I Am Not Content: a Mild Rant

No, not content as in ‘contentment’. Content as in what my job in commerce has chosen to call the work that occupies my days.

The description makes me grind my teeth.

Content for what? As a subset for some function? As in the contents of a glass? Good grief, what next? Shall we rename the venerable store here in Denver The Tattered Cover Content Store?

I am not content. Nor a contenter. I write. I am a writer. I write writing.

Okay, okay…I know that this description, content, is a flavor of the moment; one small element of that grab bag of mildly diseased and “wha’?” terms that are everywhere in business, these days. Even the august Forbes magazine featured on article about business-speak they would be perfectly happy never to hear again. I won’t share them here, not their least favorites nor mine. But plainspeaking is at a premium. Do we really believe that throwing in businessisms by the handful will give our thoughts a gravitas and influence that they don’t possess otherwise?

The thing that chaps me most about having my work referred to as content is the disrespect the word implies; that it is just a filler for something more important…as if we could communicate just as effectively by pictures. It rankles me as much as when an agency or a client calls the art aspect of the work “creative”…as if the writing is not. Folks, creative is all of us.

I have heard—and continue to hear in my career in commerce—that really good writers are hard to find. And yet, in a career in which our work is regarded, it seems, somewhere near the level of manual labor and we are increasingly pressed to produce by quantity rather than quantity in service to the corporate bottom line, content is what we seem to be making.

In the Georgia O’Keefe show I attended over the weekend, I was struck by the courage of the artist who will live her art. I wish I were that person. Ms. O’Keefe did not create visual content. Shakespeare, Dickens, Donne, Nabokov, Bradbury: Theirs was not content.

Hello, what do you do as a day job?  I make content.

Oh dear me. Will someone publish me soon? Please? Life in a garret, eating ramen noodles, is starting to seem like such a viable alternative to career….

 

The Observer’s Perch

Fascinating. Special. And lovely in its way. The observer’s perch in a too-real world.

I don’t mind eating alone. I rather like it. My very sensual relationship with taste is often best served by a one-on-one experience rather than a ménage a trois. And there are added benefits…ones that remind me of the grace that is being a writer.

A couple sat at the table beside me in this close-in little French bistro. Clearly first-date country: the questions, the laughs, the lean-ins, the what-do-I-say-next…the art of “I’m interested.” Fascinating to observe the progress of this fledgling relationship—especially given my inexplicably less-than-stellar reception in Dating World, recently. The couple and I had some dear exchanges. They didn’t seem to mind my being so close; wasn’t a choice. As I got up to leave, the woman rose and embraced me…affection is glorious, even from a stranger, even if you’re not sure what prompted it.

The evening reminded me. Of the great gift of writerdom. Of deliberate separateness.

As we gather fruits of the human tree, we are immune to the things that sting. We share, in ways we could never express to a fellow human, the loveliness of a first encounter, of the dance of seduction, of pain and promise and joy. We celebrate awkwardness. We feel the twinge of not-quite. We watch love at its beginning and, sometimes, at its end. We do this innocently and without judgment. Apartness is a virtuous place.

Observerdom is the protection against loneliness. It takes us from isolation into the realm of Us. We do not shock. We are not disappointed. We do not fear silence. We know that there are only so many colors in life’s paintbox…but, oh, how magnificently they combine.

For the observer, life is ever full. The conversations are unpredictable. The possibilities are endless. The view is high and wide, the emotions are perfumed, the outcomes are unpredictable. We may not, except by happy accident, feel the human touch that we might long for, but the rest is glorious. This is the human universe. Welcome to the skyshow.

Ill Woodwinds

Accent-studded prose. Pigeon English. Yea or Nay?

If inclusion or eschewing comes down to a debate, on which side do you stand?

As usual, I boldly straddle the center line of my own question. For me, most of the time, accents and pigeon English in prose are like Mark Twain’s clarinet, the “ill woodwind that nobody blows good.” Or almost nobody.

I find accents in written form disruptive. Clunky. Pushes against the graceful flow.

Other paths to the end: not so much of a challenge for me. An odd sentence form that represents, say, a non-English speaker’s accent or a British cadence…or slang…these are acceptable to my reader-eye—especially once the device establishes itself as a character’s signature. They can be persuasive; even charming. Like any device, I suppose, the proof is in the skill with which it is executed.

But what other avenues are open to us?

Take an example from my own work. A character in progress. A street artist, Real Deal. The jazz-musician riffs and rhythms of his speech are indications that he is, as his reputation proclaims, “batshit crazy.” His circlings and repetitions and Tourette’s-like exclamations are the evidences of the unhinged nature of his mind.

Without relying on the trite executions of accents—especially in Deal’s case as an African American—we come away from the page in possession of something more and better. A seeding of a greater notion in the plot.

We realize as time goes on, that craziness is the carefully-cultivated front for what Deal calls “persona.” The device becomes even more useful and appealing when we realize that he is much saner than he lets on—in fact, saner, steadier and wiser than most of his other companions. The artful shedding of his riff-man guise reveals the truth of him under his personal veil. A subtlety even more impactful than if he had been slathered in an overwrought urban accent.

