Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The Practice of Writing

"It required a sophistication unavailable to me."

Toni Morrison said this about her first book, The Bluest Eye.

I have copied this line everywhere.  It is in my poetry journal so when I flip a page, there it is.  It's in a little picture frame on my desk at work.  It shows up on post-its and scraps of paper tucked into other things.  I carry it with me.

I have read no more accurate statement about what it is to be a writer who has big things to say and not yet the skill to say them.

The Bluest Eye is a classic.  Perhaps it would not be if Toni Morrison had not gone on to write Beloved and subsequently win the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize.  But alone, it is a book of potent, beautiful writing that tackles the complex issues of race and identity.  And the reader -- or at least I -- thinks the book tackles them successfully.

But Morrison herself does not feel the book is successful.  She sees, in retrospect, where the book falls short.  She sees what the book could've been if she'd written it in later years.

Would Beloved exist if Morrison had not first written The Bluest Eye?  Isn't every past work practice for the writing we are doing in the present?

There are subjects I want to tackle that I don't have the skill for yet.  My own spirituality, for example -- I've written pages of it, but how much of it is interesting or useful to another reader?  What is the purpose of sharing it if it doesn't bring some form of revelation to someone else's life?

Novels -- I have participated in National Novel Writing Month since 2003.  Of all those novels, three are worth others' reading -- I think.  But do I have the skill yet to complete them?  The one I'm wrestling with these days, I see the holes, I see the issues I don't know how to work into the rest of the story.  It drives me crazy.  In those most frustrated moments, I try to remember that I am practicing.

Poetry -- parts of poems riddle my notebooks, papers everywhere, and still I have trouble making them whole.  For me, poetry is the most difficult of all writing, and I think that's why I keep at it even though I feel I am constantly failing.  Again, it is practice.

And blogging.  Here I am practicing the art of blogging every day.  I have drafts left unpublished behind the scenes -- unpublished because I know they are not useful for other readers.  Do I have the skill to make them into posts worth others' reading?  I can tell that they are not useful, but I can't always tell what they are lacking.

The sophistication Morrison mentions -- I'm not sure I even know what it is yet.  But as I write, I must believe that I will eventually see how she could have improved The Bluest Eye.  I will have words to explain why The Bluest Eye is lacking instead of just that instinct we all have that senses when one book is better than another.

I must trust that someday, with enough practice, I will have the skill, the sophistication necessary to tackle those big things that I can't say yet but that are important enough for me to hold onto.

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Linking up with Yeah Write again this week!  Click through to read others' blog posts!!

26 comments:

  1. Isn't it maddening? To know what you want to say, yet struggle so fiercely with saying it. Ah, but we love and hate the battle equally. It's what makes us writers. Great post.

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    1. It IS maddening!!! Sometimes it feels like a physical itch. But you're right, love of writing balances out the itchy times :) Thanks!

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  2. Practice, practice, practice! And read, read, read, especially in the genres you particularly want to master: fiction, poetry, non-fiction. Great post, Esther.

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    1. Read, read, read is so true...absorb absorb absorb :) Thank you!

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  3. I love this so much. Especially this - "Isn't every past work practice for the writing we are doing in the present?"

    This is such a thoughtful post about the writing process. Well done!

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    1. Thank you! It's important to remember that every bit of writing counts even if we hate it in the moment! :) And sometimes pushing through those moments is the best way to learn.

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  4. I imagine that behind every great work of art is a creator who sees what could have been had they had the sophistication. But knowing that nothing ever created is exactly perfect is a way to stay motivated, to keep striving. At least for me.

    Very thoughtful post -- thank you!

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    1. You immediately made me think of Michelangelo and David -- did he look back on David and think "hmm, gotta tweak him here"? LOL! Whatever the case, I'm sure he did not escape having to practice his art. Everyone has to do it. Thanks for commenting!

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  5. This is a perfect post for me. I was just talking about the Bluest Eye and what an exquisite book it is. I think I was referring to the sexual abuse depicted therein. Anyway, I love talking about the Bluest Eye v. Beloved...of course Beloved is this amazing, gut wrenching book, but I love Bluest Eye too. The language isn't as gorgeous, but you can't have one without the other.

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    1. "You can't have one without the other" -- well said! I think I might make that my mantra.

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  6. I couldn't have said it better, and I have had similar thoughts about my own writing. It's good to know I am not the only one!

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  7. I've been following your blog and I know you're taking a break from writing about pelvic pain but I just wanted to let you know I literally banned myself from reading anything online related to pn and vulvodynia except your blog! I've been suffering with pn that came on suddenly for about 6 months, I'm a young single girl in my late 20s and the mental anguish this has caused me has been unreal and I found myself getting worse both mentally and physically after my OCD researching of this condition. But your blog always makes me feel better cuz of the hope and humor in the background:)

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    1. Your comment made me tear up! It is so so so so good to hear that my blog has helped you!! Thank you for commenting to let me know. I'm so sorry about what you are going through, and I know what the OCD researching thing is like. It is hard not to have answers or proper treatments -- that was often just as bad as the pain for me. I hope that you can get a proper diagnosis and find some answers. I will be thinking of you.

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  8. I don't think any comment I could make would top the comment left by anonymous. I have only read of your condition and it was more of a vaguely in passing thing. You write beautifully and are helping people learn of a seldom heard of condition.

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    1. Thank you Vanessa! I really appreciate your feedback.

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  9. Oh, what a wonderful quote from Ms. Morrison. She illustrates her own point for me -- I lack the sophistication to tell stories the way I want to tell them. Or read them. But Esther, you don't! Nice work.

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    1. Thanks! I think we can see our own lack of sophistication better than other people can -- like when we feel like shredding everything we've written because it's not quite right. I feel that way a lot!!

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  10. I love this, especially because I too often feel the same way. I hope you are able to close the gaps in your novels, or even use them to your advantage - good luck!

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  11. I wrote the anonymous comment above! Just wanted to pass along my email address to you: jmueller924@hotmail.com if you ever wanna chat about pn related junk lol. It sounds like we are in similar situations and stages of treatment and it could be helpful.

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  12. It is so true, right? We struggle, we edit. We put things away to revisit later when maybe we'll know better what we wanted to say. That's the life of a writer I think.

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  13. That is a fabulous mantra to have. It's true that we see things about ourselves, in our work, that we don't see in others. We are hard on ourselves. Keep at it so we can read one of those three you have in the hopper!

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  14. Consider submitting the off-topic/"Unhelpful" posts to other blogs as guest posts. I have some stuff I wrote/want to write that has nothing to do with FSD. In fact it's off-topic enough so that I'd prefer to not have it associated with the blog at all.

    But if I put it elsewhere at least I know it was me & mine & it's out there.

    I have a mixed relationship with poetry... in that I very rarely understand a lot of what's out there to the point where I become impatient with it. (Yet give me walls of text unbroken with paragraph formatting and I'm fine.)

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  15. Beautifully crafted and so relateable. I completely identified with this paragraph as I also "have drafts left unpublished behind the scenes ... I can tell that they are not useful, but I can't always tell what they are lacking." Great post!

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  16. I love the quote and I think you described beautifully what it feels like to write, to have so much to say and the feeling that what you come up with might not be enough. I go through that all the time. I went through it with this week's submission. Will I be able to do the experience justice? Other writers I talk to always say "keep writing". And so I do. Terrific piece. And I'm going to start using that quote too. Thank you for sharing it.

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  17. It's really hard to write such long things. Love this and love that you do the NaNoWriMo. (What a terrible name!) You can do it!

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