Well, i had posted this earlier and then deleted, thinking it was too over the top. But now I see that someone (the ever-generous David Snider) had commented on it so very nicely (i wasn't quick enough with the delete button!) so I'm positing it again. It it's too much, blame David!:
It’s hard sometimes to know how to spend one’s life. So I understand the questioner who wonders if it’s a somewhat selfish indulgence to write stories instead of fixing the world. I mean, the world needs fixing, and who’s going to do it if not us? I’ve had these same thoughts many times, and I don’t think my feelings on this have much to do with the back-door ego of which George writes. I think they have to do with just wondering how best to spend my days, when they are continually dwindling and the earth is on fire. Writing a story vs. helping the world in other ways—this is definitely worth thinking about. I take comfort in a few ways, not all of them great, but you know, I’m human. One thing is that I make sure I always have a volunteer job. Currently, I cook at a homeless shelter once a week. It’s not much, really—to put in a few hours once a week. But it keeps me from having to kill myself. I put in a few hours in a way that I know without a doubt helps other people—and that helps me, A LOT. The other thing I do is tell myself that every day I have the opportunity to put positive ripples out in the world (corny, I know, but there’s no real good way to say it). I try to remember the positive ripples whenever I’m out there in any way interacting with other humans. Because you never, ever know when your actions are going to make a difference in someone else’s life. For instance, I call this elderly woman about once every 6 months to say hi. She was my mom’s best friend and my mom is dead now, so I like having this connection. It’s for ME that I call her. Well, my husband was in Seattle and he actually saw this elderly woman who now lives in a retirement community where my husband happened to be visiting. She said to him “Mary is the only one who calls me.” I can barely type those words. You know I’m going to call her more now, right? And the calls will feed me and make me feel alive. It’s a cliché, but doing things for others is always doing things for ourselves. It’s a gift when someone allows us to do something for them.
George, here in Story Club, sends out positive ripples every week. It’s the best!
How far afield am I going from this week’s post? Oh, well. I want to give the questioner their props for worrying about the world. It’s the right kind of worry. I honor you.
So the other thing I do when I feel the way this questioner does, is that I ask myself what I’m doing here on this planet? What is my purpose? And as I’ve written before, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was put here to enjoy my life. I don’t mean that in a hedonistic fashion. I mean that I’m here to find beauty and joy where I can find it. And writing brings me joy. It’s not so terrible to spend your days doing something that brings you joy and that also happens to be an activity that harms no one else and may, in fact, bring someone else joy. It’s a nice way to live, really.
I thank you, Story Clubbers, for always allowing me this opportunity to post. Where else can I write/say these things and know they will accepted in the spirit in which I wrote them? This is another way you all contribute positively to this world. We celebrate and support one another here. As we keep saying, this is a great place to be.
How glad I am that you restored this remark! It’s a beautiful expression of finding meaning and purpose in life and one we can all relate to and learn from. I’m so moved by what you’ve said, especially about asking yourself each day About your purpose here, and trying to find ways to be of use in the world.
How glad I am that you call the elderly woman who was your mother’s friend (I’m sorry your mother is no longer here, and am sure she’s proud of and grateful for your reaching out to her friend). That you do it for yourself too in no way lessens the goodness of the act.
When my brother died, 29 years ago (at only 33, and I was 30) my husband at the time had a secretary whom I never met but she sent me a card in the mail (these were the olden days, before email) every day. The cards were Hallmark cards, saying things like “Hang in,” “I’m thinking of you,” etc. Every day for a year, when I went to my mailbox, there would be a card from this perfect stranger. It meant the world to me, just knowing that someone kept me in mind, remembered that I was suffering. I never got to know her personally, but nor have I ever forgotten her presence in my life at a terrible time. There are always ways and opportunities to be kind and how I try to live is never to miss one if possible and the reverse: to let pass as many opportunities not to be kind as possible (not to say the harsh word, never to humiliate another person, things like that).
The world is better for people who are asking the questions of themselves that you are, mary g. Thank you so much.
Robin, thank you so much for your kindness and support. The story about your husband's secretary...the deep humanity inside of one person--that is incredibly moving. And to think that we all have the power to do similar acts. I'm so very sorry to read of the loss of your brother. I don't know you or him, so I'll just say that clearly he was far too young to die and you were far too young to lose him. (My mother died of a lousy disease, though at least at an appropriate age, which comforts me.)
I'm guessing a lot of people in these threads think about their purpose on this planet--I can often feel the ache here in their words. It was from my mother that I learned that life is to be enjoyed. I'm not religious, but sometimes I find it helpful to remember that a basic tenet of Judaism is to be happy--it's the major mitzvah of our lives. (Happy can be defined in many ways.)
Thank you again, Robin. The story of your husband's secretary is never going to leave me. I imagine that woman, every day, headed to the mailbox with her gift to you. What a life she lived! Again--i'm not religious, I don't believe in angels, but she sounds like one of those angels I don't believe in.
hank you, mary, for this and for your compassion for the loss of my brother, who died of AIDS during the time when there were no antivirals and it was a certain death sentence.
I wish you joy in every place you can find it and joy can surely be found in carrying out acts of kindness.
Mary G. "Because you never, ever know when your actions are going to make a difference in someone else’s life."
I think about that and sometimes wonder if we can ever imagine? I once made an offhand remark to a friend who lamented about his need to hire someone "What about hiring RP here?"
Twenty years later when RP retired from a prestigious job that he loved, he told me he didn't have enough confidence back then to apply for the job with my friend and my remark changed the trajectory of his life. Of course he had talent and enthusiasm and others helped him, but had I not been standing there at that moment and had I not said what I considered a no brainer, he said he might have still been bumming around. I was shocked that such a little remark made such a difference. I wonder how many other remarks I have made --good or bad-- have had a similar effect?
what a great story. And yes--our actions have the potential to produce both good and bad effects. Thanks for pointing that out. So of course, we need to head out into the world doing our best to be kind. I've had a few times in my life that an offhand remark tossed in my direction made all the difference. Thanks for commenting.
It is interesting to imagine the secretary thinking, I wish there was something I could do, what would I want or need in that situation? Recognition? Maybe she also knew grief from the inside?
It’s a basic tenet of Judaism to be happy? That’s simply revolutionary, to me. My Christian mother always made sure we knew that life was about suffering more than anything else. I can remember thinking, there’s something terribly wrong with that…the woman I recently married is a whole different kind of Christian Buddhist who just wants to spread happiness wherever she can. It was a long road with many side trails from the one to the other. At least now I can be grateful for my mother mostly teaching me so many of the things I didn’t want or need to do or be. I try to take on the helpful qualities of both parents while learning something from their more questionable attributes. One thing I now know is that I cannot escape them so easily! Still learning from both of them through memory and rethinking, as they are both seven years gone. (This is not what I thought I was going to say just now, but there it is. See what you’ve done to me, Mary? I know, it’s only rock and roll…but I like it!)
Ha! Yes, these threads can really set one's mind going down roads we had no idea we were headed towards.
