On Returning to Work

I’m back from Sirenland and just about recovered from jet lag, and my promise (mostly to myself) to continue blogging while I was away went right out the window. The conference was such an intense experience, so busy, so stimulating, so…over-stimulating. Not in a bad way. Not exactly. In fact, I loved every minute of it. The teaching, the fantastic students, the dancing until the wee hours.

But it does make it difficult to re-enter the cave. I often think that’s one of the most emotionally and psychologically taxing aspects of being a writer: the going in and out of the cave. The cave being the place where real work gets done. The place of disconnection from the outside world. Many writers have rituals to allow them access to the cave–their own special “open, Sesame” tricks of the trade. I, for one, need certain things to happen.

I need an empty house.
Check. Today is Jacob’s first day back at school after a three week break.

I need order in the empty house.
Check. The beds are made. The kitchen sink clean.

I need the dogs to be calm.
Check. The puppy settled down on the floor this morning with a soft thud of fluffy hair and bone, and looked at me dolefully, as if he knew it was time.

I need a cappuccino.
Check. My second cup of the day is next to my computer.

I need to avoid the internet like hell.
Check. So far, all I’ve read this morning have been a few paragraphs of Virginia Woolf’s diary.

This morning’s entry, which I happened upon by randomly opening the book, reads: “I think I shall initiate a new convention for this book–beginning each day on a new page–my habit in writing serious literature. Certainly I have room to waste a little paper in the year’s book. As for the soul; why did I say I would leave it out? I forget. And the truth is, one can’t write directly about the soul. Looked at, it vanishes; but look at the ceiling, at the cheaper beasts at the Zoo which are exposed to walkers in Regent’s Park, and the soul slips in.

That’s what all the habits and rituals are meant to do, really. Create the space, the possibility, for the soul to slip in.

On Sirenland

I’m writing from Positano, Italy. It’s early in the morning–very early–and room service coffee is on a tray in front of me. The windows are flung open to the balcony overlooking the staggeringly steep coastline and the sea. In the distance, my favorite islands. We are at Sirenland, the conference Michael and I started three years ago, along with our friend Hannah Tinti, editor of One Story.

Each year, I am amazed when we arrive here. We never set out to create something like this. It wasn’t a goal, or a dream, or even a faint ambition. It happened over dinner at a friend’s house in Connecticut a few years ago, when we met the owners of Le Sirenuse, and they asked if we’d like to bring a few writers over to Italy for a class. Those few writers have turned into this:

Jim Shepard and Peter Cameron are here, teaching workshops. Students are laughing and crying and learning–and staying up half the night in the bar, drinking tea and cognac. Bonding. Last night, one of them pulled out a guitar and began to sing. This year’s Rome Prize Winners—Brad Kessler and Dana Spiotta–are visiting from The American Academy. They gave a reading last night, and joined us for a few days.

How did this happen? The way the best things happen. By accident. Without agenda or motivation. It happened organically–built from the smallest seed of an idea–the way, come to think of it, fiction is written. By following the line of words.

On Readiness

The other night, at a dinner party, I had a long conversation with a wonderful new friend about readiness. She’s a highly-regarded photographer who has been working and teaching for thirty-odd years, so she knows something about this. I had been telling her about a former graduate student of mine who published her first book before it was ready. It was a cautionary tale, ending in the second book never being published, and the first book eventually going out of print. I also knew something about this, because I had published my own first book before it was ready. No one could have told me that, at the time. I mean, my literary agent and publisher thought it was ready…so who was I to disagree?

I learned to write in public. On the one hand, it was an enormous privilege. It’s so hard for young writers to get published. I hear bulletins from that front every single day. Nonetheless, if I could have a do-over, career-wise, what I would choose to do over is my own impatience, my own need for validation when I was in my mid-twenties. I would strike my first two novels from the record. Most people don’t even know I wrote them. They’re out-of-print, and I would prefer for them to stay that way. I know my blog readers will accuse me, as you often do, of being too hard on myself. Surely there were good things about those first two books. Several critics even liked them. But I now know: I wasn’t ready.

