This Salon’s topic started with an email from a writing friend, a first-year student in fiction. Here’s a copy of the email we received:
“We spend a ton of time in our classes talking about craft and essentially deconstructing writing — ours and others’. What there’s not so much of — at least so far in my genre is conversation or instruction designed to help us with the thing that most writers spend the most time struggling with: finding the place in us where good writing comes from and a way to keep on finding it. I know that for myself, just about anything good I ever wrote did not originate with worrying about craft or anything else external. It came from some inner relationship that all of us have. And it’s a damn tricky thing, that. I struggle to describe it, but maybe the idea of ”the Muse” is the most universally understood. People say things like, “You just have to show up and keep writing,” but it’s obviously easier said than done. Someone I talked to in the program complained to me one day, “I havne’t written in a few days; I can’t write when I’m in a bad mood.” I’ve heard people say, “I have to be in a good space to write,” and I talked to one of our poets the other day who said he had to practice ritual to create his writing space. When I started applying to grad schools, I was so naive, I just assumed there would be entire classes designed to support and nurture this writing space. Meditation classes designed especially for writers, maybe. I know in the world outside of school, it’s really the main issue. Friends and acquaintences who have graduated from MFA programs tell me, though not at first, that they haven’t been writing much the past few months. “Much” meaning at all. “Few months” meaning the past year. And with these guys it’s not for lack of craft.”
We met in the courtyard of Arts Marketplace to discuss some of the questions and insights addressed in the email. Our guests were Fenton Johnson and Jane Miller, both creative writing professors at the University of Arizona and published authors. Below you can read some of the highlights.
Julie: “We spend a ton of time deconstructing writing…What about conversation on construction…the place in us where good writing comes from…?”
Fenton: A place to begin is to tell my story, how I literally started writing. As some of you know, I’m the youngest of a very large family. No one paid attention to me, so I did what I wanted to do. I took workshops in college, went to Washington, worked on Capitol Hill, saved $4,000 and decided I was going to be a writer. I moved back to San Francisco, moved into a group house, and went down every morning to the library to write. I said to myself, “I’ll give you 2 years to do this, and if you haven’t published something in a nationally distributed publication, then you’ll have to go to law school.”
So I went to the library 9:00 a.m. M-F, stayed till noon, and just wrote. If nothing came, I wasn’t allowed to leave. I did this until I ran out of money, then wrote for a French film series, but still had my mornings free. I then edited for a small, independent film and video organization. In that job I insisted they let me not show up till 10-6. I got up at 6:30 and wrote for 2 hours before biking to work, then told myself that each weekend I must write one day (didn’t matter which one). By the way, I don’t think I could maintain that discipline now, so do it while you’re young. It took me 11 years before I was published in a national publication–I underestimated my own stubbornness. I took that film job when I had $200 left, wringing my hands, but it allowed me to make lots of connections.
The path is mysterious. Most of the time it’s not revealed to you, but revealed in its experience. Writing has been a north star in my life, and I make decisions based on what things mean for my writing. The best thing about writing is that it did give me a north star.
In the end, I discovered there is no one path: it’s your path. Two final words: stubbornness and grapefruit.
Jane: When I work, I work because I have to, and either it’s convenient or I have to make it so. I have gone from being very bad at this [making space for my writing], but now I’m much better at it. Now I can make space for writing without screaming (graciously). In the past, I have ruined relationships over this. I consider myself a powerful woman who is energetic and proactive, but I am no stranger to being overwhelmed by circumstances out of my control.
I cannot write with others around; I have to cram myself into a pleasant room with a window.
Julie: Do either of you carry a notebook?
Jane: I have a good memory. If I don’t remember it, I don’t need it, but I think if I don’t remember, it’s only for a moment. I have the actual language in my head.
Fenton: I tell my students that the only piece of advice that I’d never qualify and the most valuable advice is to carry a pen…I feel naked without one.
Jane: Whatever you are doing, change it up…
Fenton: Anne Lamott carries notecards around. In the end, remember that you are figuring out what your process might be. You have to figure it out. In past days, I used correspondence, I wrote letters…I love writing letters…the cultural milieu has destroyed the epistolary relationship. It used to be one of my standard things to do. I wouldn’t have been able to write a memoir without the letters. It’s something I think about that I’ve lost.
Jane: I think prose writers need that, poets have to empty out. It’s a different process. I have to disregard any notes I have taken in order to really sound the depths of my feelings. If I don’t do that, all the images in the world won’t amount to something that has power. Those emotions are where all power resides.
Patti: Do you dabble in other arts?
Jane: Yes, I play piano, and I was a painter, I love to go to the movies to enjoy that art form. One cannot be a poet and not be in the artistic world; this is why I love teaching.