Your comment about the secretary reminds me of people who mean SO well, who say, if there's anything i can do....please let me know. It's a kind thought that comes from a good place. But usually nothing comes of it. This woman stepped up to the plate when she felt called--and I think that's the takeaway here. When called, answer. (Most of us miss the call.)
Great insight. “This woman stepped up to the plate when she was called.” She allowed the spirit of compassion to possess her, and settled on an action that was neither too little, nor too much, but just right: give a little bit of love every day, just enough to provide some light and warmth on the long night’s journey into day.
Great insight. “This woman stepped up to the plate when she was called.” She allowed the spirit of compassion to possess her, and settled on an action that was neither too little, nor too much, but just right: give a little bit of love every day, just enough to provide some light and warmth on the long night’s journey into day.
So true. Wow Robin, another amazing story. I’m so sorry for your loss of your brother. And blown away by the kindness of your husband’s secretary. It sounds like every time you went to your mailbox you were suddenly flooded with warmth and light.
Thank you for your compassion, David. And yes, that is exactly how I felt going each day to the mailbox. It was a dark time (such darknesses never really lift, but become part of the chiaroscuro that is life) but I certainly did feel flooded by the light of human kindness. Again, thank you, David, for your kindness to me and to all herein.
I'd 'Liked' David's comment in response to your original post. Even though you had opted to 'Delete' I just knew it had been a cracker of a good read. :-)
I love this. Thank you for reposting or I would have missed it.
There is a metaphor in the Bible that many use to mean the church, but I think applies to humanity in general - and it’s that of the many parts of one body. Each part serves a necessary function. We can’t all be hands or eyes or feet.
I worried for a lot of years about what I would do in this world. And now I’ve realized that I can only do what is in front of me. Use the talents and interest that I have. Pay attention to opportunities around me and act on them. Notice need and recognize in what way I can help.
Writers (artists in general) reveal truths, uncover motivations, represent humanity, provide challenging ideas, relieve us with humor, solace us with a good story.
Writing also helps us process the chaos in our heads. It can be an act of healing that may end up being healing to others. Or just you. It’s still worthwhile.
But, yes, I believe it is important to be out there living and enjoying and experiencing the world and those that inhabit it. Adding something good and helping those we can.
I have read some books and stories that, while good, betray the author’s experience in back to back years of college, grad school, writing program. Write what you know, and what you know is how to be a writing student in a competitive program.
I worked with a girl once who wanted to be an Evangelist and just tell people about Jesus. I invited her to hang out with me and some friends and she told me she just wants to hang out with “ministry-minded” people.
We don’t want to put ourselves in any box so that what we always see is the same six sides.
Thanks for your words, Lanie. I love this: "I’ve realized that I can only do what is in front of me." That is some pure truth. (Of course, first a person's eyes have to be open enough to see what is right in front of them.) We can't all be saints. But as Mother Teresa did or did not say (no one really knows, but it's attributed to her): "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." I try to remember that when i feel like i'm not doing enough.
Man. Many of our elders spend too much time alone, and with the pandemic, it's even worse. It's wonderful that you call your mom's pal, and will call her more often. Again, your posts are wonderful. I have the day off–– I just go back and forth cleaning my house and checking what you Story Clubbers are posting.
Thank you Stacya. I'm sort of stuck on older people, I think. I've always been a fan of the super old. My latest short story has an 89 year old protagonist. Maybe I'm just seeing my future out there...? (oh, god, maybe i should clean my house today, too.)
Me, too! I always have been. Don't clean. It's boring unless you are reading George's post and all the comments as a "reward."
I visit a wonderful older lady, she's in one of the nicer retirement communities in the city. When I first met her, she told me a story about how she first moved from Brooklyn, she experienced the "Seattle Freeze." Although there was no name for it 50 years ago when she arrived.
"I called all my friends in Brooklyn and told them, my God! It's like everyone's had a lobotomy or something," she said. She cracks me up.
I know, what is that? I was born in Seattle but maybe it was a gift that we were forced to move to Alaska, where you have to friend on the expertise, empathy and humor of others to survive at all.
Whenever I visit California and interact with total strangers there, I think to myself, "Ahhhh!!!! These are my people." I made all my friends right away when I moved here years ago, but that's because I worked in the theater, where people are more outgoing (generally) so I didn't experience the "freeze." I'm still friends with all the same people. But it exists, for sure.
oh that's fantastic! I love that you visit this woman. I'm sure she adores you. (Is it Summit House? That's where my mom used to live. I really miss that place and the people there.)
Horizon House. It was founded by Plymouth Congregational Church, which is a super progressive congregation. I'm sure your mother considered that one, as it's where all the "super smarty" people live. My best friend's (who you know! You know my BFF ...and it's such a small world. I'll tell you later) mother lives there, too. I'm sure you are loved, too, by the lady you visit. I think I love old ladies because I've always been an old lady.
Sure, I know Horizon house! It's a great place. Summit house is where all the Jews go, so it was a no-brainer for her. her cousin lived one floor up from her and every lady at her table went to Garfield High School, too. Pretty funny. (One day, I figure I'll be living there.) (and i know who your BFF is--her brother was my year at Roosevelt. SMALL WORLD IS RIGHT)
Sometimes it can be the tiniest smile, or a thought from a writer who has been dust for hundreds of years, that provides the impetus which pulls us back from the final depths of despair. Or being able to give something to someone who you didn’t even know needed you right then.
"A thought from a writer who has been dust for hundreds of years." The thought of being that writer and transmitting thoughts from the grave is what keeps me going.
I’ve found that fiction writers, no matter how large their career, tend to be pessimistic about their place in the world, about their contemporary and historical relevance. On the other hand, I’m found that poets, no matter how small their career, tend to very much overvalue and exaggerate contemporary poetry’s place in the world.
Must have been the most colorful and congruent liquor ever bought… I wrote this crazy story once in which Scott and Zelda and Frieda and Diego and Trotsky all appeared; it felt more like dreaming than writing. I hope to unearth it someday.
From my experience, poets are among the least realistic people in the world. That can be a very good thing in some cases. But, as with everything else, there's two sides to the coin.
Thank you for this frank reflection on your approach. Lately I've been gifted with more opportunity to write, and I've been feeling like I just need to put my head down and write and not think about anything but making this book work. This post is a much needed validation to stop worrying about who may or may not want to read my work, or buy it, or publish it, and instead focus on writing the book only I can write and making it as good and satisfying to read as I possibly can, and that's it. And when I'm not writing...just be alive and attentive to the world.
Like being one with a baseball game on a Sunday afternoon? (I’m still madly in love with that piece!) I love George’s idea of approaching his writing desk as a blank slate and just going to work, unwrapped from that cloak of trying to force things.
You’re welcome. It’s a prose poem to be sure. I read it over and over, and read it to my wife, too. (She is a huge Giants fan.) Looking forward to reading your book someday. Keep going!!
Forty years ago, just after I got out of college, a perceptive friend of mine said, "All writers are conceited. They think they have something to say." Accept that, and move on. If you can't live with it, play golf. Also, plumbers cannot afford to get "blocked."
