George, I am 73 years old, and was lucky enough to study with Denise Levertov when she taught at MIT and I was an engineering student from Northeastern working there on the coop program. I asked her if I could join her class, even though I was not a student there, and she laughed (a genuine laugh...like a child...as she always did) and then said yes. She taught us what William Carlos Williams had taught her, that a poem was really a machine made of words...and that you needed to fix it, replace the broken part or parts that were broken and not working for a large number of people.
You clearly are as genuine and as generous as she was. Thank you for creating the Story Club. I have only just started two weeks ago, but being here has already opened me up and broken through several writing stumbling blocks in the most marvelous ways.
Such a delight. Thank you all. I want to add that for me, coming to writing late in life has taken “making it” off the table. It’s such a pleasure. I learned (doing visual art) that 1. I was happier when I was working on something and 2. I was really happy when I made something I was proud of. Accolades are great, but not necessary. Old age has got something going for it.
This is my favourite letter from you so far! Your thoughts are exactly what I needed to hear today and will be good company for me as I continue to create. I’m so grateful that you took the time to write this. Thank you.
Oh, those photos are appreciated, but so is this encouraging post. You're good at this teaching, guiding thing, George, and I come away from reading here inspired.
I won a car once, which I'm eager to tell others when complimented for something so material, but I often get asked how they can also have the same good fortune. Understandable. We all need some of that in our lives. I usually say, "You have to enter the contest." Do I run around now entering contests more than I did before? No, not really. Now, I just know people sometimes actually win those things. Wasn't so sure before. What I do now more than I did before I stumbled into a little good luck is that I submit my writing places that might publish me. Not because I expect to be lucky at publishing but because I take my own advice. It's not that I expect to wait until I'm perfect or dead before I think I'm deserving to submit something somewhere, but for some reason before I was lucky for a moment I seemed to live that way.
All the while, because of the submitting I'm learning to finally do, I swim among the people and in the places where I learn what works and doesn't work as well, what others enjoy, what only I enjoy, and what might end in payment. Sometimes I write things I'd never want seen, and for which I don't want payment. Sometimes I only care about telling some truth in the weirdo way that any of us each distinctly do that, just like the other things we each do in our dinstinct ways that find favor with others or don't.
It feels saddest to me when artists live their whole lives never knowing their expressions impacted other people so I try to tell people when their text made a difference, or their humor lifted me... or their writing changed the way I'll live my life ever after. All the while, I'll put my words out in the places that make me vulnerable with the hope I might witness some impact before I die, that they might even have the chance to have impact at all.
I have paper and digital letters from friends from over the years, some of them peppered with drawings, photos, anectodes, good humor, and other morsels that could be published and for which they'd then be known. I bet each of us here do, also. But it's the doers who get a thing done. I want to be one of those because sharing that kind of stuff brings me joy. Today's post and the people gathered here are bringing me joy. That's no small thing now, but it never was.
It’s a struggle for me to keep from seeking out immediate responses to what I’m in the process of working on. I do want that confirmation to move forward. So, I feel a bit seen in this. I need to work harder getting over that lump and just move forward. I think part of it is a taming of the ego and it’s need for instant gratification.
I have realized over the years the simple truth that not everyone will like my writing. But I want those that do to really like it. Like a piece of art that moves one person and another walks past. I want to be okay with that. I think that is connected to finding and trusting my own voice.
I would like to reveal some truth in this world. I think it will take of mix of rolling up my sleeves, sweat on my brow and contemplation. Quietness.
I like these moments of taking a breath. I haven’t commented all that much, but I have been contemplating the posts and many of the conversations. It’s been really life-giving. Not over-wrought with personal ego. More collaborative. It’s a joy and I am filled with gratitude.
I’ve been writing two years, long enough to recognise the process George describes is exactly mine too. Why should I bother if it’s not guaranteed a good outcome? And then I’ll get interested, and persevere, regardless of effort required, because the process becomes fascinating.
I’ve written one thing I’m delighted with and even if no one else likes it I’ll be pleased I bothered. Like the one perfect ski run I managed before retiring victorious from my mostly petrified, mostly tear-stained endeavours on the French slopes. Though I am more proficient with words than skis, so maybe, maybe there’s more to come.
