic living.

On Music, Creativity, and the Dark Side

I have been absent from these pages for a while.  Every writer has those times when retreat is essential, when it is required not only for your individual creative process, but for your heart.  Pretty much always for your heart.  Writing, creativity, invention, bringing something new out of nothing - these can be exhausting, and in times such as ours, perhaps even more so.  

I have found myself, lately, thinking a great deal about music.  I have no musical talent whatsoever.  Though I can (badly) play an instrument or two, I have no singing voice, and no talent for composition, but I do have a remarkable capacity for appreciation and immersion.  I began to notice, to the point where it overrode my attention on story, how much a musical score

either adds to or detracts from a story in film and television.  I began to think on the relationships I’ve had with music as various pieces I wrote were in progress - sometimes a single song, played over and over as I worked.  (The two most frequent? - Mozarts Piano Concerto No. 21 and the Beatles “Paperback Writer.”)   Other times, a playlist that simply must play as I work.  Other times, working in complete silence and then desperately needing music when I’m done.

There has been a great deal of research about the positive influence of music on learning and creativity, while, at the same time, a great many works on the influence of depression (and all negative emotions) on the creative process.  Both seem to induce (or, at minimum, help to evoke) a torrent of creativity.  

Music and darkness - an improbably pair, but one that speaks to something that every writer, every artist, every person intent on creative arts, should attend to.  We have a tendency in our culture to focus on “the bright side,”  on “positive thinking,” on all things on the side of light.  Without darkness, though, light becomes static, meaningless. It is not a cliche to suggest that we need a balance.  The artist, just like the average human being, needs the dark balancing the light, needs to see it, embrace it, hear its music.  

I find that my “down times” in writing are not really down, at all.  They are a battle.   They are me, finding a way to demolish the social inhibitions that restrain me from looking at, seeing, entering into the dark in order to embrace it.  Some time back, I wrote about three decisions that a writer needs to make, the last (and most important in my mind) being to decide “What kind of writer do I want to be?”

If I want to be a writer - and I do - who writes the truth, then I have to acknowledge that truth is sometimes dark, sometimes painful, sometimes a part of the light. That sounds a bit trite, I know - we need both the darkness and the light.  But it is more complex than that. The darkness we avoid, that we swear to fight, is often actually IN the light.  It is a contradiction, a paradox, and an absolute necessity.

Darkness weaves through a sunny Sunday afternoon, through the spirit of the kindest person we know, through the best of intentions and the most charitable of actions.  It is not just a balance, not just an opposition, it is part and parcel of all of us, of every day we live, of everything we touch.  And to be truly capable of truth, we need to turn, look at it, truly see it, and then embrace it as a part of everything - an essential part.

Listen to music, hear it, and pay attention.

WRITING AS A CALLING

When I was in my graduate writing program, regular conferences were required with my main adviser.  Her office was comfortable and welcoming, and she was then (and remains) one of the primary influences in my writing life.  She could motivate me with a single word, oftentimes a word of challenge.  It was the ways she challenged me, compassionately but relentlessly, that made her such a strong and unique influence.  I loved her then, and I love her now.   

One early conference, as we were just getting to know each other, had to do with the content of the creative work I would do in satisfaction of the Master’s requirements.  I don’t remember exactly what I said to her in answer to her opening question, but I remember her face, leaning towards me, open, thoughtful, and then her first comment.  “You’re like the ancient mariner - the person with the story that must be told.”

It was the first of many discussions we had about the motivation for story, the urge to write, the undeniable need to tell a particular story.  Until I met her, until those conversations, I thought of writing as something I did well, something I’d received praise for from teachers, something that I wanted to do more of, but impractical - who make a living at writing?  What I needed to realize is that writing made my life.

I’ve been turning out stories and poetry since I learned to put a pen to the page.  I’ve written articles, essays, poems, stories, novels, how-to’s, critiques and reviews.  I’ve written for every job I’ve ever had (and likely ever will), and when a day goes by without writing, there is a wrongness to that day.

