The story is inside and out.
Imagine Emily Dickinson writing most of her hundreds of poems, only seven of which were published before her death in 1886, in her second-floor bedroom.
While Dickinson is seen as a great poet, applying her methods of solidarity seems detrimental to living a full, healthy life.
At one point, not so long ago, I could picture myself spending long hours cut away from life in an office, with the door closed, maybe locked, and me, writing and writing and writing. I had romanticized the idea of writing in solitude and, in doing so, I had swiftly pushed people away.
To truly focus on writing I indeed need to minimalize distractions. But people and their stories are the only chance we have at making our own writing good.
We learn from professors, students, friends, family and strangers. We learn craft; we learn methods; we learn stories. Only so much can come from your own head, and every now and then you have to get outside of your own realm of thinking.
Every now and then, you just have to give your life up—let go, become detached.
When you can let go, even temporarily, you can stop observing yourself, and when you do venture into the world as a storyteller, you can truly start to observe others, and build a repertoire of faces, quips, and tragedies you can later use when alone in your office.
This time, however, the door will be open and I will not push people away.
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I give Emily Dickinson credit because I would not be able to do the whole solidarity thing. I like being by myself at times, but not usually for very long. When I am studying, writing, or doing whatever, I need to have something going on in the background. I need to have the background noise so that I can actually concentrate better. I do not think that my style would work for Emily Dickinson, but it sure works for me. I do think that sometimes you need to get away from life and do something for yourself.
A healthy balance. Sometimes writing with minimal distractions works if you have a lot going on in your head that needs to come out. Those of us who have young kids tend to write in the wee hours to avoid a chocolate sandwich on the keyboard. Generally though if you are any good then anything that’s going on is excellent source material and to cut yourself off from it is to associate yourself with the worst kind of snobbish aloofness that truly great writers abhor.
My rule of thumb though about story telling is that if you don’t have people clamouring to hear a story from your lips give up. If you can’t keep people half amused verbally you are going to put them asleep if you try to write. You are either a story teller or someone who thinks they can learn to write and if you are the latter don’t bother. Unfortunately the world is cluttered with those who think that they can write and are under the impression that the world wants to hear what they have to say. They would be wise to learn the difference between the two.
If you are a real writer then with a little encouragement good stuff will finds its way out if not all the fancy courses, methods, solitary confinement, sound proofing etc will never make excellence out of mediocrity.
I do agree. Writing is largely something you have to figure out on your own, by reading, writing, and, for me, watching well-written films. (I’m not sure if people realize how large a part films and television play in modern storytelling.) But, if you have the passion of writing, then learning, in whatever form, always helps to cultivate excellence. You have to be willing to work at writing, to learn new things, to experiment. I don’t know if you can learn to be a good writer, but I’m certain you can learn to be a better one.
Nicely put. I agree 100%. I guess I had in mind those who are so into being a ‘writer’, the image, the creative angst, the endless courses and support groups that they forget what it’s all about, i.e., being passionate about story telling. I agree that if you have that then learning will help a lot to do your work justice. Thanks for the well considered and constructive response.
I agree. If you don’t experience life, there is nothing to write about. After all, writing should reflect life.
I do have romantic notions of living out in a cabin in the middle of the forest, doing nothing but writing, but that is simply fantasy.
Well written post.
But, whether we want to or not, we are always going to experience life. Some may experience it more slowly and maybe not always directly, but experience comes and it comes when we least expect it. Really, it comes all the time. And suffering may be the best experience there is.
(Thank you, by the way.)