I've been thinking again about the old issue of writers needing something to write about. A friend and fellow writer has touched on this issue recently in her blog and sparked my thinking. She thinks that it's important for writers to live full lives rather than hole up and live in front of the computer screen. This is certainly an issue I've thought about over the years, and it's one I struggle with. The reason I struggle with it is because I fear that if she is right, then I may be doomed to never be a great writer because I'm not a very good liver (I'm a better kidney, ba-dum-bum).
I have a mind that won't quit spinning. I think through various outcomes for situations. I plan out possibilities and analyze things to no end. I have a strong desire to understand the world around me, and my inclination is to believe that if I ponder things enough, I'll improve my understanding. This can, of course, be great for a writer since I can come up with various possibilities for how a story might unfold and what characters might do and what it all means. But this tendency certainly has a downside. I'm not good with a lot of basic interaction. Chitchat is something I struggle with because my mind runs through various possibilities or tries to interpret what somebody is REALLY saying so I can respond appropriately, and by the time I think of something to say, along the lines of "yes, you're right; it was hot today," the appropriate time for a response has passed and the person I'm chatting with has wandered away or the conversation among a group has moved on and I'm still standing quietly in the back. Another facet of my social skills is that I don't pick up on various social clues. I take things literally and misunderstand what somebody is asking or saying. Anyway, the end result is that I don't make friends easily, and most of my social life consists of either communicating via internet with friends I knew from years ago or with people who are related to me by blood or marriage.
When it comes down to what most people think of as "having a life," I don't have one. I go to work. I come home and work. It's not unusual for me to go days at a time without leaving the house because if I'm not going to work, I really have no place to go. I don't understand how or where people meet other people and make new friends. It was a tough thing to do back when I was in school and was among a group of people of similar ages and interests, but now that I'm out in the adult world, it strikes me as a nearly impossible task.
I was in another city this weekend for a job interview, and while I was there I managed to get together with one of my old college roommates, one of my best friends from my early twenties. We have managed to keep in touch a bit over the years, but we tried to figure out when we last saw each other in person and, as far as we could recall, it was seven years ago. So we asked about various issues like what had changed in our lives in that time. He asked me if there were any major developments he'd missed, and I had to tell him that there really weren't as far as my personal life went. Since I last saw him I earned two masters degrees and became a teacher. I put on a bunch of weight and lost it again. I wrote a lot. Much has changed, but when he asked about my social life, there was not much to report. He asked if I missed that, and I had to say that I didn't really miss it. I have had so little experience with that kind of thing that I don't know what I'm missing.
(Also, this weekend of going through an extensive interview process--including a teaching demonstration and interviews with a search committee as well as several campus deans, presidents, and vice presidents--was one of the most stressful things I've ever done. I felt sick with nerves for much of the past couple of weeks, and what it most reminded me of was my dating experience years ago. I've really only had one girlfriend. We dated for about two months right at the end of my senior year of college. And the major thing I remember about that experience was the constant anxiety I felt. I was stressed and nervous and sick to my stomach and just generally pretty miserable. When I think back on it today, I have trouble figuring out why I put up with it. There are some pleasant memories as well I have of that girl. We had some good times, I'm sure. But whatever good times we had are completely overshadowed by my memories of anxiety and stress. If I had it to do over again, I don't think I would repeat that experience. And when I sometimes envy my coupled friends and family, I remember how unpleasant my attempt at such a coupling was and recognize that a life like that just doesn't seem to be a fit for me.)
What I don't understand is what is at the heart of good stories. Stories are about conflict, about drama, about interactions between people, about relationships. And those are things I don't have a great understanding of. Sometimes I hope that will change in my life. I see people around me who are very social or who have close bonds with romantic partners, and I have some envy for those individuals. My siblings are all married, and those relationships seem to bring them a lot of happiness. But I don't foresee anything like that in my life. I think somehow when I was a kid or a teenager or whenever, I missed out on learning some of the basic things about life that most people just pick up on their own. Or maybe I lack some instinct that others have about how to interact with others. So if I lack that understanding, will I ever be able to write stories that people respond to? Or will my pieces always seem odd, the characters unnatural and robotic?