I needed to realize that writing is my calling.  That it doesn’t matter whether I make a living at it, or

succeed by anyone’s standards but my own - that writing is how I live.  I think on paper, I feel on paper, I understand on paper.  Words are my music.  They set the rhythm for my life, they set its boundaries, they encompass everything I understand and strive to understand.

If you’re not sure that’s you, if you think so but don’t quite yet understand it, I’m going to do something I rarely do on these pages:   recommend a book.   Find a copy of Gregg Levoy’s marvelous book Callings.  I got my first copy twenty years ago, when it first came out, and, since I have given away multiple copies to friends who were struggling with direction and satisfaction, whether they were writers or not.  I was also pleased to have a correspondence with Mr. Levoy for a few years when I, first, asked his permission to use a quote from his book in one of my writings, (which he granted happily), and then to discuss efforts to bring him to speak at my campus.  There are only three books in my life I’ve felt strongly enough to buy copies for friends and give them away, and buy more than one copy for myself, and this was one.  Read it - do each of the activities he recommends as you encounter them.  

Think about the place of writing in your life, reflect on it as you read.  If writing is your calling, you will soon be very sure, and know what place it holds for you, and where to begin.  In subsequent posts, I will put some adaptations of the activities Levoy recommends, adapted specifically for writers, but, if clarity is what you desire, if you need assurances, need a strong foundation for your writing, begin there - with his book, and the process it will take you through.

Writing in Times of Chaos, With Lessons from Dickens

Writing should be a problem right now.  But it’s not.  It should be a problem because winter weather is harassing my home town, a virus is circulating that seems never to go away, it seems like my country has descended into indiscriminate madness, and my supply of huckleberry jam has run out. Not to mention kids, work, favors asked, etc.   It should be a problem, but it isn’t.

We all know these times - the kids are too noisy, there are extra shifts at work, the wash machine breaks down, the cat pukes on the rug, and the phone will not stop ringing.  There are bills to pay and repairmen to deal with and relentless noise.  How in the name of all that’s holy can we be expected to sit down and focus on the page, to immerse in the story, to get even a single acceptable word written?

Lots of us are having that feeling right now.  We feel overwhelmed with daily news of contention and

protests and accusations and lies and deep, nation-wide division.  Then, y’know, the wash machine, too.

So why am I writing so nearly effortlessly?  Why are pages and pages of words just flowing from my pen right now?  Why do I stop in the middle of the million or so other things going on to grab pencil and paper and write a scrap of scene, a section of dialogue, a perfect description?   That is what is happening to me right now, and I have been a bit confused by it.  Like so many, I am overwhelmed and saddened by the state of our country (and the world) right now.  I have children and work and bills and broken drawer-stays and a leak in my storage shed.  I have phone calls and emails and letters to answer, and more of the same to make.  Nevertheless, daily, ten, twelve, thirteen, fourteen pages are flowing from my pen. (Yes, I am writing the first draft of my current manuscript entirely by hand - I often do that.)

The feeling of being overwhelmed is akin to the feeling of loss - a loss of stability, of the familiar, of everything you’ve counted on.  It is like a barely-controlled internal panic, a deep anxiety that grips you when you don’t know what to do.

The story has been told, (possibly apocryphal), that Dickens, when he needed inspiration for his

writing, would begin walking around London, just taking random streets in random directions until he felt completely, irretrievably lost. And then he would walk some more.  It is said that he told those who asked that, in that feeling of lost-ness, that lack of sense of direction or anything familiar, he found it easier to open to whatever presented itself to him - that he could then look at the people of London around him and see in them their stories.

This may or may not be true, but, like many writers, I know poets and novelists who have odd routines to bring about inspiration, to bring about that openness to the world that lets you see stories that need to be told.  Nearly all of them I know of involve some sense of surrender to chaos.  Some sense of embracing the madness, of surrendering any hold you have on the familiar and just, simply…...opening.