I remember once interviewing Peter Matthiessen, a literary hero of mine, and with the sweep of his hand, he said of his own work: the first five books aren’t worth reading. At the time, I had written three books and was working on my fourth. I was in my early thirties, Matthiessen was in his seventies. I realized with a jolt that the number of his own books that he was dismissing was higher than the number I had written. It was horrifying, but also edifying. Because what he was really saying is that he had gotten better with each book. He felt more in control of his craft than he had earlier in his writing life. That’s a wonderful thing to be able to feel and to say.

Of course, all of this can only be seen in hindsight. How do we know when something we’re working on is really ready? I think we know by listening. By seeing and hearing the signs around us. By having trusted readers and being unafraid to hear what they have to say. By trusting the little voice inside of us — the quiet one underneath all the fear and insecurity — that tells us we’ve taken this thing as far as we can. For now.

On Balance

I’ve been thinking about the idea of balance. Is it possible to live a balanced life as a writer? Does balance even exist, or is it just some sort of marketing strategy? Magazines–even magazines I write for–tell us this is possible. Shrinks talk about balance. But…really?

On an given day, I want to do the following: work well, spend quantity and quality time with my son, do yoga, meditate, read something nourishing, put a delicious dinner on the table. And on any given day, I usually manage to accomplish two of these things, in ever-different combinations. Writing and spending time with Jacob. Spending time with Jacob and doing yoga. Meditating and putting a delicious dinner on the table. Oh, and did I mention my husband? A day in which three of these happen is a fantastic thing, a gift. A day which includes all of them? I can’t remember the last time that happened.

This morning, I sit at my desk in my bathrobe. My work beckons. My yoga mat beckons. The refrigerator is empty. A pile of books I’m dying to read sits at my feet. This is the last week of Jacob’s school before Spring Break–which means that after-school activities are suspended, and pick-up time is at three in the afternoon, which means…even fewer hours than usual. In less than a week, we depart for London, then Positano for our writers’ conference. I have miles to go before then, and the trick–it is a trick–is to remind myself that there is no such thing as balance. Not for a writer who is a mother. Maybe not for a perfectionist like myself. Maybe not for anyone at all.

On Interruption

Last week I got no writing done. Oh, I wrote my monthly column, I took care of some other magazine business, I taught my private class–in other words, I took care of other pieces of my life as a writer. But I didn’t work on my book. There were hours, here and there, during which I might have been able to sit down to write. But the shape of the week didn’t allow for it. My beloved Uncle died last Sunday, and the funeral was in Boston on Monday. Tuesday, Michael spent the day reading the first 200 pages of my manuscript, so I was paralyzed, waiting for his response. Wednesday, we were in New York for a day full of meetings. Thursday–the one day I had the hours to write–I was so exhausted, so emotionally and physically drained from the sadness about my Uncle, the relief that Michael thought my manuscript pages were good, the busy day in the city–that I curled up into a little ball and…slept. For hours. Friday was Jacob’s 4th grade field trip to Ellis Island, which began at 5 in the morning and ended at 9 at night. So. It was a week full of interruption.

How to keep the thread, when life intervenes? I no longer even imagine that I will have stretches of weeks with no distraction, no lost days. There are always lost days. The question, really, is now to tolerate them. How to breathe into them and simply understand them to be part of the process, rather than to allow them to get the better of me.

Today is a snow day. (I feel less alone in this than usual. Usually here in our little snow-belt micro-climate, I call my friends in New York and they have no idea what I’m talking about.) Most of the Northeast is blanketed today, and kids are home from school. Chances are, I’m not going to get work done today. I’ll get other stuff done; stuff that needs to get done, that always gets shoved into the corners: camp forms, school contracts, haircut appointments, banking. In a way, I’m making room for the writing by taking care of all this other business that clutters up my head. But really–enough already with the snow.

Today will be full of household activities. The making of fires, hot chocolate, soup. Downstairs, my husband is cleaning his office; Spring cleaning during an early March blizzard. I’m reminded of something Sharon Salzberg said during a meditation retreat about a Buddhist teacher she had met in India, a woman who had many children, little time, and much hardship. When asked how she maintained her practice, her focus, she responded: I stirred the soup mindfully.

