Last week I intended to herald the advantages of daydreaming in one’s life, when one is gearing up to spend that life writing stories. I say that I “intended” to do so because the essay turned away from daydreaming in favor of reminiscing about a favorite old college professor of mine.
That’s what happens when you write… things can get away from you.
A few weeks ago, too, I went on about “interiority”.
By that I meant that an extended stay in a hospital or a few years of solitary play on a beach or in the woods, is as necessary an ingredient in the early formation of a writerly disposition as, say, oatmeal is in forming oatmeal cookies.
Well, daydreamers aren’t listeners, and when alone on a beach or in a hospital there is no one to listen anyway, except for oneself… Nevertheless, today I want to insist that listening is as essential to writing as air is to life.
(That’s two similes in two paragraphs… but I am going to keep them.)
The questions I have had the most trouble answering over the years - or the ones I disliked the most, anyway - are “Who is your favorite writer?” and “What writers have had the greatest influence on your work?”
The first question is easier for I invariably say, “I don’t have a favorite writer.”
(In truth, I have had lots of favorites, but I listened to them and then moved on, so I no longer want to admit it.)
The second question is complex because what young writers do - and what I did far too much of - is find someone they admire or who is ‘au courant’, and then imitate them. I did it with Hemingway, Joyce, Bashō, Tanizaki, even Donald Barthelme and Alice Munro - though some of those writers I cannot read today.
So did they influence me or were they more like temples that I knelt in for a while, doing my version of praying to be able to write well?
A favorite phrase of writing teachers everywhere is, “You’ve got to find your own voice.”
After dealing with such old saws as ‘favorite writer’ or ‘greatest influence’, is that what it finally comes down to? Must a writer find his own voice? Or her own voice? Or their own voice? Or (insert pronoun)’s own voice?
Well sure, but I think only superficially, for “finding one’s voice” is something like shedding one’s skin, and a snake does that (in a process called “ecdysis”) four to twelve times a year. So isn’t it really only finding one’s elemental snakiness? And, if so, doesn’t it change as one gets older - maybe not four times a year, but often?
Okay, here’s what I want to get to about listening.
It is not entirely about “voice,” nor is it what the late great Ricky Nelson said in “Garden Party”: You can't please everyone so you got to please yourself, though both those things are part of it.
Do you remember when, as a kid (or later), you sat down with friends to play with a Ouija board?
Do you remember how its planchette - with your hand as well as the hands of others touching it - seemed to move around the board of its own free will? So much so that you accused one or another of your friends (or they accused you!) of moving it on purpose?
Well, for writers deep listening is like that, only your fingers are touching a different kind of board…. not a Ouija board this time, but a keyboard.
And, far more than what was in your mind or your imagination when you sat down to write, the words that your fingers produced when you least expected it are what you should listen to, for therein lies the key to making something greater than yourself.
I do not mean that a writer should abdicate hard work and good concentration. As a matter of fact, I will probably get into the importance of that next week.
What I do mean is that, much like a sparrow or a swallow or a black phoebe might land on the tree branch outside your writing room - an unintended phrase can look up from the page in front of you like the demon or the god of that Ouija board. And it will say… if you listen carefully enough… follow me.
It may not be that each time you follow such a thing you arrive somewhere good, but sometimes it can give a writer access to a world unavailable through thought.
And don’t we all know that in the deep-down wells of our subconscious, thinking does not hold court.
Postscript…
I didn’t mean to write the late “great” Ricky Nelson. “Great” must have come from the bird sitting on the branch outside my room.
Maybe birds like Ricky Nelson more than I do.
Post postscript…
I am delighted to announce that I will be signing copies of The Grievers’ Group at the Pacific Northwest shop in Tacoma, Washington, on Saturday, September 10, 2022, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. I would love to see any of you who live in the area. Please stop by.
The schedule of further events to follow.
Bob Dylan often writes or talks about channeling, feeling like a vessel for a supernatural force, especially in the sixties, early in his career. The lyrics surged through him and landed on the page in his typewriter.
I just finished reading a noteworthy novel by Richard Wiley called The Grievers' Group. It's not without its charms. That's my understated way of stating it's a fine novel that's worth any reader's time. In this book we encounter a sizable cast of characters, many of them among the titular grievers. How they interrelate and express themselves individually form the novel's core. We get to know them each by turn. They squabble, fuss, and support one another throughout the narrative, often with humorous repartee. Some you wish to hug, others you wish to pinch, but none exact in you anything close to repugnance or animosity (well, maybe that one guy). Order it today if you haven't already. It won't disappoint. Look for cameo appearances of music, movies, and literary works by a range of exceptional artists.