Several years ago I was active in a long-running performance workshop. I took it because I wanted to see through the eyes of the actor. Our instructor was an old hand at theater and film and taught mostly body work, instinctive sound, and movement as it applied to the stage. As we walked out onto the floor to start one of the exercises he would often say, “Remember, if you have a good idea out there, don’t do it.” He meant that if you start overthinking what you’re about to do you will get all tangled up and self-conscious when you should be opening yourself up to whatever is flowing through you. Get too up in the head and you’ll cut yourself off from whatever is trickling in from your shy creative centers, i.e. the good stuff. As David Lynch says, “The big fish are down deep.”
I was always struck by how many people in that class took voluminous notes about being present, being in the moment, being mindful or whatever you want to call it. It’s an idea that’s been around for a long time and most of the writers and filmmakers I like seem to work that way to some degree, i.e. instinctively. Me, I would never write anything down, partly out of laziness but also because I felt he was training us to incorporate these lessons into the body and not to fill up some corner of the brain with instructions to self. If the instructor saw us trying to be too clever he’d stop and gently redirect us. This post of George’s approach to writing reminds me so much of those days. Those teaching are in my bones and not in some dusty notebooks, though I have too many of those filled with story notes. I will reread them on occasion and see how little I actually used as most of the actual good stuff came out in other ways.
I’ve always considered it a positive practice to make art and offer it to the world. It seems to me that creating art is subversive in its own right. I know it changed me in a good way and man did I need changing. Yikes… It’s a different way of giving to the poor suffering world. Now I sound like an egomaniac so I’ll end by exclaiming how cool those coffee mugs are!
Writers have inspired and changed me. This I know to be true. It's happening right now, right here. This amazing group couldn't have come at a more auspicious time for me. Thanks.
Question 2 is so big that it's crushing. Breathlessly so. Who, singular among us, can stop world wars, climate change, human inhumanity when we ourselves are human & thus, at least to some extent, complicit? I think our aim, by sheer definition of our not-God selves, must be smaller, very much smaller: do what good you can when you can with what you have at the time. As for how that applies to writing, here's the poet William Stafford in his essay "Writing the Australian Crawl"*: "A person writes by means of that meager but persistent little self he has with him all the time. He does not outflank his ignorance by intensive reading in composition class; he does not become brilliant about constructions by learning the history of language. He is a certain weight of person, relying on the total feeling he has for experience." And what is this experience? What is that certain weight? I think it comes down, literally, to such small, nearly minuscule, actions as, say, holding the door open for the person behind you. It's a gesture, a means of making way, of acknowledging the other. That's what I think we're supposed to do, what I think the best writing does & what I think every one of us does if only we'd give ourselves credit: make way.
*There's so much more wisdom in this one essay than I've quoted here & which you can find in Stafford's Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, U of Michigan Press, 1978, Ann Arbor.
I'm a huge William Stafford fan and love that book you mentioned. Get this: A million years ago, i edited a teeny tiny literary journal in the Pacific Northwest and somehow I had the chutzpah to contact Stafford and ask him to submit a poem. AND HE DID. I mean, what a mensch! We were a two-bit operation running on copy machines and spit. (Here's the terrible part: my copies of those old journals are buried deep inside one of the millions of dusty boxes in my garage. I know it's my duty to dig out that poem and let someone in the universe see it, because I'm pretty sure we were the only publication that printed it! I feel sick that I've yet to unearth that particular edition. One of these days, it will appear!)
I used to teach a Stafford poem juxtaposed to a bad poem of the same topic. It exemplifies just what Rosanne said above - making way, getting out of one’s own way.
As I get ready for my move from Atlanta to the PNW, I’ve been down-sizing yet again. An inveterate collector of stuff, this is the third major downsize: from a 3,000 sq ft mostly empty house to a 37 ft sailboat led to the largest sell-off/vie away. Now I’m mostly just me - a modest collection of one smallish book shelf, some few clothes, a computer, and two guitars. Every day I get rid of more stuff. It’s a kind of editing, a kind of making way.
What was the journal called? Maybe someone else in the world has a copy... I’ve been meaning to get out the notes from classes I had with Stafford and a bunch of other poets I was lucky enough to get to be a student of at various workshops, campus settings, etc. Forty and fifty years ago classes and notes and I still know where they are in my files. I wrote a pretty good poem about Bill Stafford when he died about twenty years ago now. I should post some of these somewhere.
Oh, you took courses from him! Fantastic! Post your poem here! I am still in contact with one person from that little journal (it was called exhibition). I'll see if he held onto back issues. Thanks for the prod!
Well, glad to know I don’t need to be keeping a notebook of pithy sayings and things I overhear. Way too much effort! I really appreciate this post about why writers write and that doing the work, the diggin, is the main point, and us who are so privileged as to have the time, the resources to be able to spend time on writing, and rewriting, well, then, just go do it. I still want to write stories, even though I am age 71, and even though I have no idea why I want to, and why not just quit and go read the latest about how to save the world from burning up sooner than later? Why do I have hundreds of bookmarks for good causes and subscriptions to good ideas and good things to read, and soon? Need to simplify. That is a very good idea.
Yeah. A lot of newbies don't get that writing is a lot like panning for gold. You dig up a lot of mud, then slosh it around a lot, and if you're lucky you find a fleck or two; but first you've got to go dig up the mud. When I was starting out, I took to heart the dictum that you had to write x number of words a day, Period. Sometimes I'd get something good, sometimes it was litterally me just babbling to myself on paper just to get the words down. Yet, in the sludge I might suddenly type something that would make me go "that might be interesting" and go off on that. Professional writers know that a huge part of the job is just sitting down and doing the damn work and seeing what the writing gods send you. Everything else is just disguised excuses for why you don't want to work.
For me it’s day after day of looking at what I wrote the day before and thinking, my God, that’s awful. Until I get to a day, finally, when I think, ooh, that’s almost good, but it needs some tweaking…
"Awful" is an empty placeholder. Why is something awful? Does it describe something physical properly? Does it convey a thought properly? Does the dialog not say what it should? Is it not an integral part of the story? Sometimes you have to step back and see if what you wrote is really what you want to say.
1. "So: it’s just me and the existing text, and my job is to go in blank and see how I react to it, a day at a time. And everything is contained in that approach.
That’s the aspiration, anyway."
That's the *inspiration* I get from you, George.
2. "Valid ideas are insistent and persistent – they keep coming back, like an intense salesperson. And if an idea wilts or drifts away, it likely wasn’t that good anyway."
I think I'm like many writers. The valid idea persistently arrive when I'm on a walk, or in the shower, or driving. I've had many good ideas drift away. I have a good memory, but memory *is* fallible. The stressors of the day/world affect memory too. So I often will jot the notes on notepad if I find the persistent idea rather insistent or interesting. I think most of those ideas are rewritings rather than original thoughts, though I have plenty of notes for "story ideas" and "potential titles." If I can't figure out what my note means after a week or so, I delete it - those have wilted or drifted away. If the idea still appeals to me - I'll turn to it during writing time.
