In a time of self-publishing and self-filming, there seems to be a whole lot less self-examining.
I often wonder if folks even take a few moments from their busy lives to reflect on who they are, how they became this person and what they've done over their years. I'm not criticizing--just wondering if this is seen as "too Catholic"--or too guilt-inducing--thus counter-productive to getting ahead in the world? I don't think Americans like to reflect too closely on their own roles in history--unless there is a movie in it.
Self-examination of one's past is not without its perils-excessive guilt over what one cannot change is one. (However,as a writer, reflection is my primary tool.) Writing necessitates examining the most minute nuances of what one can remember. Every scent; every sound; every joy, heartache and headache, become the materials of construction. No way to avoid going back--even to those darker places I might wish to avoid.
Along with guilt, there is a nagging question of responsibility. Not so much "who caused the situation", but more of a question of "will writing about this matter hurt anyone else"?
What outweighs human suffering? Anything? Can we avoid hurting others, inadvertently? (In war there are always "civilian casualties", which are written off as necessary evils. I rail against that phrase--it reduces everyone to expendable. However, in war, when war is to save the planet, or country, or civilization, doesn't everything become expendable?) The argument is heavy on both sides. Writing isn't truly a war--even if it often spills blood. There can be casualties.
In an English class on creative writing, which I recently taught, the idea of upsetting others came up quite suddenly. Students were expressing difficulty in creating characters for their short story assignments. They asked how I come up with my characters--a question often posed at readings.
Every writer has a strategy. However, for most, the amalgam of people they've met over their lives, condensed and manipulated, becomes the basic material. Disguising these folks and extending the attributes they offer, becomes the "craft" of the writer. What do these characters have to teach us? Show us? Prove through their actions and decisions? (Can these points be illustrated in any other way? How?)
I suggested my students think of a buddy, who perhaps entered their lives and then dropped out, without notice. Imagine what this person's life might have been--might become. Use these imaginings to create the basis of your character's story.
Well, they did.
However, one student, upset about her previous teacher leaving the school (and my being asked to continue the class), complained that she was being assigned to write a short story "about someone who used to go to the school-- the attributes of this person were being listed and negative things were being written". (Of course this was not entirely true.) In fact, 99% of the class had no problem creating a new character based on the classmate who suddenly dropped out. But we are talking 21st century culture. One student complaint that even hints at something that could become problematic in the wider world, elicits the utmost scrutiny from Administration.
The explanation and documentation and results of the class excercise proved the good intentions of the assignment, as well as the positive effects on the writings the students produced. As a "life lesson", I used the "blip" to illustrate the conundrum we face, as writers; of getting too close to reality--or what some folks see as reality--when we create our literary worlds.
This has always been an issue for writers. Either we are too dead-eyed and piss people off OR we are too romantic and "soft"--which pisses other people off! A careful high-wire act is always the path we walk.
The rest of the short story class went on without incident. Most of my students felt it was a valuable lesson. We scratched those stories and went on in another direction. (I went on to remember this "sting"...mostly to my pride... as an educator in the public sector. (Visions of the novel PEYTON PLACE began to fill my dreams...)
Today, I find myself "self-editing" in a deeper way. Returning to my birthplace, living shoulder to shoulder with blood family, under the same roof of my childhood, it becomes increasingly murky. Sense memories flood over me--good, bad, horrifying or comforting--a veritable well of material to pull new stories from. But there is a cost to this endeavor.
Along with the reclaimed images, come the real-life characters. Most are still alive. Most are still kicking. Some, I break bread with, on a daily basis.
To write the adventures I've shared, or share the truths I see, well, that's where self-examination rains down. (Eighty-percent of my day, I wrestle with this unexpected "weather".) Whose truth? Why? Where did those ideas originate? Who was right? Who was wrong? What was forced upon us all? How could it have turned out differently? What are the long-term answers?
As a writer,I realize the process of this self-examination is boring to a reader. All it can do is to temper what I turn out. My high-wire walk begins to sway. I don't want to be a tepid writer. I want to inflame my readers! I want to cause controversy and upheaval! I want them to come away with some kind of change, however that manifests in the world!
(But I don't want to "hurt" anyone...not really.)
So, this greatest of all mysteries: how to have an effect on the culture without causing pain to the individual members?
After all, as I have pointed out to my writing students, even Steinbeck was hated. At least for a while. (Residents of Oklahoma were furious he "created" the scenarios in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.) And of course, in the venerable "New York Times", around 1937, he admitted that Lennie Small, in OF MICE AND MEN, existed as a real man...someone he had met and witnessed murdering a foreman on a ranch, with a pitchfork...
So, in this room that was never my room, in this house that belongs to my parents, in a town that doesn't really know what to do with me (or maybe even trust why I've come back), I pull up buckets of my past. I try to sip that minerally water, taking in what refreshment it has to offer. As I send the bucket back down the well, I hope my lips haven't left any poison on the rim.
