The Standards of A Writer

Writers are often misunderstood creatures. We tend to be a bit introverted, introspective, and self-reflective, yet balance these qualities with a so-called normal life, yet always observant, always wondering how to tell a story, make it valuable, make it real. A favorite film character of mine is a novelist, and he said in response to whether his novel was autobiographical:

Well, I mean, is anything autobiographical? We all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Thomas Wolfe... he says that we are the sum of all the moments of our lives, and that anybody who sits down to write is gonna use the clay of their own mind, that you can't avoid that. 1

Well, there you go. In fact, it seems his novel was autobiographical, in some sense, by his standards. I was reading this review of the "writing life" by Oscar Villalon, which showed how one man interviewed all these different writers and published in The Paris Review, a well-know academic journal. The later book was then called The Paris Review Interviews. Article here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99920411&ft=1&f=1032

In reading an excerpt from this, it really made me think about what it is to be a writer, taking from the “clay of [one’s] own mind” and making it valuable. When I go for a run down the beach, I find myself formulating stories about the people I pass on the boardwalk, biking, tanning, playing volleyball, reading, arguing with each other. Each of these persons has a story to tell. So do I. Listening to the waves crash, it makes me feel alive, well, and as if that piece of nature is a part of me. But, as a writer, it does seem strange to imagine not looking at the world that way. Just to enjoy the moment. I sometimes feel like I’m living in the world and looking at it from the outside from some vantage point only I can see from. From my tiny keyhole, I guess. I mean, in looking at the lives of Silvia Plath, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, Joyce Carol Oates, James Joyce, Brett Easton Ellis, I think about just how each of these men and women lived. Raymond Carver mentions in his interview that he probably drank more than most people did, and that he found that to be a hazard in the profession he’d chosen. Now, I may not have statistics on it, but it got me thinking. Not that all writers are drunks. More that we choose to experience or have a passion for experiences that will give us more stories, more tales. Writers have that zeal or fire to capture life and then show it on the page. Just like artists do, I guess. I’m not a talented painter, but I do paint. Just another way to express myself. Use a piece of that discontented creativity to express something. My small little piece of how the world looks, or how people seem to speak, what I say in other people’s relationships… Just to find out what’s valuable and again to show that value and meaning through the expression in ink.

1 "Before Sunset Script" - transcript from the screenplay, http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/b/before-sunset-script-transcript.html