3. “We want so badly for our work to be consequential. We’re worried about this, aren’t we?” And your response to that voice might want to be: “Right. We are worried about this. But let’s not let this worrying obstruct us. Let’s put it to bed once and for all, so that, twenty years from now, we’re not still asking the same question, which we will be if we don’t get moving, because there is no conceivable answer that is going to free us from those worries, because, come to think of it: we shouldn’t be free of them - they are actually the essence of craft.”
This reminds me of Henry James's story "The Beast in the Jungle" and John Marcher, curiously awaiting his spectacular fate."
Of course, the most appropriate response is..... "John who?"
4. My partner/gf gifted me with a gray Story Club t-shirt with a the SC bird mascot on it. I love it and can't wait to run into someone who knows what it is. Just a matter of time.
Thanks for the office hours, George. Always a pleasure.
These Office Hours words of wisdom, plus the thoughtful comments of story club members, were just what I needed to read. All the anxiety and doubt applies to me… times one hundred. But I am gradually coming around. And best of all, today my best-ever gift to myself came in the mail: two Story Club coffee mugs (the little chick and the curly haired story girl). And it’s a spectacularly beautiful day here in Wisconsin. Life is good.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic talks about how best to relate to FEAR [of failure, of success, of fame, etc] in creative endeavors. She says FEAR is a natural part of creativity, and we should invite it along for the creative journey. But FEAR stays in the back seat and can’t drive. 🚗
I’ve thought a lot about this question of “should I even be writing when…” I think one part of my answer to this dovetails with the art/worth/money question from last week. It feels like this kind of “artist’s guilt” is directly tied to a culture’s worth of art itself. Guilt arises from the economics. This is reinforced when art is treated as excess, not an important subject in education, not easy to make a living from, etc. In turn there’s a feeing of frivolity or excess to even engage in what is actually (hopefully) deeply meaningful work.
And so the artist ends up laden with a guilt bred from economics that most other professions aren’t burdened by.
As I tried to make my life as a writer, I worked for a decade as a chef, and never once during all that time did I beat myself up thinking “maybe I shouldn’t be cooking but doing something important…”. I think part of this is because that job was considered “legit.”
What’s interesting is during all those chef years I did lament that I “should be writing.” So I think another part of the guilt voice is that it’s a really good procrastinator in disguise. Thinking I should do something more important undermined my own work, precisely because of the fear that George addresses.
It’s also interesting that, no matter how meaningless or petty I might think someone’s job, I would never be like “hey why the hell are you doing that work, you should be doing something meaningful and important.” I’m often awed by how rudely I’m willing to talk to myself in ways that I’d never talk to others.
Ultimately I quieted the voice by admitting that it’s not an either or question. If I really want to do social/activist work, I can do that AND write. That sort of humbled me and got me back to the work at hand.
The guilt voices! They are the worst. But it looks as though you've found success in your writing and i congratulate you on that! (Just now purchased your book of short stories.)
Oh thanks so much, Mary! Deeply appreciated :) Yes many years (ongoing) of learning to manage the voices of either guilt, the inner critic, or the slacker (who tends to say “but I don’t want to write” in a 13 year old whine, or otherwise suggest great non-writing things to do). They all play a part in the process somehow…though still figuring out the answer/reason to that particular spiritual secret!
As George notes, "worry is the essence of craft." I think this may be one reason why this is Katherine Mansfield's favorite Shakespeare quote (or at least the one on her tombstone): I tell you, my Lord Fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
Great questions. And, as we've come to trust, great answers from George. What they (the Qs & As) remind me of is my own tendency to TRY too hard and by doing so to get in my own way and make a muddle of things. And I seem unable to get out of my own way.
I'm a huge European football (soccer) fan, especially of the English Premiere League and Liverpool F.C., coached by the indefatigable, defiantly optimistic Jürgen Klopp. Football at this level is merciless, demanding of every aspect of a player's being. While relentless work and talent are necessary for an individual player's success, it is FAR from sufficient. Too many uncontrollable factors arrayed against you. (Sound familiar?) Klopp, consistent as a metronome, yells during practice, implores in the locker room and if necessary takes you by the shoulders and looks you all the way down to your heart's skivvies and says, "Are you having fun? Enjoy this. Do you know what a privilege it is to be able to do this? I know you want to win. I want to win. But what I really want is to be lost in the 10,000 things that put me in a position to win. If you love this game and are grateful you have the opportunity to play it at this level, what could be more satisfying? Enjoy this. If you can't, do something else."
Okay, this more a compilation of things I've heard him say, i.e., I'm projecting what I need to hear. Also, it sounds better in Klopp's German accent. Still, this helps me to remember to have fun.
George works very hard at his writing. Obviously, he's "trying" at a pretty high level. When I read his fiction though, I'm struck by how much freedom he's allowed himself and how much fun it must have been to come up with the final product.
Enjoyed your answers to these common doubts we all have about the worth of our writing, and the guilt of doing such " soft" work- almost an indulgence. Most change in history has happened as a result of ideas that begin in the mind- bold statements, declarations, essays, and what if?.. ( fiction). Reading your advice on method- making notes, recording phrases etc- as not necessary,, and knowing that in the moment of writing it will come through, has freed me up. Your main message it seems to me, is to allow things to happen in the process of writing, without too much planning. I like that you said, that stories were an artificial scaffolding for real life observations. They are artificial, and therefore can be made as pleasing, horrifying, sad, uplifting as we can without getting caught in a lie. This is then the art of fiction- reality filtered, processed and metabolised through us. Did I understand it? Thankyou .
Well, i had posted this earlier and then deleted, thinking it was too over the top. But now I see that someone (the ever-generous David Snider) had commented on it so very nicely (i wasn't quick enough with the delete button!) so I'm positing it again. It it's too much, blame David!:
It’s hard sometimes to know how to spend one’s life. So I understand the questioner who wonders if it’s a somewhat selfish indulgence to write stories instead of fixing the world. I mean, the world needs fixing, and who’s going to do it if not us? I’ve had these same thoughts many times, and I don’t think my feelings on this have much to do with the back-door ego of which George writes. I think they have to do with just wondering how best to spend my days, when they are continually dwindling and the earth is on fire. Writing a story vs. helping the world in other ways—this is definitely worth thinking about. I take comfort in a few ways, not all of them great, but you know, I’m human. One thing is that I make sure I always have a volunteer job. Currently, I cook at a homeless shelter once a week. It’s not much, really—to put in a few hours once a week. But it keeps me from having to kill myself. I put in a few hours in a way that I know without a doubt helps other people—and that helps me, A LOT. The other thing I do is tell myself that every day I have the opportunity to put positive ripples out in the world (corny, I know, but there’s no real good way to say it). I try to remember the positive ripples whenever I’m out there in any way interacting with other humans. Because you never, ever know when your actions are going to make a difference in someone else’s life. For instance, I call this elderly woman about once every 6 months to say hi. She was my mom’s best friend and my mom is dead now, so I like having this connection. It’s for ME that I call her. Well, my husband was in Seattle and he actually saw this elderly woman who now lives in a retirement community where my husband happened to be visiting. She said to him “Mary is the only one who calls me.” I can barely type those words. You know I’m going to call her more now, right? And the calls will feed me and make me feel alive. It’s a cliché, but doing things for others is always doing things for ourselves. It’s a gift when someone allows us to do something for them.