Eccentricity in dialog is, for me, far more useful and effective than the labored, open-to-personal-interpretation of accents.

And I now pass the question along to you: How do you feel about accents baked into prose? How to you deal with them? How do you exert mastery over them? To writers as we are, the questions are as interesting as the answers.

The Breathless Days

Has spring come early?

There is something in the air; something in me. I am hearing the higher music that moves me to the page. Nothing is changed. Nothing is different. And, for the writer’s moment, everything is.

I don’t understand it. I am not visited by the consuming clarity that is the finest, favorite moment of the craft. I come home from work too tired to commit to anything but snipping stray threads from the chapter in progress, and yet I’m not fidgeting about it.

I read the word-count exploits of other writers and I smile, pleased for them, but not pressed to march to that drum. I spend the time before sleep finding my way to the immersion that will turn the current scene into a labor of love…we write best when we write from inside the chapter, remember? I am breathless at prospects…still as uncertain and insecure and rejection-phobic as always, but not minding it so much. Why?

I told someone very recently that I am content with my life but not complacent about it. Is the contentment the product of the work or the cause of it? Were I able to put these moments and thoughts into a little box and bring them out when I need them.

I write. It’s who I am, and what. And in these breathless days, it’s enough.

The Love Scene

For me, it’s an inevitable; a consummation (pun intended) without which the book wouldn’t seem complete. I enjoy considering love scenes, writing those exalted, magnificent moments; enjoy even more the natural reaching-point that they represent for the characters. These comings-together are beautiful occurrences that I am fortunate enough to share, as when love comes to dear friends.

But what makes a love scene good? What makes it wonderful?

I’ve written before in this space the limitations and minimum requirements that fulfill the moment for me. Graphic passages? No. Squishy bits? No no. We create an idealization as exquisite as the moment can be. Some of that is experience. The rest is a wish made manifest; an encounter leisurely and consuming and full-hearted in its physicality, and, yes, pure.

Where does the love scene come from? Where in our lives does it fit? Is a well-wrought love scene a kind of wish fulfillment; a fantasy externalized?  Perhaps. And is there anything wrong with that? Ah, it’s question time.

I have often wondered about folks I’ve known, male and female, who maintain fantasy loves in the form of actors, fictional characters, musicians. What does the love scene represent in the light of their real-life relationships? If the writer has a partner, is the imagining, the executing, of that perfect fictional moment a form of cheating? Does the creating of an idealized love represent a betrayal of sorts?

Writers, like actors, maintain a tenuous hold on reality. Imaginations fly to impossible places. Lines get blurred. Little wonder that actors who love on film often drift into love in life. In writing, the gathering and manifestation of faux-love are a bit more problematic. We write beings to life; often they are based on flesh and blood people…more often, still, people we are well aware will never be ours. There is titillation is innocent. And it is dangerous. The real can equal the unreal; can even surpass it. But knowing the difference and living by the laws of real—much tougher.

What is a good love scene to you? What makes it good? How does it coexist in an existence where real love lives?  Those are the questions of the day. Asked with all the love in the world.

The Emily Dickinson Window

The knack for observing aspects of character: Happened the other day in the office. Asked, the writer noted some qualities of a co-worker’s nature. Was asked to repeat the feat for someone else, a breathless “Now do me!” moment. Funny.

It’s an ability surprises some people. They regard it as some sort conjuring trick; parlor magic. Not to me.

To me, it’s a symptom. Of something writers spend our lives doing.

We sit in the high, Emily Dickinson window of ourselves, watching what happens around us; watching what other people are, seeing how the pieces and parts move.

Don’t mistake this observing for judgments on people’s characters. It’s not that, although judgment does happen. It is, instead, a holding-apart of ourselves from safe distance. That high window is our protection, our safe vantage. Where we sit is where we prefer to sit. It is the place that wants us to return when we stray from it. The place where we are happiest.

An observing nature makes life complicated, sometimes. The adopting of a single committed viewpoint among many can be difficult when the writer finds value in most of them. We seem wishy-washy. We seem to be without strong opinion. It’s not that. Not at all. Call it an omni-directional point of view, an encompassing vision. It’s what we are made for.

We are the high window, the Emily Dickinson perch. And the one who looks out from the world from that sacred, quiet place. And, in a way, we are what we view. The view has an isolation built into it. And we like it that way.

 

Emotion, Absent

A revelation. In a voice. The Voice on the Tape.

I’ve discussed it here many times: the tiny tape recorder the writer uses to capture the fleeting muses of late nights. And in that little spool of vinyl, a learning. A question. A concern.

I sense that I have been removed from myself, scribing emotions on the page without feeling them. The quaking wonder I feel as I move into a chapter, the emotion that plays back so completely when I read what I have written…it’s been missing. The writing may be satisfying to some extent, craftsmanlike and, at times, even thrilling. But the super-saturated feeling that brings it truly to life—gone.

