“(The Ghost of sir Felix Finch whines, ‘but it’s been done a hundred times before!’–as if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void-Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!” (David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, 357)
Have you ever read a book in all its brilliant and complex perfection and asked yourself, “who am I kidding to think I can write?”
I have. And I am reading one right now. It took me a while to get into Cloud Atlas but now that I am fully hooked I recognize the brilliance of this one writer. Mitchell acknowledges, as in the above quote, that most stories have been told before, and then proves that in the hands of a master storyteller every story can take on new meaning and told in a different way. Mitchell doesn’t use just one way, he masters the styles and traditions of many types of literature to tell a story unique, ancient and full of ominous predictions of a future that is not really that far from the realm of possibilities.
In other words, this book is full of meaning and tells a really good story.
As it has in the past, reading something like this makes me wonder who I think I am? What makes me think I have a story to tell that another writer couldn’t tell in a much more powerful way? What makes me think my use of language and words has any power or beauty compared to anyone else? What makes me think my ideas are worth reading?
The truth is, I don’t know anymore. I’ve been wanting to start a bigger project. Something to truly focus on. Something worth reading. Something that carries readers away into a world of thought and action, of joy and sorrow. And yet, I cannot begin . . .
Is it, perhaps, because I don’t really have any power over words? Or maybe I simply do not have a story to tell.
I read in the hopes of discovering my story. I write in the hopes of learning my story. I dream in the hopes of understanding my story. And yet the words escape me and I have nothing to say.
Do you ever get humbled by words?
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Today’s Quote (I’ve decided to start incorporating daily quotes that help motivate or inspire, or simply reflect what I am thinking)
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity” —Gilda Radner
Jul 24, 2011 @ 10:05:59
Lisa—how about all the time…There is a subscriber to my blog that has a book published…Ghost Words by Adina Pelle. There are some short stories in it that had me saying…”who am I kidding?” She wrote me that she is trying to write another…but it is hard to get published. WHAT? If it is hard for her that has proven her talent(and ability to have the reader use up all her kleenex) what am I doing?
Anser to your blog question…ALL THE TIME!
Jaye
Jul 24, 2011 @ 10:09:18
Ah Jaye, Then what can we do to help each other from giving up in despair? Or should we just write because we have to write?
Jul 24, 2011 @ 11:26:52
I think we should do both…support each other…I do love your pics and commentary and keep on writing…
byebye
Jaye
Jul 24, 2011 @ 11:32:19
I know the feeling, exactly. Reading James Baldwin makes me wonder just who I ever thought I could be. And just yesterday I read a 16 page exerpt from A Place of Worship, at Wag’s Revue, and wondered why such a powerful demo of word usage only placed third in a contest, and if that was third, what in the world could I submit that would even be read? I managed to get published online at tiny-lights flash in the pan, for a very small “flash”! and I am so pleased with this victory. Like you, I want to do something big. And unfortunately, I BEGAN with something big, blessed with a powerful story filled with incredible people who faced life and dealt with it out of their own character, head on. Working this down to manageable as a novice is a roller coaster. I’m learning on the run, as this story steamrolls out of me, with some phantom writer in my head, bleeding out my heart.There is so much to be said in a story about abandonment and abuse, about widowhood and remarriage, about children as baggage, about WW2 women stuffed back in their hum drum after leading a continent to victory. About small town life and disillusionmnent, about mangled men returned from the front without voices. So I began a blog just to regroup my thinking. A blog perhaps no one reads, and where certainly no one responds.
I think when we are privileged to face phenomenal talent, we tend to downgrade ourselves. But the truth is in your quote. Your story is yours, to be told around the nightfire by you. And mine is mine, to be told in my voice to any struggler with this much and this kind of history. I’m not Baldwin or anyone else. I am me and my story is mine. I even believe I have a responsibility, a duty to tell it. Full of pain and grief and joy and triumph, it has shown me a picture of myself worth displaying. And it culminated in a marvelous evening this past week with five girls from a Guatemala orphanage, playing their instruments and witnessing their testimony, as I did mine when they were finished, to show them what a successful future can look like, out of their backgrounds of criminal parents, abandoners, junkies, etc, can come wholeness BECAUSE of a great orphanage. Their relieved amazement brought them hope and the message to me was: keep writing and trust your work will be published.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 11:43:04
Just the hints of your story tell me that it is a story that must be told. Keep writing.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 11:53:37
I think it all the time. I am thinking it even as I am writing the story I am writing now. I think it when I read YOUR words.
The simple truth of the matter is we all have stories to tell. And they are all unique. Otherwise we would all be the exact same person. How we write that story is entirely in our own hands, and it really does not matter if it wows another or not. As long as we wow ourselves.
Don’t worry about how it is written. Don’t convince yourself you can’t write it, because your everyday existence proves the fact that you can and in fact are. Just write it to the best of your ability. If you want to fine tune it; help it to wow others, then just have others give you suggestions from their perspective.
Sound familiar?
Jul 24, 2011 @ 13:19:54
LOL.
Seriously though, I think you are partially to blame for this crisis of thought. The story pouring out of you is powerful, and you have committed to it in a great way. And I always was the writer in the family. (I know, those silly labels haunting me). I’m just in a low cycle right now, once I break free I’ll be okay.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 11:56:10
You can’t know the level of your encouragement. I feel like some sort of inadequate instrument in the hands of some entity I can’t identify, who wakes me to write, who interrupts phone calls to write, who insists and insists. I cannot imagine what writer’s block is, I write, Lisa, but worry now that I should not be entrusted with executing this enormous story in the face of so many other really, really good writers. So can I agree to be working at it? (Like I a have a choice, heheheh)
Jul 24, 2011 @ 13:03:12
Who else can be entrusted to tell your story except yourself?