It is, I think, why my writing comes so easily right now.  To borrow a line from a fictional character, we all have ways that we enter the world, and if writing is your way to do so, you need to surrender your perceptions of what is real, what is stable, what is dependable, and embrace the dark and the light around

you.

So, if your writing feels stymied by the state of the world right now, or by the state of your life, or both, sit down.  Put a pad of paper in front of you and a pen. Then let all the things that harass you IN - don’t resist them or block them out - let them in, let go of how you thought life was, and take it in.  Cry if you need to.  Rage if you need to.  But don’t resist it.  Hold the pen in your hand as if it were your lifeline, because it is.  And then feel the words as they rise up in you.  

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NOTE: This free-flowing period of writing (coupled with many of the things above) is why I have not posted weekly as I am used to doing. Returning to more regular posts now!

Three Decisions Every Writer Needs to Make

Every writer has known that moment of frustration - you’re facing the blank page, you have a good idea - you know it’s marketable, you know you can pitch it, but something is missing.  You can’t work up enthusiasm for it, you can’t focus your mind in the right way to approach it.  As good as the idea is, as much as others have responded enthusiastically to your idea for it, you can’t get there.  Something is missing.  For most, when we’re honest with ourselves, and really dig for that elusive thing, it comes down to simply not feeling all that important.  You know it’s good, has potential, but you’re just having trouble caring.

Students facing assignments and journalists facing assignments face this frequently, and perhaps more surprising, so do freelance and independent writers.  If you are at a loss what to do when that “something missing” haunts you, then this writing is for you, and, in the end, it might actually help you find a way to write that idea that you had, or to decide to let others take on that subject, while you change direction. To begin,  you have three decisions to make - in reverse order of importance.

Decision #3:   Who am I writing for?   How you approach this one may - may  - vary depending on whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction.  I write both, and my answer is the same either way, but, for others, it makes a difference.  There is a story (very possibly apocryphal) that John Steinbeck used to, at the beginning of writing each of his books, put a one-sentence statement on the wall above his writing desk.  That one sentence described how he wanted the reader to think, and what he wanted the reader to feel at the end of each book.  Writing teachers love it, and refer to it as “The Steinbeck Statement” when they are trying to instruct their students on ways to focus their essays.  It’s a nice tool, but for it really to work, you have to know who that reader IS.  This is something only you can decide.  Who is your audience?  People who believe just as you do?  The young?  Parents?  The next generation or the previous one?  People whose minds you’d like to change?   Many are helped by sitting down and creating “the ideal reader” - a mental picture of the person you would want to read your work,  so that you can focus on how the writing you do may impact them.  It’s harder than it sounds - the first impulse is to describe a person much like yourself, and that is a perfectly valid audience, but if you hope to be widely read, or to change people, consider more who is it who needs to hear what you have to say?  It’s easier to focus on the ones who will approve of you, but those who need what  you are offering are a much stronger motivator when you’re faced with that blank page.

Decision #2:  Why am I writing?  It seems simple, but if you really explore your motivations, it is often not quite so straight-forward.  For some of you, if you’re fortunate to actually have a job writing, you may think you don’t need to answer this - you’re making a living, but I urge you to consider it anyway.  Most of us - the vast majority of writers - do not make a living at it.  Many wish that they could (I’m not one of those), many strive for it (not one of those, either), and others just do it because they feel compelled.  So, think about this:   are you writing because you want to make your living at it, or because you feel driven to communicate what you see about the world to others, or both at the same time?  I never thought that I could become a best-selling writer, and so I never tried.  I just thought that I might from time to time get lucky and have something “hit” in some small way, and the resulting windfall cash would be helpful - and, from time to time, it’s happened exactly that way.  Others strive from day one for that “big hit” and therefore never get to appreciate the smaller victories they have along the way.  I write for the love of three very simple things:   the love of words, the love of stories, and the unmatched joy of that moment when you see/feel the connection to a reader.  What are the things that you must get from your writing?  Who is there on the other side of the page and what do they need from you that you are willing to give?