Oh hell I am so right here. I have been writing 20 years (joined late; did not introduce myself) and published my first novel in 2019. Then after a lovely retreat for two weeks just before holiday, I came home and found that all the work I did on retreat was for the bin. The bottom fell out of the whole deal for me. My novel-in-progress, "all important" second novel, hit the wall. I am still working through what the hell happened. A big part of it: fear. I want reassurance that all this is going to be worth it. Other jobs, you at least get paid. I published a book and for the most part the world shrugged. Did it all take too long? did I miss my earlier promise? I was so sure I was good at this. Now, I feel nothing. The muse has retreated. In fact, I feel her flipping me off from some distant, sweeter shore. She is there with my younger self, so full of hope and here I am so much older wondering where I went wrong. Can anyone on here relate to this at all ? Or are you just thinking aw, shut up. You published a novel what more do ya want? George, to you I say: thank you. Just for who you are. I don't think its an accident that I found the story club now, in this terrible frozen place I find myself.
The other thing that I would add to this post, which is one of my favorites so far, is the fact that there are many types of work. There's anxiety, there's note taking, brainstorming, revision, peer editing, waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, and on and on. And I for one have to remind myself that there is the work of new words on the page. I can spend [many]+ hours a month working -- hard! -- but never write a new word. This is sort of like water building against the dam. All generally helpful and often necessary work, and sometimes too cautious. It is writing, new words, that, for me, really constitutes the courageous leap over the wall, into the unknown, where daring is deployed, and where the best surprises are found for me the writer, which travel on to the reader.
My favorite thing I've gotten from your insights and talks about revising is knowing that I always have a pile of stories, essays, writing to revisit. I think we've all stumbled upon something we ditched or gave up on or forgotten and upon re-reading, been surprised with how much good was in there! As a musician and songwriter I've brought 2 ideas to my prose writing: 1, it's a numbers game. I sometimes have to write 5-6 or more ok/ pretty good songs before the really good/great one emerges. Little harder to that with stories, but in general, the quantity, time in the chair, practice--whatever quantifying element-- always seems to yield some quality eventually. And that leads to the 2nd thing--I always see poems, songs, stories, essays as little properties once they've been created. They exist, they've been built, something that wasn't there is now there. I'm not a realtor or a house flipper but for some reason the analogy just fits so well! Some need cosmetic fixes, some need remodeling, some need to be taken down to the studs and rebuilt. Some I might take the materials from and use in another property! And some might be just left to decompose. But if there's something good there, anything at all, I usually find my way back to it. CHeers everyone cann't wait for the next story!!!
Regarding the quotes George keeps on his desk: I once read a New Yorker piece on David Mamet where he talked about the Stoics and how, at times, he has asked himself (regarding his writing) the question the Stoics used to ask themselves: "What's stopping you?" I loved that question and ended up writing it in the front of all of my journals to keep me going when i wanted to stop. What's stopping you?--usually it's fear, fear of failure, of not ever "making it," of writing terribly, of never rising above being mediocre, etc etc. That quote, somehow, helped push me forward. It told me to keep going despite any and all obstacles. Much, much later, i was at a movie screening here in Los Angeles for The Untouchables, and Mamet was there for a Q and A afterward (he'd written the screenplay). When it was over, he walked up the aisle of the theater and I somehow managed to time it correctly to meet up with him just as he was rushing past the row where I'd been sitting. I pretty much just stepped out and stopped him, apologized for doing so, and then told him about that quote and how I'd written it in all of my journals and also how I liked to pass it along to students in the writing classes i used to teach. He stopped in his tracks and looked at me for a moment. Then, without saying a word, he lifted up his arm and showed me a big watch on his wrist. Still not talking, he unbuckled the watch and then turned it over to show me what was written on the back: the words "what hinders you?" That was it. He smiled at me, put the watch back on, turned, and walked away.
A few years ago, I had the great good luck of studying with Richard Bausch. Now and then throughout the semester, he would pause the workshop, look around at us and say, “We’ve all got enough food, a place to live, a job, maybe a family, and on top of all that we get to do THIS!!”
With this post, George, you reminded me of the amazing gift that has been bestowed upon us (by whom? Who knows.)
“The mind that writes a good story is not eased at all, but anxious and …seeking, let’s say; agitated by the story’s current mediocrity…” reminded me that it’s the constant agitation that produces the pearl.
Pointing out that the only way to win is to leap and that almost automatically (unless we have a death wish, like those young men who fly by me on the 605 freeway at 102 miles an hour) our mind, in survival mode, will make the infinitesimal adjustments to more likely achieve success is brilliant.
And so generous. As is the sharing of the totems (if you don’t mind the term) displayed on that most personal space a writer has—the writing desk.
Finally, but certainly not least important, thank you so much for making me laugh and for guiding me to see that whether or not I have “it” is none of my business. My business is to keep working and to be thankful for it.