George, here in Story Club, sends out positive ripples every week. It’s the best!
How far afield am I going from this week’s post? Oh, well. I want to give the questioner their props for worrying about the world. It’s the right kind of worry. I honor you.
So the other thing I do when I feel the way this questioner does, is that I ask myself what I’m doing here on this planet? What is my purpose? And as I’ve written before, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was put here to enjoy my life. I don’t mean that in a hedonistic fashion. I mean that I’m here to find beauty and joy where I can find it. And writing brings me joy. It’s not so terrible to spend your days doing something that brings you joy and that also happens to be an activity that harms no one else and may, in fact, bring someone else joy. It’s a nice way to live, really.
I thank you, Story Clubbers, for always allowing me this opportunity to post. Where else can I write/say these things and know they will accepted in the spirit in which I wrote them? This is another way you all contribute positively to this world. We celebrate and support one another here. As we keep saying, this is a great place to be.
How glad I am that you restored this remark! It’s a beautiful expression of finding meaning and purpose in life and one we can all relate to and learn from. I’m so moved by what you’ve said, especially about asking yourself each day About your purpose here, and trying to find ways to be of use in the world.
How glad I am that you call the elderly woman who was your mother’s friend (I’m sorry your mother is no longer here, and am sure she’s proud of and grateful for your reaching out to her friend). That you do it for yourself too in no way lessens the goodness of the act.
When my brother died, 29 years ago (at only 33, and I was 30) my husband at the time had a secretary whom I never met but she sent me a card in the mail (these were the olden days, before email) every day. The cards were Hallmark cards, saying things like “Hang in,” “I’m thinking of you,” etc. Every day for a year, when I went to my mailbox, there would be a card from this perfect stranger. It meant the world to me, just knowing that someone kept me in mind, remembered that I was suffering. I never got to know her personally, but nor have I ever forgotten her presence in my life at a terrible time. There are always ways and opportunities to be kind and how I try to live is never to miss one if possible and the reverse: to let pass as many opportunities not to be kind as possible (not to say the harsh word, never to humiliate another person, things like that).
The world is better for people who are asking the questions of themselves that you are, mary g. Thank you so much.
Robin, thank you so much for your kindness and support. The story about your husband's secretary...the deep humanity inside of one person--that is incredibly moving. And to think that we all have the power to do similar acts. I'm so very sorry to read of the loss of your brother. I don't know you or him, so I'll just say that clearly he was far too young to die and you were far too young to lose him. (My mother died of a lousy disease, though at least at an appropriate age, which comforts me.)
I'm guessing a lot of people in these threads think about their purpose on this planet--I can often feel the ache here in their words. It was from my mother that I learned that life is to be enjoyed. I'm not religious, but sometimes I find it helpful to remember that a basic tenet of Judaism is to be happy--it's the major mitzvah of our lives. (Happy can be defined in many ways.)
Thank you again, Robin. The story of your husband's secretary is never going to leave me. I imagine that woman, every day, headed to the mailbox with her gift to you. What a life she lived! Again--i'm not religious, I don't believe in angels, but she sounds like one of those angels I don't believe in.
hank you, mary, for this and for your compassion for the loss of my brother, who died of AIDS during the time when there were no antivirals and it was a certain death sentence.
I wish you joy in every place you can find it and joy can surely be found in carrying out acts of kindness.
Warmly,
Robin
Mary G. "Because you never, ever know when your actions are going to make a difference in someone else’s life."
I think about that and sometimes wonder if we can ever imagine? I once made an offhand remark to a friend who lamented about his need to hire someone "What about hiring RP here?"
Twenty years later when RP retired from a prestigious job that he loved, he told me he didn't have enough confidence back then to apply for the job with my friend and my remark changed the trajectory of his life. Of course he had talent and enthusiasm and others helped him, but had I not been standing there at that moment and had I not said what I considered a no brainer, he said he might have still been bumming around. I was shocked that such a little remark made such a difference. I wonder how many other remarks I have made --good or bad-- have had a similar effect?
what a great story. And yes--our actions have the potential to produce both good and bad effects. Thanks for pointing that out. So of course, we need to head out into the world doing our best to be kind. I've had a few times in my life that an offhand remark tossed in my direction made all the difference. Thanks for commenting.
Sometimes the smallest of actions can have the biggest ripples, given enough time.
It is interesting to imagine the secretary thinking, I wish there was something I could do, what would I want or need in that situation? Recognition? Maybe she also knew grief from the inside?
It’s a basic tenet of Judaism to be happy? That’s simply revolutionary, to me. My Christian mother always made sure we knew that life was about suffering more than anything else. I can remember thinking, there’s something terribly wrong with that…the woman I recently married is a whole different kind of Christian Buddhist who just wants to spread happiness wherever she can. It was a long road with many side trails from the one to the other. At least now I can be grateful for my mother mostly teaching me so many of the things I didn’t want or need to do or be. I try to take on the helpful qualities of both parents while learning something from their more questionable attributes. One thing I now know is that I cannot escape them so easily! Still learning from both of them through memory and rethinking, as they are both seven years gone. (This is not what I thought I was going to say just now, but there it is. See what you’ve done to me, Mary? I know, it’s only rock and roll…but I like it!)
Ha! Yes, these threads can really set one's mind going down roads we had no idea we were headed towards.
Your comment about the secretary reminds me of people who mean SO well, who say, if there's anything i can do....please let me know. It's a kind thought that comes from a good place. But usually nothing comes of it. This woman stepped up to the plate when she felt called--and I think that's the takeaway here. When called, answer. (Most of us miss the call.)
Great insight. “This woman stepped up to the plate when she was called.” She allowed the spirit of compassion to possess her, and settled on an action that was neither too little, nor too much, but just right: give a little bit of love every day, just enough to provide some light and warmth on the long night’s journey into day.
Great insight. “This woman stepped up to the plate when she was called.” She allowed the spirit of compassion to possess her, and settled on an action that was neither too little, nor too much, but just right: give a little bit of love every day, just enough to provide some light and warmth on the long night’s journey into day.
An amazing story, and inspiring... we can still send cards. I just woke up, reading your wonderful post is the start of my day.
Thank you so much. You’ve made my day!
Warmly,
Robin
So true. Wow Robin, another amazing story. I’m so sorry for your loss of your brother. And blown away by the kindness of your husband’s secretary. It sounds like every time you went to your mailbox you were suddenly flooded with warmth and light.
Thank you for your compassion, David. And yes, that is exactly how I felt going each day to the mailbox. It was a dark time (such darknesses never really lift, but become part of the chiaroscuro that is life) but I certainly did feel flooded by the light of human kindness. Again, thank you, David, for your kindness to me and to all herein.
That’s a good way of putting it, the darkness and grief not lifting, but recomposing us.
So that the darkness informs the light, and vice versa.
Glad you opted to re-post Mary.
Not over the top; this post or any other. Honest to goodness; felt words expressed write out of the heart.
Thanks for another good read..
✍ on ....
Thank you Rob. Much appreciated!