The texture and smell of a great meal in person and the seeing of it described disinterestedly on paper: not nearly the same thing. I feel it in the creating. I can hear it in analog, in the playback of notes…the difference between the writer immersed and the one going through the motions. I can sense the empty air in the chapter readback that should hollow me out and leave me goosebumped.

I don’t know why this has happened. I don’t know where the emotion went. I am

detached from that essential umbilical of emotional commitment, that immersion in sheltering non-reality, that gift that lets us write the world and yet stay gloriously removed from it. And here’s the question: Can we write emotional honesty—or even represent emotional development compellingly—if we do not feel it first?

Detached from the master-class-method-acting emotionality that writing is, without that investment, we are merely writing words, as felicitous as those words might be. Can any writer really create feeling without owning feeling?

This is something I’d better figure out. And fast. Writing without emotion is, for me, not writing. Life without writing is, for me, not life.

 

By Numbers

Not a dig at my writing brothers and sisters. Not nearly. Instead, call it a curiosity:

Word counts.

Whether as the landmark measurement of yearly writers’ events or as a passing note on FaceBook, the posting of the day’s output seems to wield an almost mystical importance. I’ve done it myself. I’ve never been quite sure why.

The number of words achieved through the intellectual and emotional wrestling match that is the day at the page seems a strange yardstick for triumph, as if we were marking an ascent of Everest rather than the quality of output. Sure, it indicates the dedication of the day. But what is it really?

Writing a novel is a marathon made up of a series of sprints—work (and in this I am speaking of those of us who write while holding full-time jobs) fit into dedicated weekends and the hours carved into weekday work nights. And perhaps that’s what bothers me.

The number is a passionless one. Numbers always are. Yes, it is the evidence of the accomplishments of altitude or mileage, but not a sign of what getting there cost…the hours and hours of lonely roadwork, the toll of altitude sickness in the strictly solo climb.

For all its exultant joy, Writing is emotionally expensive for those of us who do it. It is often the choice between a weekend day spent working and a trip to the movies; between breaking the back of a feisty chapter and dinner with friends. It is—especially, I reckon, for those of us who write for a living—a constant battle against brain drain. Noting the progress of a living story as if it were a tote board of output seems to under-serve both the breathing characters and labor pains that brought them into the world.

As I said, I have, in the past, joined my compadres in the observance. Not sure that I’ll do it any more. Writing is more to me than a creative odometer…it’s the way we get there.

A Cliché by Any Other Name

We wish to believe that we are special. Different. That the word-angels who speak through us have something unique to say.

Sometimes that’s true.

Other times, it’s just wretched self-deception.

Those long, long days of spinning mental air into gold…those hours of exalting the oh-so-clever us… sometimes, we’re just blowing smoke up our own anatomies. Sometimes, a cliché—however turned on its head, or polished into shiny newness—is nothing more than that.

What sort of self-delusion won’t let us see it?

The character who stands up in front of his companions and gives a stirring call-to-arms, the time-worn expression that we feel we have invested with magic, the long look full of emotional import, the plot response that is no surprise at all: The beartraps-in-disguise are legion. And our shifting view of the literary peril is not so clearly marked. One day, we pat ourselves on the back for speaking the familiar language of the well-worn phrase, turned into music by our cleverness. The next day, we appall ourselves that such a phrase found its way into our work at all.

What the hell were we thinking?

I’ve been watching films, lately, for clues to flow and content in popular media. I have been shocked, in this hard-eyed view, to discover how truly cliché-saturated these works really are. Perhaps, as friend Belinda noted over pints at an English pub the other day, people have forgotten how to expect truly original thinking, because safety-minded publishers and film makers no longer have the balls or the skill to deliver it.

And as for those of us who create…how much forgiveness should we expect of ourselves; how much slack should we cut? Is it laziness that lets us go to that easy place—the too-easy motion of going through the motions and calling it a good day’s work? Is any cliché (even a well-turned one) acceptable? Ever?

Or is a turd always going to be a turd, no matter how nicely you polish it?

 

Xmas in England

Hi all… A short post as I recover from the slammin’ cold that chased me back from my visit.

It was wonderful. Every second of it. Food–much. Pubs. Laughter. Welcome. Walks. Amazing conversations. And did I say food? Janet and Clive are the two greatest hosts in the history of my life; they create heritage-rich Christmases right of Charles Dickens (there–I thought I’d get to writers and writing sooner or later.)

Tea at an old estate one day (anda bad photo to show for it)…

A day at the races at Towcester (r to l: Belinda, my racing advisor ex-jockey Tyler ), and Belinda’s husband Tony (feeling the cold)…

Jason, the day’s winner…

And one of my winners….  

Many pub visits (sans photos)….

And, of course, Xmas… (Belinda and the table…)

More soon. Tomorrow, back to writing about writing–and the idea that not even cleverness will disguise the laziness of cliches.

 

Happy New Year, you!