Most of my literary writing has been done on the fly, amateur work on the side while pursuing a professional career in newspaper journalism. Early on, I was shunted from newspaper reporting to editing, with the advice that writers were more numerous than good editors. Was I really that good?
I can see now that stepping away from reporting allowed me the space to develop as a writer in ways I find more fulfilling.
My dream had been to be a fine arts columnist along the lines of Hub Meeker at the Journal Herald when I was growing up, or even as a more general columnist, as I was my senior year at Indiana University, but the reality was that such openings were few and far between. As I see now, I could have written freelance columns in my free time and offered them to my employers, showing them what I could do, but I needed to grow on other fronts as I worked myself through those early years. Much later, as one of my bosses said somewhat wistfully, “You have a life,” a very full one outside of the newsroom. Or workroom, in a wider perspective.
Besides, had I been writing a column, there would have been no energy for what I poured into the literary efforts instead.
My personal writing arose as an attempt to make sense of what was happening within and around me, often in chaotic times and remote locations. A college English teacher had left me with an appreciation for abstracting a detail to make it more universal, and thus more available for a reader to connect with personally, and I’ve seen that as a challenge for anyone writing literature. Unlike a news reporter, who is required to maintain an anonymous tone even when is or her byline is on the story, a literary writer has to be a more fully human presence.
In revising Quaking Dover, I discovered how difficult inserting myself into the text could be after one early reader suggested I develop the tone of a gently laughing curmudgeon narrator she sensed.
If only that weren’t my last book, one based on historical facts, I might have extended the perspective to my earlier novels.
In retrospect, I must admit that failing to concentrate on one stream of writing rather than many has been a mistake. I don’t lament writing poetry and fiction, but trying to span them can be seen as diluting the energy. Was it mistake, too, to not try breaking through as a columnist on the side when I was laboring as an editor? And ditch all the rest?
Nonetheless, my novels hew closely to what I encountered over a half century at fringes of American society or social consciousness, or how I’ve navigated through that to here. They also reflect my vision that a better way of life is possible, call it the Kingdom of God, if you will, but still more peaceful and just than the clasp of empire slash consumerism today.
In fiction, my stories are not just “me” who’s the protagonist. Sometimes, it’s “her,” instead. And sometimes that “me” is off to the side. As for others in the scene? They’re often composites of folks I’ve known, hopefully so disguised they won’t recognize themselves. How do you protect and respect their privacy, anyway? I’ve never wanted to be one of those authors whose family and friends hate what’s been done to them.
In the long run, you can tell me if that was a smart move or rather chicken.
~*~
Four of my eight novels spring from the first one that was published, though it’s no longer necessarily the starting point for readers, nor the endpoint. Another three are now also interwoven into one sweep. As for the eighth? Despite all the abstractions and switched genders, they’re ultimately semi-autobiographical and originate in an attempt to comprehend and remember what I could of some profound upheavals I’ve experienced. As has America and the rest of the world, in the background.
Here I am, about to reflect on those books over the course of this year and to share with you some of the personal encounters that underpin those stories.
While my poetry was written largely while having a full-time and often demanding job, the fiction came bursting forth largely in a break in Baltimore but then underwent huge revisions during weekends and vacations once I was back out in the workaday world based in New Hampshire.
My work was seen as experimental, though I now retranslate that as experiential. And once the novels appeared in ebook formats, I’ve welcomed the flexibility for revision and evolution, even if nobody else was noticing.
My self-imposed sabbatical in Baltimore was the source of a first-draft lode I revised intensely over the following decades. Hunkered down out in a suburban apartment for a year in my mid-30s … hmmm, a time that felt like midlife crisis or impending defeat … but with some unexpected savings I could live on for a year. (Having a company car turned out to be a huge benefit in the two years leading up to this.) And then?
I was newly divorced and then abandoned by my subsequent fiancée, laid off from a job that had exposed me to the emerging struggles of the American newspaper industry as a whole, and in the midst of a spiritual exploration that was leading me to unexpected frontiers.
Now that the novels have been out there for any who are interested, I’m feeling free to talk about many of the personal experiences that underpin them. Surprisingly, though, I find the process is far more secretive emotionally than I ever would have admitted.
Jnana's Red Barn 