I'd 'Liked' David's comment in response to your original post. Even though you had opted to 'Delete' I just knew it had been a cracker of a good read. :-)
A cracker with some excellently poignant toppings.
happy you reconsidered and posted it again, I'd missed it the first time.
Thank you so much, Fred.
I love this. Thank you for reposting or I would have missed it.
There is a metaphor in the Bible that many use to mean the church, but I think applies to humanity in general - and it’s that of the many parts of one body. Each part serves a necessary function. We can’t all be hands or eyes or feet.
I worried for a lot of years about what I would do in this world. And now I’ve realized that I can only do what is in front of me. Use the talents and interest that I have. Pay attention to opportunities around me and act on them. Notice need and recognize in what way I can help.
Writers (artists in general) reveal truths, uncover motivations, represent humanity, provide challenging ideas, relieve us with humor, solace us with a good story.
Writing also helps us process the chaos in our heads. It can be an act of healing that may end up being healing to others. Or just you. It’s still worthwhile.
But, yes, I believe it is important to be out there living and enjoying and experiencing the world and those that inhabit it. Adding something good and helping those we can.
I have read some books and stories that, while good, betray the author’s experience in back to back years of college, grad school, writing program. Write what you know, and what you know is how to be a writing student in a competitive program.
I worked with a girl once who wanted to be an Evangelist and just tell people about Jesus. I invited her to hang out with me and some friends and she told me she just wants to hang out with “ministry-minded” people.
We don’t want to put ourselves in any box so that what we always see is the same six sides.
Thanks for your words, Lanie. I love this: "I’ve realized that I can only do what is in front of me." That is some pure truth. (Of course, first a person's eyes have to be open enough to see what is right in front of them.) We can't all be saints. But as Mother Teresa did or did not say (no one really knows, but it's attributed to her): "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." I try to remember that when i feel like i'm not doing enough.
That’s so great, thank you!!
I love your post. Some people write to understand. "Process chaos" I like that so much.
Man. Many of our elders spend too much time alone, and with the pandemic, it's even worse. It's wonderful that you call your mom's pal, and will call her more often. Again, your posts are wonderful. I have the day off–– I just go back and forth cleaning my house and checking what you Story Clubbers are posting.
Thank you Stacya. I'm sort of stuck on older people, I think. I've always been a fan of the super old. My latest short story has an 89 year old protagonist. Maybe I'm just seeing my future out there...? (oh, god, maybe i should clean my house today, too.)
Me, too! I always have been. Don't clean. It's boring unless you are reading George's post and all the comments as a "reward."
I visit a wonderful older lady, she's in one of the nicer retirement communities in the city. When I first met her, she told me a story about how she first moved from Brooklyn, she experienced the "Seattle Freeze." Although there was no name for it 50 years ago when she arrived.
"I called all my friends in Brooklyn and told them, my God! It's like everyone's had a lobotomy or something," she said. She cracks me up.
That's very funny, that line from her. 😂
I know, what is that? I was born in Seattle but maybe it was a gift that we were forced to move to Alaska, where you have to friend on the expertise, empathy and humor of others to survive at all.
That was supposed to read, “depend on,” but maybe “friend on” makes more sense!
I've made a million typos here. I never delete though. Just leave the mistakes hanging out in the wind.
Whenever I visit California and interact with total strangers there, I think to myself, "Ahhhh!!!! These are my people." I made all my friends right away when I moved here years ago, but that's because I worked in the theater, where people are more outgoing (generally) so I didn't experience the "freeze." I'm still friends with all the same people. But it exists, for sure.
Theater people!!
I feel at home whenever I can get back to NYC and New Mexico. Totally different, and yet they complete one another somehow.
oh that's fantastic! I love that you visit this woman. I'm sure she adores you. (Is it Summit House? That's where my mom used to live. I really miss that place and the people there.)
Horizon House. It was founded by Plymouth Congregational Church, which is a super progressive congregation. I'm sure your mother considered that one, as it's where all the "super smarty" people live. My best friend's (who you know! You know my BFF ...and it's such a small world. I'll tell you later) mother lives there, too. I'm sure you are loved, too, by the lady you visit. I think I love old ladies because I've always been an old lady.
Sure, I know Horizon house! It's a great place. Summit house is where all the Jews go, so it was a no-brainer for her. her cousin lived one floor up from her and every lady at her table went to Garfield High School, too. Pretty funny. (One day, I figure I'll be living there.) (and i know who your BFF is--her brother was my year at Roosevelt. SMALL WORLD IS RIGHT)
I will take all the blame. You better be faster with the delete button from now on, now that I am on to you!
Ha!
Hooray
Sometimes it can be the tiniest smile, or a thought from a writer who has been dust for hundreds of years, that provides the impetus which pulls us back from the final depths of despair. Or being able to give something to someone who you didn’t even know needed you right then.
"A thought from a writer who has been dust for hundreds of years." The thought of being that writer and transmitting thoughts from the grave is what keeps me going.
Quasi-immortality!
Thank you, and I'm really glad you posted this. Sounds like you've found what works for you. Making kids happy--that's huge.
I’ve found that fiction writers, no matter how large their career, tend to be pessimistic about their place in the world, about their contemporary and historical relevance. On the other hand, I’m found that poets, no matter how small their career, tend to very much overvalue and exaggerate contemporary poetry’s place in the world.
And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd. (T. S. Eliot) 😜
Hahahahha! A perfect quote!
That is hilarious, thank you!
cracked me up
I’m often goofy.
And does it in part signify that poets reside mostly on Cloud 9, while fiction writers struggle in mud and quicksand?
I think there might be religious feeling involved—of the poet as mystic, as oracle. I don’t think anybody called F. Scott Fitzgerald a mystic.
So true. F. Scott seems to have been down to earth, a consummate working writer. And yet, much of his prose reads like poetry to me.
Yes. Gatsby is my favorite novel.
Isn’t it fantastic? It’s like some mythic oracle that continues to expand, resonate, inform. And you can read it in four or five hours!!
Mine too, and I think it points to and proves that Fitzgerald had a little mystic streak. Don’t you think?
F. Scott was just writing to pay his liquor tab.
Must have been the most colorful and congruent liquor ever bought… I wrote this crazy story once in which Scott and Zelda and Frieda and Diego and Trotsky all appeared; it felt more like dreaming than writing. I hope to unearth it someday.
From my experience, poets are among the least realistic people in the world. That can be a very good thing in some cases. But, as with everything else, there's two sides to the coin.
Ha! Very true, very true :)
Thank you for this frank reflection on your approach. Lately I've been gifted with more opportunity to write, and I've been feeling like I just need to put my head down and write and not think about anything but making this book work. This post is a much needed validation to stop worrying about who may or may not want to read my work, or buy it, or publish it, and instead focus on writing the book only I can write and making it as good and satisfying to read as I possibly can, and that's it. And when I'm not writing...just be alive and attentive to the world.
"the book only I can write." That's it, in a nutshell.
Yes, yes, yes!
Like being one with a baseball game on a Sunday afternoon? (I’m still madly in love with that piece!) I love George’s idea of approaching his writing desk as a blank slate and just going to work, unwrapped from that cloak of trying to force things.