On Distance

Question: How is it possible to see one’s own work clearly, while living in the middle of it? Answer: it’s not. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back. But how can a writer distance herself from her work enough to read it with a clear eye? I’ve been living with these questions since I first started writing. We all struggle with this. The other day, in my private workshop, we ended up discussing the idea of distance and clarity. Several students who are working on novels weighed the benefits and the risks of looking through their whole manuscript as a way of getting up and running, before moving forward. My response was that this can be a good–or terrible–idea, depending on the day. Sometimes, going back into my own work leaves me paralyzed. Other times, it’s helpful. This has entirely to do with my mental state, which is hidden even from myself. I can read the exact same pages and think that they “don’t suck” (sadly, this is my highest form of self-praise) or…well, that they do suck. The same pages. Nothing has changed except for my highly volatile consciousness. I have lost whole writing days because suddenly my book feels dead to me. If I were to just sit down and get to work with blinders on, that might be a better way to at least get through a first draft. But then would I just end up with a big mess of pages on my hands? There is no way of knowing.

This is where that elusive thing–distance–is called for. But how to achieve it? How to cast a cold eye on material that is still very much alive? Sometimes, when I need distance from my work, I’m able to play a trick on myself. I imagine that I’m someone else. Someone particular. Someone (this is very important) benign. Inclined to like me and my work, but also capable of incisive criticism. And then I read my own work pretending to be that person. It’s a sleight of hand, really. A suspension of disbelief. But sometimes it works. Other times, I just need to get away from it. Pretty soon, we’re leaving for Europe and I won’t be working on Devotion for three entire weeks. Though right now this sends me into a bit of a panic, in the end I know it’s a good thing. Three weeks may be just long enough for that cold eye to emerge.

On Making the Donuts

Remember that old Dunkin’Donuts commercial where the exhausted middle-aged guy wakes up while it’s still dark out, sits on the side of his bed, rubs his eyes and says “Time to make the donuts…time to make the donuts”? Lately I’ve been thinking about that commercial. I think about it when I just don’t feel like sitting down to work. I often don’t feel like sitting down to work. Conditions must be perfect. The house silent. The dogs sleeping. The kid happily at school. The husband happily at work. The cappuccino hot and steaming. And–most of all–the inside of my head calm and quiet, as smooth as a lake at dawn. Hmmm. How many days of the week does that happen? If I only wrote in those optimal conditions, I would have published perhaps one volume of haiku by now.

There is much to be said for daily routine. For creating habits of the mind, physical habits, work habits. I remember, years ago, non-writer friends (or procrastinating writer-friends) liked to go out for breakfast. Or even lunch. If I go out to breakfast, that’s it. That’s my day. It’s completely hopeless to sit down to work after the clatter, the waiter, the conversation, the plate of croissants. Pretty much the same goes for lunch. If I go out to lunch, it means I’m done with my work. Which is fine–so long as I know that’s what I’m doing.

Since we’re getting ready to leave for Italy in just a few weeks, I am even more protective of my work time. I have a pretty big pile of pages next to this computer as I write–pages that represent a manuscript, the better part of a book. I can see the end in sight. But I remember, when I started, the flimsy few pages. The beginning. I didn’t trust it, of course. (I still don’t.) But I tried not to think about it. I tried just to get up in the morning and make the donuts.

On Looseness

There are times, as I’m working on Devotion, when I feel like I’m writing hundreds of prose poems as opposed to a straightforward story. Well, in a way, that’s exactly what I’m doing, though if the book is to work, it will hopefully flow as a narrative even though it’s being put together like pieces to a puzzle. Or another way I’ve come to think of the structure of this book is as stepping stones across a stream. I can’t move from one until I have my footing on the next. But–in the end–hopefully the reader will be aware only of the stream, not the stones. I’ve joked with friends that this feels like death by prose-poem. Each one polished and as good as I can make it–though how it will fit into the whole of the project is something I won’t know until I’m done. As a process, it’s the most difficult I’ve ever undertaken.

But what it makes me think of, on a daily basis, is looseness when it comes to the writing itself. The worst thing a writer can do when she sits down to write (other than to not sit down to write) is to think to herself: now I’m am writing. Because from there, at least for me, it spirals into a chorus of useless thoughts: I wonder if so-and-so will like it; I hope my publisher thinks it’s good; gee, will this excerpt well in The New Yorker? Maybe I should show so-and-so and get feedback. And on, and on and on. Those thoughts are such a waste of time and creative energy. What’s more, they’re the enemy of looseness. By looseness I do not mean laziness. By looseness I mean a creative undertaking that is flexible, without self-censorship, focused but light. I think of great athletes and the way they warm themselves up, shake out their limbs. They maintain concentration but avoid seizing up. Sometimes, as I sit at my desk, I realize that I’ve worked my entire body into a pretzel. My legs are crossed tightly. My feet have fallen asleep. My shoulders are up to my ears. My jaw is clenched. Is good work going to get done from that place of tension?