Decision #1 What kind of writer do I want to be?  There are dozens of large and small decisions writers make about this - fiction or nonfiction - independent or traditional - mainstream or literary - generic or sci fi or mystery or …   Writers make these decisions often on the fly, trying out different shoes and different paths in their pursuit of whatever suits their creative style best - and that is exactly what they should do.  Exploration is a fundamental characteristic of good writers.  With this decision, though, we’re talking about something more fundamental - what do you want to accomplish?  What is the essential purpose of your work with words?  This question, this decision, reveals that all three of these questions and decisions are deeply interwoven (as if you hadn’t figured that out already).  Why do you sit down to write, and who you are writing for both reveal (either to you or to others) what kind of writer you are trying to be.  Before you answer this question, make this decision, I urge you to think about your purpose - what is it that is the most important thing for you to accomplish with your writing?  I figured out a long time ago, with the help of an excellent mentor/guide, that my main purpose had to do with exposing abuse of power, and at the same time dispelling myths based on class or social standing.  That clarity of purpose has guided me ever since.  I don’t sit down to begin a new story or essay thinking, ‘ok, how can I expose abuses today?’ - but I do find it developing in my characters, informing how a character develops under my pen, and how the truth of people’s lives unfold in my stories.  It gives me a clarity of  purpose and a strong sense of direction with each and every piece I write, and I would not have that had someone with far more wisdom than I not guided me through exploring these questions and making these decisions many years ago.

There is nothing wrong with having one of your goals be publishing and making a living off of your writing, but remember these two things as you pursue that goal:  editors buy the pieces that speak most clearly and distinctly to them, pieces where the clarity and the passion jumps off the page, and you cannot write those clear passionate pieces unless you feel  that clarity and passion.  Do that, follow Joseph Campbell’s advice and ‘pursue your bliss,’ and let it guide you to the success you seek.  For all those times when the rejection slips come and it’s hard to summon up the courage to send your piece out again, remember that the most successful writers have been turned down dozens, often hundreds of times before their work ‘hit,’ and also remember, as has been said by many better than me:  it is better to write for yourself and have no market, than to write for the market and have no self.  Be brave.  Make your decisions, and then live them.

Breaking Your Writer's Heart

I work all day long.  Sometimes that work keeps me at my desk, pencil frantically speeding over the page, or fingers scrambling to keep up with my thoughts on the keyboard.  Sometimes that work is reading, researching, staring out the window, stalking about my house in frustration, or checking and verifying sources for research.  I am at work from the time I get up and grab my coffee, often until I notice it’s well past time to go to bed.

In other incarnations of this life, I’ve been jealous of the time that my job takes away from what I’ve always considered my work:   the page, words, stories, and essays.  The most fundamental gift the human race possesses, in my humble opinion, is the gift of language, the ability to share our thoughts with others, to influence, to inspire.  It has been the single most driving force in the development of the stunning and beautiful variety of cultures on this planet - that we can communicate with each other.  It is our vehicle for understanding, for progress, for problem-solving, for learning, for warning, for instruction, for touching each other’s hearts.  What greater work can there be, and what other work can possibly contain as many frustrations and heartbreak.

In her recent speech at the Golden Globes, the stunningly talented actress Meryl Streep quoted her friend Carrie Fisher’s advice:   “take your broken heart, and turn it into art.”   It is advice many writers have given, too.  Hemingway:  “Write hard and clear about what hurts.”  Brecht:  “When I say the way things really are, people’s hearts must be torn to shreds.”  Rico:  “Be Brave.”  LeGuin:  “Take the tale in your teeth and bite till the blood runs.”  And, variously attributed to many different writers:   “Writing is easy, you just sit down to the typewriter and open a vein.”  

It is what the soul of every writer yearns to do:   to take that which tears at our souls, and communicate it to others to broaden their understanding, to increase empathy, to perhaps, just maybe, inspire changes in the world that will prevent other hearts from being broken in the same way. So easy to say.  So often impossibly difficult to do.