Thank you for the 'talk'. It felt like a talk. I think periodically we all need such a thing. I started writing short stories when I was 20 - didn't get published; was accepted on to a Faber Write a Novel course and wrote a novel - didn't get published; started a Masters degree in creative writing and... didn't get published. Now I am a fully engaged member of Story Club and collecting pearls from a writer who I have huge admiration for and of course I probably will not be published. One thing I have learned on this 30 year journey, is that at each stage I have improved, I have learned, I have tripped and stood higher. I have seen how lessons learned have bled into other areas in my life; how I cook, how I face fears, how I read, how I choose not to read. But ultimately what I have discovered is that the act of brain, paper, pen and heart acting in unison is the gold standard. The journey. The passion. So will I be published? It's really not for me to answer.
Paying work and a long bout with Covid have left me little more than a voyeur in this community. But I feel compelled to comment. In my experience, fear as a motivator can work wonders, just like drugs. Yet, as drugs often do, fear wears off, stops working so well and leaves you when you need it most. But I'm not hear to preach about drugs—you may like them in your life, and/or hate them as metaphor. It's fear that fools you. I agree that joy—the kind that real art and little children can summon—is the key. Sometimes supposed "good outcomes" are a trap or a prison. I am fighting to see past the next confirmed assignment with (albeit weak) assured payment, and to write simply what I want to write the way I want to write because I want to write it. It's not so easy. I find that I hate to cut and paste the phrases I write in dashed-off emails because therein lies my real writing, because I didn't have time to think or to expect payment. My work has given me the luxury of getting close to artists I consider geniuses—mostly musicians, but writers, too. I was surprised to learn a truth that seems trite: that the ones with the wildest and freest expression have the most organized and disciplined approaches to their art, their work. Yet even these disciplines, just like words on the page, must be constructed as a creative act.
That was great Thanks, George. And a relief. I always worried, when mentors skirted my question, (explicit or implicit) "do I have it," that they were just being polite because they knew I didn't have it.
Thank you for this reflection George. I've been feeling a bit guilty for not commenting on posts, because many of the other comments are so erudite and helpful. I feel a bit less guilty knowing I've made the leap to doing more writing and editing, rather than joining these wonderful discussions.
Even though I've made the leap, I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing and somehow this post makes me feel that that's okay.
George, I am 73 years old, and was lucky enough to study with Denise Levertov when she taught at MIT and I was an engineering student from Northeastern working there on the coop program. I asked her if I could join her class, even though I was not a student there, and she laughed (a genuine laugh...like a child...as she always did) and then said yes. She taught us what William Carlos Williams had taught her, that a poem was really a machine made of words...and that you needed to fix it, replace the broken part or parts that were broken and not working for a large number of people.
You clearly are as genuine and as generous as she was. Thank you for creating the Story Club. I have only just started two weeks ago, but being here has already opened me up and broken through several writing stumbling blocks in the most marvelous ways.
Such a delight. Thank you all. I want to add that for me, coming to writing late in life has taken “making it” off the table. It’s such a pleasure. I learned (doing visual art) that 1. I was happier when I was working on something and 2. I was really happy when I made something I was proud of. Accolades are great, but not necessary. Old age has got something going for it.
This is my favourite letter from you so far! Your thoughts are exactly what I needed to hear today and will be good company for me as I continue to create. I’m so grateful that you took the time to write this. Thank you.
Oh, those photos are appreciated, but so is this encouraging post. You're good at this teaching, guiding thing, George, and I come away from reading here inspired.
I won a car once, which I'm eager to tell others when complimented for something so material, but I often get asked how they can also have the same good fortune. Understandable. We all need some of that in our lives. I usually say, "You have to enter the contest." Do I run around now entering contests more than I did before? No, not really. Now, I just know people sometimes actually win those things. Wasn't so sure before. What I do now more than I did before I stumbled into a little good luck is that I submit my writing places that might publish me. Not because I expect to be lucky at publishing but because I take my own advice. It's not that I expect to wait until I'm perfect or dead before I think I'm deserving to submit something somewhere, but for some reason before I was lucky for a moment I seemed to live that way.
All the while, because of the submitting I'm learning to finally do, I swim among the people and in the places where I learn what works and doesn't work as well, what others enjoy, what only I enjoy, and what might end in payment. Sometimes I write things I'd never want seen, and for which I don't want payment. Sometimes I only care about telling some truth in the weirdo way that any of us each distinctly do that, just like the other things we each do in our dinstinct ways that find favor with others or don't.
It feels saddest to me when artists live their whole lives never knowing their expressions impacted other people so I try to tell people when their text made a difference, or their humor lifted me... or their writing changed the way I'll live my life ever after. All the while, I'll put my words out in the places that make me vulnerable with the hope I might witness some impact before I die, that they might even have the chance to have impact at all.