Jul 24, 2011 @ 13:15:51
It seems to me that my strongest writing always comes when something writes through me, rather than when I guide my words with my own thought process. It doesn’t happen often, but it is a powerful feeling when it does. I think of it as tapping into some kind of creative energy that links us all (not an original idea, but one that resonates with me). If this creative spirit is choosing you as the conduit for a story, then trust its choice and embrace the journey.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 12:25:58
We all have story to tell. I’m worried about have I done enough on my own story? Though we hall have stories, how do we get them from the experience to the written word? After the writing, who will want to read it?
Jul 24, 2011 @ 13:17:35
Those are the questions that haunt me. I write, but who am I really writing for? Am I just wasting my time on a task born from ego? Or avoiding the things that I could be doing? Is there a reason for me to write?
Jul 24, 2011 @ 16:27:56
I know it was a rhetorical question, but I’ve said to you before that I’ve heard the beginnings of many stories in your writings here. I’m actually very sorry that they don’t seem to be stories you want to tell, because they are stories I would want to read.
My answer to the question you did ask, is a huge, frustrating, YES! Sometimes I’m very humbled by what I can’t build with words. It hurts when they fall in a heap, or don’t communicate to someone else.
At heart I’m very sensitive to criticism. Since the first of the year, I’ve had to work to overcome my life experience with people who have wielded criticism at me like a sword, and seek out the healing balance of fellow writers who care enough to be kind but honest about how they experience my work. Without their help, I would still be making simple mistakes (that I still labored mightily over creating) that marred my writing. I still have so much to learn about writing, but I’ve learned something important about myself: even if I feel like I’m getting my ass kicked and it makes me cry at first, I have to ask for and listen to constructive criticism, and turn it around in my mind as dispassionately as I can. Sometimes I’ll disagree because of an artistic point I want to make in a specific piece, but other times hearing how others experience what I’ve written helps me think of ways to make it better.
Achieving any sort of precision in writing is very hard work, but I don’t think any of us understand that when we start. It’s hard to want to be good and then read someone who is so good that it makes you feel stunted. I’ve felt that way a lot!
Jul 24, 2011 @ 18:45:37
One of those stories is finished and I’m working on self-publishing. The others just haven’t gone anywhere, and one piece of advice on writing that stuck with me this year was to tell the story that you have to tell now, not revisit stories that have been sitting in your shelf for years. I just don’t feel an urgent story at the moment, which makes me think that maybe I don’t really have any stories to tell.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 21:01:34
Lisa, I was talking about the stories from your life experiences that you’ve touched on here. One of those would be good practice until you get a new idea.
I get the impression that you you don’t want to explore those personal stories in your fiction writing. Maybe you don’t see them as stories, but in regard to “write what you know” (which we’ve all heard) the stories in your life right now are actually very rich and interesting, especially to other women. They aren’t just the stuff of blog posts. The stories we live are real stories, whether we eventually change the names, the locales, and some of the details, or not. There are so many emotions and details swirling around in the things you share with us here. I just wonder if you see them.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 22:25:19
I think I am afraid of my own stories in many ways. I need to think about this.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 18:04:50
Do you ever get humbled by words?
I don’t have time to read great books, but I read many great blogs such as yours.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 18:43:32
Thanks PiP
Jul 24, 2011 @ 20:55:34
It helps me to think of it this way….Write from the inside out. Which means you don’t concern yourself with all the peripherals. Just concentrate on you, your style, your voice. Writing is a very personal thing, and you really hit on that well.
Keep writing.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 22:26:01
Thanks. Those are definitely words to write by.
Jul 24, 2011 @ 21:04:04
All the time. I just remind myself that I’m a beginner. With enough time, I’ll get there.
Jul 25, 2011 @ 13:00:31
I wonder when we cross the line from beginner to expert.
Jul 25, 2011 @ 08:48:54
I’ve felt that little bit of intimidation when reading someone else’s work. I think the key is to use it for motivation. Keep writing, write better and better and better because you know other people are out there writing better and better and better, too
Jul 25, 2011 @ 12:59:51
I think I find it hard to know if I am improving or just stagnating in my old habits and writing ways. I teach writing, and yet I can’t really critique my own work.
Jul 25, 2011 @ 11:02:16
I definitely get humbled by words. I’ve never had the time to really get writing, hence the blogging. I would like to of course but it’s hard for the great ones to get published, never mind me so I get lost in a cycle of indecision
Jul 25, 2011 @ 12:58:45
I think there is a lot of great writing in the blogging world, as well as a lot of mediocre writing. I guess what is important is that we keep trying, growing, and learning as writers.
Jul 25, 2011 @ 23:06:01
If you’re enjoying the journey of writing . . . you WIN! No matter what happens.
Jul 26, 2011 @ 05:07:12
It is intimidating when you read something great but I’m sure even that author struggled with their writing at some point. It’s hard but try not to compare yourself, forge your own path and keep at it. I will also try to follow my own advice here
Jul 26, 2011 @ 08:13:31
Thanks, Vicky. And yes, you need to follow your own advice.