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May 11, 2007
Smear the Lines
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."
~ Joan Didion
These are the words of a self-confident writer who can comfortably explore how she feels about what's going on around her, how she interprets her observations, and how she allows them to affect her life. She is able to reveal what she wants and to face her fears head on. Are we?
Most of you know that essayist and author Joan Didion struggled through the sudden death of her husband a few years ago and the subsequent death of her 39-year old daughter only four months later. In an interview approximately 18 months later, Didion said, "I had to write my way out of it. Because I couldn't figure out what was going on. By the time I started it - John died December 30, I didn't start writing until October - I was out of the phase where I didn't know I was crazy. I was still crazy, but I knew it. So, it was a step back."
While Joan Didion was able to drop all pretense and face her fears through writing, many of the rest of us continue to struggle. We must strive to shake off the self-consciousness that often stifles and inhibits our writing. We need to forget about what people will think when our characters have disturbing thoughts or when they participate in frightening, twisted, or illegal activities. We need to fight the urge to edit toward the politically correct when, for example, we're working on a humor piece and we're not sure if entertains or offends.
The other day, I entered a local coffeehouse and ordered a decaf-skim-no-whip mocha. (I know, why bother, right? I could have ordered water.) After dropping my 92 cents change into the tip jar, I coughed up the courage to ask the barista a question, the reason I'd come into the shop in the first place. He was a twenty-something guy with beyond-baggy cargo shorts that defied gravity like no other. He wore a hemp choker and a gold watch that didn't match the rest of him.
"Hey, were you here for the comedy night?" I asked.
"I was." He turned toward me, seemingly surprised I was aware of the event. After all, I wasn't a regular, and he knew it.
"How'd it go?" I asked. But I didn't wait for an answer. "My friend came to read and I was wondering how she did."
"Oh, she did great." He didn't bother to ask which reader was my friend. "She was really funny."
She did it, I thought. She put herself out there, read her humor essay in front of a house full of strangers who sipped cappuccino and chai tea. Her debut reading was well-received. Yippee for her! Yippee, yippee!
I didn't question how the guy knew which woman I had referenced. I figured he had stereotyped us together, based on our ages or appearances or, I don't know what (the whole idea of which might make for a separate blog entry in the future). What was most important was that a lone writer had taken a chance, by putting a part of herself on paper and then exposing it to a crowd of potential boo-ers and hecklers and, least of all, critics.
Like my friend at the coffeehouse, we all need to push away the worry that the world might read between our written lines, because they will. And after all, isn't that what we want?
This humor writer's self-confidence and willingness to put herself out there reminds me of my nephew who is an artist and a lawyer. When among a group looking at any of his paintings, he remains peculiarly silent. Always.
"So what did you mean by this?" I'll ask. And I really want to know.
Silence still.
"Come on, I'm family. You can tell me," I say.
His reply is a constant, "What does it mean to you?"
(I suppose he doesn't care about the rule that requires we never answer a question with a question.) Above all, he is confident enough, comfortable enough to have poured whatever he could of himself into the painting, exhausted himself in it, really. So much so that he can then allow the public to interpret it, free of his influence. I admire (and sometimes abhor, in a loving way, of course) his self-assurance. How does he do it? How does he fight the urge to make sure that absolutely everyone alive knows exactly what he intended? With confidence, that's how.
I believe he knows that each finished painting represents his best work, at the time anyway, and he is comfortable letting it go.
Like my artist nephew, we must stop concerning ourselves with what readers will surmise about us and our personal lives. The fact is that they're bound to do so. If you're going to put yourself out there by presenting words and paragraphs for the public eye, and that's hopefully what most of us want beyond journaling, then you are going to be subject to scrutiny. So we must produce our best work and then let it go, much like Joan Didion did when she unveiled herself in The Year of Magical Thinking (Vintage).
Her honesty among those pages is painful, memorable. And as a reader, we relate to it in a personal, individual way. Similarly, it is our own honesty and individuality that can smear the line of paint that divides how we live and what we write. We need to allow for the smear and let the new colors emerge.As Rhys Alexander says in Writing Gooder when talking about adding detail, "It's the difference between a pencil sketch and a lush oil painting. As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors."
So get back to your keyboards and write your best work. Use all the colors you can and then let it go. And when asked what you meant by something you wrote, feel free to look your reader in the eye and confidently utter my nephew's line: "What does it mean to you?"
Posted by Judy at May 11, 2007 10:50 AM
Comments
Judy:
I must confess that I am still something of a blogging-newbie, inexperienced in blogging's place in my everyday, and writing worlds. As with other writing experiences, you introduced me to the concept and expanded my view. And this blog may have just smeared my lines--those lines that form the box within which I write.
I'm not sure if it was Joan Didion's heartfelt declaration that she had to write her way "out of it" or your friend's courage to read her work in the coffee-shop, or your nephew's habit of exhausting himself in the art which represents only half of his world of work, but something clicked for me.
Somehow I feel encouraged about a large writing goal and project which I have left simmering for too long. I see it for what it is--an ambitious and exciting possibility which is allowed to have smeared lines at this stage of development. I can tweak, clarify and refine later. Now is the time to use all the colors, smear the lines, and create.
Thank you for the inspiration.
mary
Posted by: Mary at May 12, 2007 02:07 PM
Mary, I'm thrilled to have been an inspiration for you. I can't wait to read through your finished project. For now, allow the lines to smear. You never know what beautiful blends will blossom!
Good luck!
Posted by: Judy Schneider at May 12, 2007 02:14 PM
Judy, thanks for sharing your thoughts and stories. I have spent much of my life worrying about what others will think of what I say, write, or look like. I've started to break away from that in many areas - maybe it's simply getting older, gaining more confidence - but either way it's been downright liberating. This is just the kind of reminder I need to do the same with my writing - push through to the end, make it the best I can and let go. (Then do it all over again.) Great post, as always. Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day!
Posted by: Susan at May 13, 2007 08:41 PM