I have paper and digital letters from friends from over the years, some of them peppered with drawings, photos, anectodes, good humor, and other morsels that could be published and for which they'd then be known. I bet each of us here do, also. But it's the doers who get a thing done. I want to be one of those because sharing that kind of stuff brings me joy. Today's post and the people gathered here are bringing me joy. That's no small thing now, but it never was.
It’s a struggle for me to keep from seeking out immediate responses to what I’m in the process of working on. I do want that confirmation to move forward. So, I feel a bit seen in this. I need to work harder getting over that lump and just move forward. I think part of it is a taming of the ego and it’s need for instant gratification.
I have realized over the years the simple truth that not everyone will like my writing. But I want those that do to really like it. Like a piece of art that moves one person and another walks past. I want to be okay with that. I think that is connected to finding and trusting my own voice.
I would like to reveal some truth in this world. I think it will take of mix of rolling up my sleeves, sweat on my brow and contemplation. Quietness.
I like these moments of taking a breath. I haven’t commented all that much, but I have been contemplating the posts and many of the conversations. It’s been really life-giving. Not over-wrought with personal ego. More collaborative. It’s a joy and I am filled with gratitude.
Ugh. Work.
I’ve been writing two years, long enough to recognise the process George describes is exactly mine too. Why should I bother if it’s not guaranteed a good outcome? And then I’ll get interested, and persevere, regardless of effort required, because the process becomes fascinating.
I’ve written one thing I’m delighted with and even if no one else likes it I’ll be pleased I bothered. Like the one perfect ski run I managed before retiring victorious from my mostly petrified, mostly tear-stained endeavours on the French slopes. Though I am more proficient with words than skis, so maybe, maybe there’s more to come.
Oh hell I am so right here. I have been writing 20 years (joined late; did not introduce myself) and published my first novel in 2019. Then after a lovely retreat for two weeks just before holiday, I came home and found that all the work I did on retreat was for the bin. The bottom fell out of the whole deal for me. My novel-in-progress, "all important" second novel, hit the wall. I am still working through what the hell happened. A big part of it: fear. I want reassurance that all this is going to be worth it. Other jobs, you at least get paid. I published a book and for the most part the world shrugged. Did it all take too long? did I miss my earlier promise? I was so sure I was good at this. Now, I feel nothing. The muse has retreated. In fact, I feel her flipping me off from some distant, sweeter shore. She is there with my younger self, so full of hope and here I am so much older wondering where I went wrong. Can anyone on here relate to this at all ? Or are you just thinking aw, shut up. You published a novel what more do ya want? George, to you I say: thank you. Just for who you are. I don't think its an accident that I found the story club now, in this terrible frozen place I find myself.
The other thing that I would add to this post, which is one of my favorites so far, is the fact that there are many types of work. There's anxiety, there's note taking, brainstorming, revision, peer editing, waking up in the middle of the night with an idea, and on and on. And I for one have to remind myself that there is the work of new words on the page. I can spend [many]+ hours a month working -- hard! -- but never write a new word. This is sort of like water building against the dam. All generally helpful and often necessary work, and sometimes too cautious. It is writing, new words, that, for me, really constitutes the courageous leap over the wall, into the unknown, where daring is deployed, and where the best surprises are found for me the writer, which travel on to the reader.
My favorite thing I've gotten from your insights and talks about revising is knowing that I always have a pile of stories, essays, writing to revisit. I think we've all stumbled upon something we ditched or gave up on or forgotten and upon re-reading, been surprised with how much good was in there! As a musician and songwriter I've brought 2 ideas to my prose writing: 1, it's a numbers game. I sometimes have to write 5-6 or more ok/ pretty good songs before the really good/great one emerges. Little harder to that with stories, but in general, the quantity, time in the chair, practice--whatever quantifying element-- always seems to yield some quality eventually. And that leads to the 2nd thing--I always see poems, songs, stories, essays as little properties once they've been created. They exist, they've been built, something that wasn't there is now there. I'm not a realtor or a house flipper but for some reason the analogy just fits so well! Some need cosmetic fixes, some need remodeling, some need to be taken down to the studs and rebuilt. Some I might take the materials from and use in another property! And some might be just left to decompose. But if there's something good there, anything at all, I usually find my way back to it. CHeers everyone cann't wait for the next story!!!