Hah, yes--thank you for remembering that piece and for your generous words!
You’re welcome. It’s a prose poem to be sure. I read it over and over, and read it to my wife, too. (She is a huge Giants fan.) Looking forward to reading your book someday. Keep going!!
Forty years ago, just after I got out of college, a perceptive friend of mine said, "All writers are conceited. They think they have something to say." Accept that, and move on. If you can't live with it, play golf. Also, plumbers cannot afford to get "blocked."
True.
Several years ago I was active in a long-running performance workshop. I took it because I wanted to see through the eyes of the actor. Our instructor was an old hand at theater and film and taught mostly body work, instinctive sound, and movement as it applied to the stage. As we walked out onto the floor to start one of the exercises he would often say, “Remember, if you have a good idea out there, don’t do it.” He meant that if you start overthinking what you’re about to do you will get all tangled up and self-conscious when you should be opening yourself up to whatever is flowing through you. Get too up in the head and you’ll cut yourself off from whatever is trickling in from your shy creative centers, i.e. the good stuff. As David Lynch says, “The big fish are down deep.”
I was always struck by how many people in that class took voluminous notes about being present, being in the moment, being mindful or whatever you want to call it. It’s an idea that’s been around for a long time and most of the writers and filmmakers I like seem to work that way to some degree, i.e. instinctively. Me, I would never write anything down, partly out of laziness but also because I felt he was training us to incorporate these lessons into the body and not to fill up some corner of the brain with instructions to self. If the instructor saw us trying to be too clever he’d stop and gently redirect us. This post of George’s approach to writing reminds me so much of those days. Those teaching are in my bones and not in some dusty notebooks, though I have too many of those filled with story notes. I will reread them on occasion and see how little I actually used as most of the actual good stuff came out in other ways.
I’ve always considered it a positive practice to make art and offer it to the world. It seems to me that creating art is subversive in its own right. I know it changed me in a good way and man did I need changing. Yikes… It’s a different way of giving to the poor suffering world. Now I sound like an egomaniac so I’ll end by exclaiming how cool those coffee mugs are!
Aye Mike, if it's important enough we re-member, or miss-re-member it from the silo of our mainframe.
So true. You can feel in the gut, in the heart. It's a strange alchemy, lead to gold. Thank you
Writers have inspired and changed the world. If that's not something to have a little egoboo about, I don't know what is...
Writers have inspired and changed me. This I know to be true. It's happening right now, right here. This amazing group couldn't have come at a more auspicious time for me. Thanks.
Question 2 is so big that it's crushing. Breathlessly so. Who, singular among us, can stop world wars, climate change, human inhumanity when we ourselves are human & thus, at least to some extent, complicit? I think our aim, by sheer definition of our not-God selves, must be smaller, very much smaller: do what good you can when you can with what you have at the time. As for how that applies to writing, here's the poet William Stafford in his essay "Writing the Australian Crawl"*: "A person writes by means of that meager but persistent little self he has with him all the time. He does not outflank his ignorance by intensive reading in composition class; he does not become brilliant about constructions by learning the history of language. He is a certain weight of person, relying on the total feeling he has for experience." And what is this experience? What is that certain weight? I think it comes down, literally, to such small, nearly minuscule, actions as, say, holding the door open for the person behind you. It's a gesture, a means of making way, of acknowledging the other. That's what I think we're supposed to do, what I think the best writing does & what I think every one of us does if only we'd give ourselves credit: make way.
*There's so much more wisdom in this one essay than I've quoted here & which you can find in Stafford's Writing the Australian Crawl: Views on the Writer's Vocation, U of Michigan Press, 1978, Ann Arbor.
I'm a huge William Stafford fan and love that book you mentioned. Get this: A million years ago, i edited a teeny tiny literary journal in the Pacific Northwest and somehow I had the chutzpah to contact Stafford and ask him to submit a poem. AND HE DID. I mean, what a mensch! We were a two-bit operation running on copy machines and spit. (Here's the terrible part: my copies of those old journals are buried deep inside one of the millions of dusty boxes in my garage. I know it's my duty to dig out that poem and let someone in the universe see it, because I'm pretty sure we were the only publication that printed it! I feel sick that I've yet to unearth that particular edition. One of these days, it will appear!)
I used to teach a Stafford poem juxtaposed to a bad poem of the same topic. It exemplifies just what Rosanne said above - making way, getting out of one’s own way.
As I get ready for my move from Atlanta to the PNW, I’ve been down-sizing yet again. An inveterate collector of stuff, this is the third major downsize: from a 3,000 sq ft mostly empty house to a 37 ft sailboat led to the largest sell-off/vie away. Now I’m mostly just me - a modest collection of one smallish book shelf, some few clothes, a computer, and two guitars. Every day I get rid of more stuff. It’s a kind of editing, a kind of making way.
What was the journal called? Maybe someone else in the world has a copy... I’ve been meaning to get out the notes from classes I had with Stafford and a bunch of other poets I was lucky enough to get to be a student of at various workshops, campus settings, etc. Forty and fifty years ago classes and notes and I still know where they are in my files. I wrote a pretty good poem about Bill Stafford when he died about twenty years ago now. I should post some of these somewhere.
Oh, you took courses from him! Fantastic! Post your poem here! I am still in contact with one person from that little journal (it was called exhibition). I'll see if he held onto back issues. Thanks for the prod!
No, not here. But maybe I’ll get back to some of the book projects I still think about doing, stuff only I can put together. 😕 🤔 🔑🍎
A Story That Could Be True
by William Stafford
If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by–
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”–
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
This is lovely. (Not the poem i published.) I'd better get looking through those boxes!!!
Dig!
Super interesting. Thanks for sharing the quote and the source info!
Well, glad to know I don’t need to be keeping a notebook of pithy sayings and things I overhear. Way too much effort! I really appreciate this post about why writers write and that doing the work, the diggin, is the main point, and us who are so privileged as to have the time, the resources to be able to spend time on writing, and rewriting, well, then, just go do it. I still want to write stories, even though I am age 71, and even though I have no idea why I want to, and why not just quit and go read the latest about how to save the world from burning up sooner than later? Why do I have hundreds of bookmarks for good causes and subscriptions to good ideas and good things to read, and soon? Need to simplify. That is a very good idea.
That thing though, about the A hah moment when you just know you've been struck by the muse while on the toil-let...note that, any way you can aye.
Yeah. A lot of newbies don't get that writing is a lot like panning for gold. You dig up a lot of mud, then slosh it around a lot, and if you're lucky you find a fleck or two; but first you've got to go dig up the mud. When I was starting out, I took to heart the dictum that you had to write x number of words a day, Period. Sometimes I'd get something good, sometimes it was litterally me just babbling to myself on paper just to get the words down. Yet, in the sludge I might suddenly type something that would make me go "that might be interesting" and go off on that. Professional writers know that a huge part of the job is just sitting down and doing the damn work and seeing what the writing gods send you. Everything else is just disguised excuses for why you don't want to work.
