A Writing Paradox

Sometimes when I am writing in my journal, I am no particular age, no particular self.  I don't even have a name.  It's like swimming under water.

Thumb Your Nose

I'm looking at two photographs of Brenda Ueland,  author of If You Want to Write, one taken in 1938 and the other in 1983, when she was ninety-one, and the latter photograph is scary-awful.  Note to self:  no photographs after eighty.  I picked up the book last evening and remembered what a charming, supportive spirit she is.  Chapter seven is titled, "Be careless, reckless!  Be a lion, be a pirate when you write" and chapter ten, "Why Women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing."

I see you can get a used copy for $4.50 at Powell's Books in Portland, the best new and used bookstore on the planet.

Here's what Brenda Ueland says on page nine:

"And so now you will begin to work at your writing.  Remember these things.  Work with all your intelligence and love.  Work freely and rollickingly as though they were talking to a friend who loves you.  Mentally (at least three or four times a day) thumb your nose at all know-it-alls, jeerers, critics, doubters."

Novels in Hiding

Novels in Hiding

In one of the first English novels, Pamela, by Samuel   Richardson, the heroine is chased from room to room by the lord of the manor, Sir Something or Other.  She locks herself in a closet to write letters to her dear parents about her narrow escapes.  The subtitle of the book is Virtue Rewarded.

 It’s been forty years since I’ve read the book. I remember that it is an “epistolary novel” and that I thought that a closet was a closet, a place where clothes are hung, shoes on a floor that  always needs dusting, maybe a shelf above the clothes pole where sweatshirts are  stored or a stack of jeans.  I didn’t think of  a closet  as merely a small private room, and  in Pamela’s case, one with a desk and a lock on the door.

When the term “coming out of the closet” was first used, my  impression was that the person had been hiding in a metaphorical clothes closet, like a frightened child.

 I notice now that “closet” has moved to a general reference to any kind of secret life:  a closet drinker, or racist, or, ironically, a closet homophobe.  The term implies something about yourself that you have been afraid to acknowledge.

This past week I have encountered three closet novelists; that is, three people who  have written novels, shown them to no one--or very few-- left them on a shelf or in a box for years; in one woman’s case, for twenty-five years.

I am in awe of them.  I applaud them.  They have written  books! Probably there are more closeted novelists out there, but I think there are even more  souls like me, who have kept their desire to write closeted year after year, in the dark, behind the winter coats.

A Poem about Not Writing Poetry

A  Poem about Not Writing Poems

Coaxing a poem down from a tree,

out of the dog house.

Luring a poem into a car

out from behind its mother’s skirt.

Pushing a poem onto a stage

into the pool.

Hunting a poem nestled beneath the chemise

curled on a rock.

Gunning down a desperate poem trapped in a canyon,

sandstone cliffs rising a thousand feet.

A rock slide blocks the getaway.

The poem cries out, “They’re coming to get me!

I hear the thunder of hooves.

The ground shakes.

They ride closer and closer.

My palms sweat.

My heart pounds."

The leader of the poem posse says,

“Well, Tom, put away your pistol.

that one died of fright.”

I will be Finally Writing When...

I will be Finally Writing when I have the externals right.  The pen must be a Precise V5 extra fine and I need a box of them available before I can begin.   The desk must be the correct height and the chair comfortable but not too comfortable.  There has to be a window and the window has to have a view of nature, but it can’t be a view of things I need to do.  I need coffee.  I need to weigh the right amount. I may need a facelift.  I need to have everyone in my life busy and happy, not too close but not too far away.  I need to know what I’m going to write before I begin writing  and to know that it will be not just good but great.  I concede it may take several drafts to get there.  I am realistic, you know.

I need to be free of any anxiety about how to get this great piece published.  I just need to be assured that it will happen without my having to do anything.  I need to know that what I say will be original and  profound.  I won’t need a facelift before I’m Finally Writing.  That’s ridiculous.

On Writing: Tough Love from Stephen King

"You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair--the sense that you can never completely put on the page what's in your mind and heart.  You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names.  You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world.  Come to it any way but lightly.  Let me say it again:  you must not come lightly to the blank page.


I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one).  This isn't a popularity contest; it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church.  But it's writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner.  If you can take it seriously, we can do business.  If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else.

Wash the car, maybe."

      from On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

I want a writing group and I want it bad-ly

Thought du jour.  How do I turn this blog into a writing group?  I want support.  I want commiseration.  I'll figure it out.  Quid pro quo.  I'll support you, too.  I'll cheer you on.  I know there are online writing groups, just like there are online AA groups and online Weight Watchers.

So, dear imaginary friends, I have to say that I have been staying at it.