Regarding the quotes George keeps on his desk: I once read a New Yorker piece on David Mamet where he talked about the Stoics and how, at times, he has asked himself (regarding his writing) the question the Stoics used to ask themselves: "What's stopping you?" I loved that question and ended up writing it in the front of all of my journals to keep me going when i wanted to stop. What's stopping you?--usually it's fear, fear of failure, of not ever "making it," of writing terribly, of never rising above being mediocre, etc etc. That quote, somehow, helped push me forward. It told me to keep going despite any and all obstacles. Much, much later, i was at a movie screening here in Los Angeles for The Untouchables, and Mamet was there for a Q and A afterward (he'd written the screenplay). When it was over, he walked up the aisle of the theater and I somehow managed to time it correctly to meet up with him just as he was rushing past the row where I'd been sitting. I pretty much just stepped out and stopped him, apologized for doing so, and then told him about that quote and how I'd written it in all of my journals and also how I liked to pass it along to students in the writing classes i used to teach. He stopped in his tracks and looked at me for a moment. Then, without saying a word, he lifted up his arm and showed me a big watch on his wrist. Still not talking, he unbuckled the watch and then turned it over to show me what was written on the back: the words "what hinders you?" That was it. He smiled at me, put the watch back on, turned, and walked away.
A few years ago, I had the great good luck of studying with Richard Bausch. Now and then throughout the semester, he would pause the workshop, look around at us and say, “We’ve all got enough food, a place to live, a job, maybe a family, and on top of all that we get to do THIS!!”
With this post, George, you reminded me of the amazing gift that has been bestowed upon us (by whom? Who knows.)
“The mind that writes a good story is not eased at all, but anxious and …seeking, let’s say; agitated by the story’s current mediocrity…” reminded me that it’s the constant agitation that produces the pearl.
Pointing out that the only way to win is to leap and that almost automatically (unless we have a death wish, like those young men who fly by me on the 605 freeway at 102 miles an hour) our mind, in survival mode, will make the infinitesimal adjustments to more likely achieve success is brilliant.
And so generous. As is the sharing of the totems (if you don’t mind the term) displayed on that most personal space a writer has—the writing desk.
Finally, but certainly not least important, thank you so much for making me laugh and for guiding me to see that whether or not I have “it” is none of my business. My business is to keep working and to be thankful for it.
Thank you for the 'talk'. It felt like a talk. I think periodically we all need such a thing. I started writing short stories when I was 20 - didn't get published; was accepted on to a Faber Write a Novel course and wrote a novel - didn't get published; started a Masters degree in creative writing and... didn't get published. Now I am a fully engaged member of Story Club and collecting pearls from a writer who I have huge admiration for and of course I probably will not be published. One thing I have learned on this 30 year journey, is that at each stage I have improved, I have learned, I have tripped and stood higher. I have seen how lessons learned have bled into other areas in my life; how I cook, how I face fears, how I read, how I choose not to read. But ultimately what I have discovered is that the act of brain, paper, pen and heart acting in unison is the gold standard. The journey. The passion. So will I be published? It's really not for me to answer.
Ok, sure, I'm totally onboard with this post...But, should I grow the mustache? Because... I think I should grow the mustache.
Paying work and a long bout with Covid have left me little more than a voyeur in this community. But I feel compelled to comment. In my experience, fear as a motivator can work wonders, just like drugs. Yet, as drugs often do, fear wears off, stops working so well and leaves you when you need it most. But I'm not hear to preach about drugs—you may like them in your life, and/or hate them as metaphor. It's fear that fools you. I agree that joy—the kind that real art and little children can summon—is the key. Sometimes supposed "good outcomes" are a trap or a prison. I am fighting to see past the next confirmed assignment with (albeit weak) assured payment, and to write simply what I want to write the way I want to write because I want to write it. It's not so easy. I find that I hate to cut and paste the phrases I write in dashed-off emails because therein lies my real writing, because I didn't have time to think or to expect payment. My work has given me the luxury of getting close to artists I consider geniuses—mostly musicians, but writers, too. I was surprised to learn a truth that seems trite: that the ones with the wildest and freest expression have the most organized and disciplined approaches to their art, their work. Yet even these disciplines, just like words on the page, must be constructed as a creative act.
That was great Thanks, George. And a relief. I always worried, when mentors skirted my question, (explicit or implicit) "do I have it," that they were just being polite because they knew I didn't have it.
Thank you for this reflection George. I've been feeling a bit guilty for not commenting on posts, because many of the other comments are so erudite and helpful. I feel a bit less guilty knowing I've made the leap to doing more writing and editing, rather than joining these wonderful discussions.
Even though I've made the leap, I really don't feel like I know what I'm doing and somehow this post makes me feel that that's okay.