Reading Great Books

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

Oh, yes. It is a blunt, grubby little crayon too.

Kurt Vonnegut was the first male author I truly loved as a teenager. I’ve always identified more with what women authors have to say, but Vonnegut grabbed me and made me laugh and think and laugh some more.

Right now I’m re-reading authors I admire to see how they do what they do so well. Often they are authors I didn’t understand at all when I first read them (Faulkner, Forster). It’s a great exercise for an author to read the work of others in order to see what in it is lasting, what has an impact, what makes it a classic. If you are a writer, one of the most important things you can do is read every day, widely, in many genres, with an eye toward appreciating what is effective and what isn’t in each piece you read.

A really good novel needs to be read at least twice, because the first time, it will draw you into the story so completely, you won’t be able to read it with a critical eye. This might be true the second time too. I’ve read my all-time favorite novel, Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, at least 5 times and still get swept up in it every time. I’ve yet to read it with a critical eye.

Too Much Noise

My head hurts. I’ve been working too much. There’s a lot of noise in my life, and I always struggle to tune out enough of it to hear what I have to say as a writer. Being a writer means being quiet and listening. A lot. It means sitting still and pondering. Or taking long walks and pondering. Preferably both.

Do you have enough quiet time in your life to hear your story speaking to you?

Your Most Important Audience Is You

We writers can get so caught up in worrying about finding an audience, selling books, and gaining recognition for our work, that we forget to love our work. We are our own first readers, and we should each be writing the book we would most love to read. That should be your test of every idea you have for a book and every sentence and paragraph and scene you put on paper. Do you love to read it? Is it the book you wish you could find in the library?

If not, keep trying until it is.

The More You Do

Being a writer means, first and foremost, being a person who lives fully. We have so many media images of writers who sit in front of computers or typewriters all day banging out words, we come to think of writers as cerebral, indoorsy people who need do little else. And it’s true to some extent–sitting down and writing all day is what a dutiful writer does in the midst of a project. But without some stretches in between, some times in which we experience the real world outside our own minds, most of us will have very little of interest to say on the page.

To be a good writer, we have to be curious about everything, hungry to learn, eager to experience full, rich lives. I have to admit this is something I’ve always struggled with. I hate taking time away from regular writing, but I’ve found as I get older that the more I become a rich-in-experiences person outside my writing life, the more I have to say when I do write.

The past few years in which I’ve written very little have been a time of filling up on experiences, and in spite of my utter panic about not writing “enough,” have ultimately made me a writer I never could have been if I’d kept slogging away and forcing myself to write on a nearly empty tank of experiences.

The Warrior’s Perspective

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.” ― Carlos Castaneda

If you pursue any kind of creative passion seriously, you will encounter difficult times. The trick is to see the lesson in the adversity. What does it have to teach you about your art? Plenty, if you pay attention.

No Regrets?

Steven Pressfield never fails to offer up something worth reading. I especially love this quote from his blog:

“You’ve read the same articles I have in the Sunday supplements that say on your deathbed you never regret the days you didn’t go in to the office. Bullshit. That’s not my world. I do regret those days. Norman Mailer toward the end of his life was asked if he had any regrets. The interviewer expected, I imagine, an answer like, “I wish I’d spent more time with my kids.” Instead Mailer said, “I have three or four more books in my head; I wish I had written them.””

This is indeed my particular fear–not getting written what I want to write. The challenge, of course, is making each day a no regrets day.

Driving in the Dark

“Writing is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” –E.L. Doctorow

That’s one of my favorite quotes about writing, because no matter how many times I see it or hear it quoted, I never cease to need the reminder.

I want guarantees when I’m writing that the pages I write are part of a cohesive whole and that the destination will be worth arriving at. I want to know I won’t have to cut the scene later. I want to know how long it will take me to reach THE END. I want, I want, I want…control.

But all that control-seeking can keep me from writing anything at all. Better than I keep moving slowly through the darkness, getting to know my characters along the way. Even if I ultimately don’t use the scene, I’ll know my story better for having written it.

Moving through the dark also forces me to focus on the immediate scene and its details, which isn’t, in the end, such a bad thing.