Fenton: (singing) I love to sing, but I’ve been trying to figure out how music can fit in with prose; music has a narrative line; how a composer works with line. I think probably the most visual arts would be the most useful just because …Back in those days, I took a couple of drawing classes, and the intensity with which they forced me to look at things was really helpful.
Every time I’ve dabbled in another art form, it has radicalized my perspective for my writing. I never realized how much time is an illusion and everything changes, everything is in constant flux. I never saw how artificial it was–social realism in fiction–it’s all crazy–the realistic painting is just as extraordinary and bizarre as abstract impressionism—and I didn’t realize that until I took ballet for the male dancer.
Chris: Have you ever felt compelled by a muse or some other force to work on a project that maybe your reason told you you shouldn’t’ work on, perhaps because it would be trite or that it had been done before?
Jane: That would be the project that eludes reason.
Fenton: You use the word compel–so few things do really compel that if something is compelling, I don’t have any choice but to drop what I’m doing and go to that–at least pay attention at some point.
Patti: What about writing about family?
Jane: Reason is not what art is about–you don’t have any choice in the matter but to expose yourself and probably expose other people as well–YOU are doing it, you control every aspect of it and can choose to publish or not, but one has to write what one has to write–writing has a destiny–you are meeting it half-way–it has already got you, but reasons for not writing are beside the point.
Even if tomorrow you take up refrigerator repairs, you will still be writers–you have passed that line. It’s about time. You can’t think, “I’m still a young writer” –I’m trying to give you authority–a metaphoric place where you have to come to terms with your fears and nightmares and fudge–life–there’s no time to waste.
Fenton: Be wary of the censoring voice!–because what one discovers is that people would rather be written about badly than not to be written about at all. It’s very easy to let that voice say, “I can’t write this because it would offend so and so.” Well, go check with so and so–I’d never give them the final say, but!–I have found some really good writing when giving my writing to people in certain circumstances.
Mythologize your own experience. Mormonism, for example, acknowledges the fact that gods, demons, and angels are present in our lives. The principal is that our world and Homers’ world are not that different. Don’t think your life isn’t as important as Jesus’ or Ghandi’s–see your life as the journey…and whatever comes…
Chris: Do you ever work on projects simultaneously?
Jane: Normally I have no project–then I feel like I have to contribute to the universe and hopefully a project will find me; I really bow to prose writers–I’m lucky if I can get my granola together each day. Poets I know don’t work that way (every day) should it happen? You just have to deal with it. I don’t have enough hours in the day to be a whole person, but love will carry the day. There are no substitutes for real life. Occasionally one has to shut oneself off because there is more than one project…
Fenton: Zora Neale Hurston was married five weeks and then said, “My work is more important than you are so we have to get divorced.” Rilke married to write letters…
Joel: We’ve talked about solitude and noise; I’ve had trouble turning off the Internet. I don’t know how to create solitude.
Jane: I have confidence in all of you because you did get this far, you have already dealt with it, so you’ll get there…it’s part of your process… I don’t think you need to turn all that off…maybe to a certain degree…you can be a writer, I’m positive.
Fenton: I was at a panel in SF years ago and Kay Boyle was living in Paris with Hemingway and Fitzgerald and her career wasn’t valued because of being female–at that point Al Young was asked, “Would you describe your writing process?” He replied, “Coffee, jazz riffs, then 9:30 or 10:00 I hit my stride, then I’m on, then lunch, then take the afternoon.” Kay said, “That sounds great. I write for 15 minutes at 2 a.m. and for half hour in the afternoon–the reason my stories don’t have narrative drive is because my life doesn’t have a narrative drive.” You have to learn how to adapt to circumstances in your life–in a way, it’s an advantage.
Jane: At home, as opposed the office, you will be distracted with your computer. There will only be a certain time when you are creative, and it will nudge you out of the computer life; it’s a very natural process and I don’t think you need to design it; I think it’s like revving in neutral (Al Young); that computer will be very helpful when you need it and it’s such a beautiful, natural process being an artist. In a relationship, you can’t kill someone; through all that darkness, you have to be polite. The secret to poetry is cruelty, Jon Anderson said–in life you can’t be inappropriate–there are no rules with art, that fierceness must attach itself to the heart. That’s why you aren’t a chemist, because you can’t be unconscious there; but in art you can. “That wine is $900, and he pays for it with the earnestness of his soul.”
Fenton: I do work on pieces simultaneously. I try to pace it so when I finish a draft, I try to have a 6-8 week project that forces me to not look at the piece for that amount of time.
Jane: Nothing leaves the house for publication unless someone else sees it, even a letter of recommendation.
Hang on to each other. We have very little else in common, and I highly recommend you don’t go it alone.