On What People Think

A few years ago, I wrote an essay that got a lot of attention–not all of it positive. The magazine received more letters on this piece than any piece it had ever published–and a lot of those letters were from people who were seriously pissed-off. Apparently I had touched a nerve in writing about that particular subject matter. I know it may sound disingenuous to say that I wasn’t aware, as I was writing the essay, that it would set off a mini-firestorm. But it’s true. I didn’t think about it while I was writing, because if I had thought about it while I was writing, I wouldn’t have written it. When the letters started pouring in, Michael turned to me one day and asked: “Well, what did you expect?” I didn’t expect anything–because to expect anything would have necessitated an awareness that millions of people would read this thing, and…well, just think of it. Millions of people. Or even thousands of people. Or hundreds. Or just one’s own friends and family. Thinking about an audience is a recipe for creative paralysis.

A friend of mine, an older writer, once suggested to me, as I was writing Slow Motion, that I proceed as if everyone close to me had left the planet. It was good advice, and I have passed it along countless times to friends and students. This doesn’t give one carte blanche to be heedless, hurtful, insensitive to the feelings of others. What it means is that when a writer is working on a first draft, those concerns must be pushed far to the side, out of the range of even peripheral vision. There’s always time, later, for revision, for softening, for editing out the gratuitously damaging bits. I say “gratuitous” because sometimes a damaging bit is too good to edit out. I remember, when my first essay was published in The New York Times Magazine, I had written about the moment my mother decided to let me know that she no longer kept Kosher. She did so by taking me out to lunch at a local Saks Fifth Avenue, and ordering a bacon cheeseburger. I was thirteen years old, a yeshiva girl who believed God would strike me dead for eating non-Kosher food. The moment made an impression. When the essay was published, my mother called me.

“Did you have to make it a BACON cheeseburger?” she asked, only half-kidding.
“Mom, it WAS a bacon cheeseburger.”
It was just too good a detail to alter or leave out.

On the Best Part

I often tell my students that the most satisfying part of working on a book is the last third or so–when you’re deep inside of it, but you can make out the horizon and suddenly–after years of struggle–everything in the world, everything you see and hear and happen upon, seems to be there to help you. An overheard snippet of conversation illuminates some small piece of the story. A sign on the road makes something inside your head fall into place. It all begins, however briefly, to make sense. I remember where I’ve been during the last thirds of each of my books. When I was finishing Picturing the Wreck, it was August and I was in a top floor study of a rented house in Sag Harbor. There was an Italian market two doors down, and I took breaks every couple of hours and walked a few steps to the market for some biscotti and cappuccino. I finished Slow Motion in a tiny cottage in East Hampton. Family History, in the wonderful Writers Room on Astor Place in Manhattan. And Black & White in an office I had for a while near my house in Connecticut. Now–as I am rounding the bend in Devotion, as I see the horizon I never thought I’d see–I am at my desk, in my office at home. It is a book about daily life, and somehow I have needed to be right here, in the beating heart of my own daily life, in order to find the through line of it.

But even as the remaining pieces of my new book line up like good little soldiers, even as I am holding it all in my head, it’s so easy to lose sight of what I’m really doing, which is finishing a first draft. I often think of Michelangelo’s famous quote about creating The David: the sculpture was already there, he said–he just had to remove the marble. Writers often mistake the blank page for the marble. But the blank page is just that — blank. It’s the first draft that is the real material to then be chiseled and shaped and smoothed. My husband has been finding some great quotes about writing, lately and here’s one he sent me yesterday from Annie Dillard:

“The reason not to perfect a work as it progresses is that, concomitantly, original work fashions a form the true shape of which it discovers only as it progresses, so the early strokes are useless, however fine their sheen. Only when a paragraph’s role in the context of the whole work is clear can the envisioning writer direct its complexity of detail to strengthen the work’s ends.”