I’m not talking here about Writer’s Block - that mind-freeze that happens when the words may be in your head, but just Will Not come out onto the page, or, in spite of your love for the piece you are writing, your mind goes blank.  There are plenty of books and articles about that.  I’m talking here about that voice in your head that urges you to make what you write MATTER, and the self-doubt that often plagues us that we are not doing that.  The part of your soul that wants to make your words make some kind of a difference.  In short:  knowing, identifying, and honoring your purpose in your work.  

Many who find that they are driven to write never know what this is for them.  Seduced by the market, by the cultural focus on fame, sales, and best-seller lists, they focus on what they are told they should write, rather than what drives their souls to the page.  If you want to write, if you want to “tear people’s hearts to shreds,” you probably have to find the way, the courage, to shred your own heart first, to look at it bleeding, and to unabashedly fling that blood onto the page.   This will hurt, you will run away from it, but if you find that courage, no act of writing you did before will ever seem worthy as those you do after that sacrifice.

Through a great deal of painful work, both in the world and in myself, I became aware that, for me, the most heart breaking thing in the world is abuse of power.  I could say that it enrages me, that it fires up my Irish soul and makes me want to fight, and it does.  It also breaks my heart, and when I have the guts to share that broken heart on the page is when I am able to write about women facing the heartbreaks of their lives, about how talented young people are so often abused by the wrong mentor, about how painful it is sometimes to have your sexual identity revealed to you.  To be able to do that, to be able to see the wound, I had to be able find the weapon that made it, the part of the world that reached out and hurt me.

There are many ways to go about this - some go into therapy, some have long tearful conversations with a trusted one, some will journal and journal and journal until they are in tears, until the pain rises up and forces its way onto the page.  I can’t say for sure what will work best for any individual, but am willing to share some strategies that have not only worked for me, but that I’ve seen open up the talent and voice and soul of many a creative writing student.

• The Steinbeck Statement.  It may be an apocryphal story, but John Steinbeck is said to have, with each story/book that he wrote, challenged himself to write a one-sentence statement that reflected what he wanted the readers to FEEL when they were done reading that piece.  A broader application could be:  “when someone reads any piece I write, I want them to feel _______”   Maybe try it a few times, hone it down, clarify it, get right to the heart of what you want in their hearts.
• A Focused Freewrite.  In writing instruction, freewriting is often used as a way to generate ideas - just sit with pen and paper, set a timer for 2-4 minutes, and start writing WITHOUT stopping, without even pausing.  A “focused” freewrite is to start with one particular idea in mind.  For instance, begin, “what really matters to me is _______” and go wherever it takes you.  Be okay with silly things “what matters to me is that I want coffee right now.  I don’t write well without coffee.  I don’t do anything well without coffee.”  Then KEEP writing - let it go where it will.  This kind of freewriting often works best in stages.  When finished choose one word or phrase from the first freewrite, and use it as your focus for the next.  For instance, from the above, I might choose “I don’t do anything well” and start from there - what would make me feel as though I WAS doing something well?  
• Make a collage.  Most creative people (and I count writers, here) have a strong visual element to their thinking.   Making a collage - choosing images that represent what matters, deciding which image should be next to another, thinking about the relationship between them, deciding what words or text to include in your collage, all help focus thinking.  You could make a “What Matters “ collage, or a “Broken Heart” collage, or a “This is What I want you to Know” theme.  

Of course, there are many other ways, too.  The point is to do whatever it takes to summon the courage, and not only look at your own broken heart, but share that.  As a man I admire very much, Parker Palmer, once said in his book “Healing the Heart of Democracy,”  there is a difference between hearts that are broken apart, and hearts that are broken open.  Hearts that react to the pains of the world by breaking apart become scattered, shredded into useless bits that can only react with fear and anger.  Hearts that are broken open can take in the bleeding and broken hearts of others, and, together, begin to heal.