My hope is that through reading widely I can further my understanding of human life, that I will vicariously experience the world. I think that's one of the great joys of reading. But is that enough? Can one learn what one needs to know to be a writer solely through holing up with books? Or am I doomed to be somebody who understands words and sentences and paragraphs and structural elements, who can evaluate a story and write a nice facsimile of life, but, lacking that spark that others have that makes life life, will never be able to produce that spark in my own writing?
7 comments:
I know what you mean. I'm really introverted too, and I never really feel anything wrong with it. If it weren't for my friends here, who continuously drag me out of my cave to do fun things, I wouldn't "have a life" either.
That's one thing I'm pondering about for when I graduate. I'm hoping to continue having a life of some sort even if it's really hard. Like you, I get wrapped up in my thought processes, and they seem enough for any amount of poetry or prose. But living is important too.
Maybe on your days off try to get out and go to a coffee shop to read or for a walk in a park or something. Getting out is good, even if we don't feel like it is (I know I'm just as content lounging around, reading/writing). Plus it can give you lots more writing material. And who knows who you might meet?
And about being single. Think about it...many of the great literary minds were single, or at least they never settled down with one person. And not all of them were socialites. Emily Dickinson? J.D. Salinger? He was even downright misanthropic, I think.
I don't really mind being who I am and not having much of a life. At this point, I'm fairly content with my situation. Admittedly, sometimes I feel lonely (and for me, anyway, a sure way to increase my sense of loneliness is to go out to a coffee shop or a bookstore or someplace like that where I'm surrounded by other people), but for the most part I'm fairly satisfied.
But where I do feel concern about my lack of a life is when it comes to my writing, that I might wind up only producing stories about solitary people who lack connections with others. I happen to quite like a lot of stories like that, but it's a fairly limited market I think. But it seems that when I try to think of other possibilities for story lines, they all seem far fetched and kind of silly because I don't understand how, for instance, people actually meet and fall in love or whatever else. When I have a plot turn like that in my writing, it always feels contrived to me. But then again, when I hear true stories about how people meet and so forth, they always seem unrealistic, the kind of thing you'd never believe if you read it in a work of fiction.
I'm not so sure about your point that many great literary minds were single. You might be right about Dickinson, but Salinger was married and had kids and later in life was certainly isolated but still had a succession of relationships with women. I actually think a lot of writers thrived in relationships; often that was a major factor in their success, that they had somebody there cheering them on and supporting their dreams. Would Stephen King ever have made it as he did without his wife? Perhaps not. It's the kind of issue I try not to think too much about, but I've read a number of accounts of writers where the big factor that helped them achieve success was the support of a partner. And I am troubled by that. Despite what I consider a pretty active imagination, I can't really imagine something like that for myself. Or, when I do imagine it, it seems like bad fiction because it's totally unbelievable.
Yeah, but then I remember you told me one time about someone (was it Tennessee Williams? I can't remember) who basically stopped writing after he fell in love and got married because he didn't have that empty hole to fill with writing anymore. So. I don't know. I don't think you have to have a romantic relationship to be a good writer. I guess I do think it's good to have relationships with other human beings, but shouldn't that include family members and people that you met years ago? Also, I think it can be interesting to write about characters who don't quite fit in or who don't know how to interact with other people. Everybody loves a good Holden Caulfield character.
Eugene O'Neill, I believe.
But if you think it's good to have relationships with other human beings, does facebook or occasional e-mails really count? It doesn't seem like that's the equivalent.
Eugene O'Neill, that's who it was! Hmm. Well, I don't know about Facebook and emails, but you do spend time with Nate and Kelly, right? Aren't there any cool fellow English instructors at work? You don't necessarily have to hang out with them when you're not there but if you're having conversations in the office that's still human interaction.
Do you hang out and chat at work with other instructors? If so, that must be a rather different work environment from mine. My conversations with coworkers are mostly limited to passing in the halls and saying, "Hey. How's your semester going? Yep. Me too."
I do hang out a bit with Nate and Kelly, though, and sometimes a couple of Kelly's friends. And in the past year, I've managed to see you and Damien a few times. But that's about it. Most of the folks I think of as being my closest friends are people I've seen in person only once in the past five years.
Post a Comment