I often wonder if folks even take a few moments from their busy lives to reflect on who they are, how they became this person and what they've done over their years. I'm not criticizing--just wondering if this is seen as "too Catholic"--or too guilt-inducing--thus counter-productive to getting ahead in the world? I don't think Americans like to reflect too closely on their own roles in history--unless there is a movie in it.
Self-examination of one's past is not without its perils-excessive guilt over what one cannot change is one. (However,as a writer, reflection is my primary tool.) Writing necessitates examining the most minute nuances of what one can remember. Every scent; every sound; every joy, heartache and headache, become the materials of construction. No way to avoid going back--even to those darker places I might wish to avoid.
Along with guilt, there is a nagging question of responsibility. Not so much "who caused the situation", but more of a question of "will writing about this matter hurt anyone else"?
What outweighs human suffering? Anything? Can we avoid hurting others, inadvertently? (In war there are always "civilian casualties", which are written off as necessary evils. I rail against that phrase--it reduces everyone to expendable. However, in war, when war is to save the planet, or country, or civilization, doesn't everything become expendable?) The argument is heavy on both sides. Writing isn't truly a war--even if it often spills blood. There can be casualties.
In an English class on creative writing, which I recently taught, the idea of upsetting others came up quite suddenly. Students were expressing difficulty in creating characters for their short story assignments. They asked how I come up with my characters--a question often posed at readings.
Every writer has a strategy. However, for most, the amalgam of people they've met over their lives, condensed and manipulated, becomes the basic material. Disguising these folks and extending the attributes they offer, becomes the "craft" of the writer. What do these characters have to teach us? Show us? Prove through their actions and decisions? (Can these points be illustrated in any other way? How?)
I suggested my students think of a buddy, who perhaps entered their lives and then dropped out, without notice. Imagine what this person's life might have been--might become. Use these imaginings to create the basis of your character's story.
Well, they did.
However, one student, upset about her previous teacher leaving the school (and my being asked to continue the class), complained that she was being assigned to write a short story "about someone who used to go to the school-- the attributes of this person were being listed and negative things were being written". (Of course this was not entirely true.) In fact, 99% of the class had no problem creating a new character based on the classmate who suddenly dropped out. But we are talking 21st century culture. One student complaint that even hints at something that could become problematic in the wider world, elicits the utmost scrutiny from Administration.
The explanation and documentation and results of the class excercise proved the good intentions of the assignment, as well as the positive effects on the writings the students produced. As a "life lesson", I used the "blip" to illustrate the conundrum we face, as writers; of getting too close to reality--or what some folks see as reality--when we create our literary worlds.
This has always been an issue for writers. Either we are too dead-eyed and piss people off OR we are too romantic and "soft"--which pisses other people off! A careful high-wire act is always the path we walk.
The rest of the short story class went on without incident. Most of my students felt it was a valuable lesson. We scratched those stories and went on in another direction. (I went on to remember this "sting"...mostly to my pride... as an educator in the public sector. (Visions of the novel PEYTON PLACE began to fill my dreams...)
Today, I find myself "self-editing" in a deeper way. Returning to my birthplace, living shoulder to shoulder with blood family, under the same roof of my childhood, it becomes increasingly murky. Sense memories flood over me--good, bad, horrifying or comforting--a veritable well of material to pull new stories from. But there is a cost to this endeavor.
Along with the reclaimed images, come the real-life characters. Most are still alive. Most are still kicking. Some, I break bread with, on a daily basis.
To write the adventures I've shared, or share the truths I see, well, that's where self-examination rains down. (Eighty-percent of my day, I wrestle with this unexpected "weather".) Whose truth? Why? Where did those ideas originate? Who was right? Who was wrong? What was forced upon us all? How could it have turned out differently? What are the long-term answers?
As a writer,I realize the process of this self-examination is boring to a reader. All it can do is to temper what I turn out. My high-wire walk begins to sway. I don't want to be a tepid writer. I want to inflame my readers! I want to cause controversy and upheaval! I want them to come away with some kind of change, however that manifests in the world!
(But I don't want to "hurt" anyone...not really.)
So, this greatest of all mysteries: how to have an effect on the culture without causing pain to the individual members?
After all, as I have pointed out to my writing students, even Steinbeck was hated. At least for a while. (Residents of Oklahoma were furious he "created" the scenarios in THE GRAPES OF WRATH.) And of course, in the venerable "New York Times", around 1937, he admitted that Lennie Small, in OF MICE AND MEN, existed as a real man...someone he had met and witnessed murdering a foreman on a ranch, with a pitchfork...
So, in this room that was never my room, in this house that belongs to my parents, in a town that doesn't really know what to do with me (or maybe even trust why I've come back), I pull up buckets of my past. I try to sip that minerally water, taking in what refreshment it has to offer. As I send the bucket back down the well, I hope my lips haven't left any poison on the rim.
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