For me it’s day after day of looking at what I wrote the day before and thinking, my God, that’s awful. Until I get to a day, finally, when I think, ooh, that’s almost good, but it needs some tweaking…
"Awful" is an empty placeholder. Why is something awful? Does it describe something physical properly? Does it convey a thought properly? Does the dialog not say what it should? Is it not an integral part of the story? Sometimes you have to step back and see if what you wrote is really what you want to say.
I think I meant “awful” in the sense that it was not dynamic. Not full of awe!
1. "So: it’s just me and the existing text, and my job is to go in blank and see how I react to it, a day at a time. And everything is contained in that approach.
That’s the aspiration, anyway."
That's the *inspiration* I get from you, George.
2. "Valid ideas are insistent and persistent – they keep coming back, like an intense salesperson. And if an idea wilts or drifts away, it likely wasn’t that good anyway."
I think I'm like many writers. The valid idea persistently arrive when I'm on a walk, or in the shower, or driving. I've had many good ideas drift away. I have a good memory, but memory *is* fallible. The stressors of the day/world affect memory too. So I often will jot the notes on notepad if I find the persistent idea rather insistent or interesting. I think most of those ideas are rewritings rather than original thoughts, though I have plenty of notes for "story ideas" and "potential titles." If I can't figure out what my note means after a week or so, I delete it - those have wilted or drifted away. If the idea still appeals to me - I'll turn to it during writing time.
3. “We want so badly for our work to be consequential. We’re worried about this, aren’t we?” And your response to that voice might want to be: “Right. We are worried about this. But let’s not let this worrying obstruct us. Let’s put it to bed once and for all, so that, twenty years from now, we’re not still asking the same question, which we will be if we don’t get moving, because there is no conceivable answer that is going to free us from those worries, because, come to think of it: we shouldn’t be free of them - they are actually the essence of craft.”
This reminds me of Henry James's story "The Beast in the Jungle" and John Marcher, curiously awaiting his spectacular fate."
Of course, the most appropriate response is..... "John who?"
4. My partner/gf gifted me with a gray Story Club t-shirt with a the SC bird mascot on it. I love it and can't wait to run into someone who knows what it is. Just a matter of time.
Thanks for the office hours, George. Always a pleasure.
These Office Hours words of wisdom, plus the thoughtful comments of story club members, were just what I needed to read. All the anxiety and doubt applies to me… times one hundred. But I am gradually coming around. And best of all, today my best-ever gift to myself came in the mail: two Story Club coffee mugs (the little chick and the curly haired story girl). And it’s a spectacularly beautiful day here in Wisconsin. Life is good.
Elizabeth Gilbert in Big Magic talks about how best to relate to FEAR [of failure, of success, of fame, etc] in creative endeavors. She says FEAR is a natural part of creativity, and we should invite it along for the creative journey. But FEAR stays in the back seat and can’t drive. 🚗
Makes friends with your fears.
I’ve thought a lot about this question of “should I even be writing when…” I think one part of my answer to this dovetails with the art/worth/money question from last week. It feels like this kind of “artist’s guilt” is directly tied to a culture’s worth of art itself. Guilt arises from the economics. This is reinforced when art is treated as excess, not an important subject in education, not easy to make a living from, etc. In turn there’s a feeing of frivolity or excess to even engage in what is actually (hopefully) deeply meaningful work.
And so the artist ends up laden with a guilt bred from economics that most other professions aren’t burdened by.
As I tried to make my life as a writer, I worked for a decade as a chef, and never once during all that time did I beat myself up thinking “maybe I shouldn’t be cooking but doing something important…”. I think part of this is because that job was considered “legit.”
What’s interesting is during all those chef years I did lament that I “should be writing.” So I think another part of the guilt voice is that it’s a really good procrastinator in disguise. Thinking I should do something more important undermined my own work, precisely because of the fear that George addresses.
It’s also interesting that, no matter how meaningless or petty I might think someone’s job, I would never be like “hey why the hell are you doing that work, you should be doing something meaningful and important.” I’m often awed by how rudely I’m willing to talk to myself in ways that I’d never talk to others.
Ultimately I quieted the voice by admitting that it’s not an either or question. If I really want to do social/activist work, I can do that AND write. That sort of humbled me and got me back to the work at hand.
The guilt voices! They are the worst. But it looks as though you've found success in your writing and i congratulate you on that! (Just now purchased your book of short stories.)
Oh thanks so much, Mary! Deeply appreciated :) Yes many years (ongoing) of learning to manage the voices of either guilt, the inner critic, or the slacker (who tends to say “but I don’t want to write” in a 13 year old whine, or otherwise suggest great non-writing things to do). They all play a part in the process somehow…though still figuring out the answer/reason to that particular spiritual secret!
The part they play is called "fucking with your brain."
Ha! Indeed. Thanks for naming that so clearly :)
As George notes, "worry is the essence of craft." I think this may be one reason why this is Katherine Mansfield's favorite Shakespeare quote (or at least the one on her tombstone): I tell you, my Lord Fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
Great questions. And, as we've come to trust, great answers from George. What they (the Qs & As) remind me of is my own tendency to TRY too hard and by doing so to get in my own way and make a muddle of things. And I seem unable to get out of my own way.
I'm a huge European football (soccer) fan, especially of the English Premiere League and Liverpool F.C., coached by the indefatigable, defiantly optimistic Jürgen Klopp. Football at this level is merciless, demanding of every aspect of a player's being. While relentless work and talent are necessary for an individual player's success, it is FAR from sufficient. Too many uncontrollable factors arrayed against you. (Sound familiar?) Klopp, consistent as a metronome, yells during practice, implores in the locker room and if necessary takes you by the shoulders and looks you all the way down to your heart's skivvies and says, "Are you having fun? Enjoy this. Do you know what a privilege it is to be able to do this? I know you want to win. I want to win. But what I really want is to be lost in the 10,000 things that put me in a position to win. If you love this game and are grateful you have the opportunity to play it at this level, what could be more satisfying? Enjoy this. If you can't, do something else."
Okay, this more a compilation of things I've heard him say, i.e., I'm projecting what I need to hear. Also, it sounds better in Klopp's German accent. Still, this helps me to remember to have fun.
George works very hard at his writing. Obviously, he's "trying" at a pretty high level. When I read his fiction though, I'm struck by how much freedom he's allowed himself and how much fun it must have been to come up with the final product.
Generous, genial, genius. Thank you George. Insightful, incisive, instructive. 🌟
Enjoyed your answers to these common doubts we all have about the worth of our writing, and the guilt of doing such " soft" work- almost an indulgence. Most change in history has happened as a result of ideas that begin in the mind- bold statements, declarations, essays, and what if?.. ( fiction). Reading your advice on method- making notes, recording phrases etc- as not necessary,, and knowing that in the moment of writing it will come through, has freed me up. Your main message it seems to me, is to allow things to happen in the process of writing, without too much planning. I like that you said, that stories were an artificial scaffolding for real life observations. They are artificial, and therefore can be made as pleasing, horrifying, sad, uplifting as we can without getting caught in a lie. This is then the art of fiction- reality filtered, processed and metabolised through us. Did I understand it? Thankyou .