I would have said alert but she’d counter twitchy.

I would have said observant but she’d counter oblivious.

I would have said free-thinking but she’d counter too serious.

I would have said independent but she’d counter aloof.

I would have said sensitive but she’d counter nervous.

I would have said inquisitive but she’d say I rarely ask questions.

I would have said accepting but she’d counter indecisive.

I would have said nurturing but she’d counter cold.

I would have said serious but she’d counter silent.

I would have said playful but she’d counter negative.

I would have said witty but she’d counter legalistic.

I would have said intelligent but she’d counter uptight.

I would have said slightly bent but she’d counter insecure.

I would have said self-sufficient but she’d counter evasive.

I would have said caring but she’d counter mean.

I would have said spiritual but she’d ask how that makes me a better person.

I would have said spirited but she’d counter lazy.

I would have said somewhat reserved but she’d counter socially deficient.

I would have said somewhat shy but she’d counter loner.

I would have said elitist in quest of excellence and quality but she’d counter self-centered.

I would have said egalitarian in opportunity and expectation but she’d counter workaholic.

I would have said outdoorsy but she’d counter escapist.

I would have said rainbow chaser but she’d counter impractical.

I would have said aging but she’d agree.

I would have said youthful but she’d counter bald.

I would have said honest, direct but she’d counter defensive.

I would have said exploring but she’d counter unemotional.

I would have said hedonist but she’d counter fiscally irresponsible.

I would have said ascetic but she’d counter dull.

I would have said a bit gallant but she’d counter straight-laced.

I would have said organized but she’d notice I rarely dust.

I would have said self-starter but she’d counter with a list of projects.

I would have said visionary but she’d counter icy.

I would have said original but she’d counter quirky.

I would have said inventive but she’d counter weird.

I would have said creative but she’d counter unrealistic.

I would have said hopeful but she’d counter inexpressive.

I would have said responsive but she’d counter boring.

I would have said kind, gentle but she’d counter too serious.

I would have said frugal but she’d counter tight-fisted.

I would have said financially marginal but she would have countered too willing to pay full price.

~*~

Mirror, mirror, on the wall?

 

As I continue to reflect on the writing life as I’ve known it, I’ve been collecting loose ends and wrapping them up. As I writer, I feel I’ve gained much with age, countered by so much that’s been lost.

I do wonder about how the parallel works for people whose best moments have been in their youth – professional athletes or dancers, for instance – but most novels do seem to be rooted by events and experiences of people under 30 or so. We can argue the same for movies, and then salute the efforts to look beyond that.

Sitting down to compose a novel requires some bravado, an assumption or presumption, even outright arrogance, that you have something important to say and an ability to do it in an interesting way.

You know, balls, swagger, mojo. Go to a writers’ group and just listen. But it’s not all sheer ego-driven. For many, at least, there’s an ongoing tension between believing in our own talents and shielding ourselves from the nagging self-doubts. Even Stephen King has them. Remember, the practice of the craft is a solitary act, not a team sport. It gets lonely, especially in the absence of feedback or fans in the stands, whether they’re cheering or jeering. Sometimes, to your surprise, harsh criticism is easier to handle than any praise.

Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea how important a voiced reaction can be in nurturing you. Those brief reviews and star ratings are important, not just for guiding others to certain books but for guiding you as an author in your practice. An astute reader picks up important elements that have slipped right over their creator’s consciousness. Please, please, please take a few moments to weigh in when you finish a volume. We all need confirmation that we’re not wasting our time – or yours. Best of all is the epiphany when we’re left feeling that someone finally “gets it,” actually understands what we’re about. Don’t be shy.

I recall giving a friend a booklet I’d written about the Quaker metaphor of Light. (By the way, in the first two centuries of the Society of Friends, the term was always Inward Light or some variant, never the Inner Light expressed today. It’s a crucial distinction.) When he finished, he thanked me, said the text had cleared up his understanding, and then added, “You write very well.” Even after four decades in the words-on-paper business, I was taken aback, considering that he is, by any measure, an important American literary figure and a master of the language. It was like “welcome to the club,” the exclusive one with the dark paneling and Manhattan address. It was like a cup of fresh water in a desert. Within myself, I felt freed from the “hack writer” label so often applied to journalists from Dr. Samuel Johnson on.

Later, in an aside, he told me I was more of a poet than a novelist. Knowing his fondness for poetry, I took some comfort in the perspective, as well as some umbrage about the fiction part. On reflection, I now have to agree on his assessment, at least as my novels stood then. He certainly helped my character Cassia press her case for the reworking of all my existing novels, as I did in the aftermath of What’s Left, where she’s the star. The revisions in that book really took off once she started dictating to me.

There’s also that frightening moment in the gap between when a book’s been accepted for publication and when it actually comes out. We’re afraid someone’s going to somehow uncover our darkest secrets or that we’ll be shamed by some indiscretion or that we’re about to make an unforgiveable transgression or that we’ll be sued for everything we have and more. Again, go to a writers’ group and listen or even ask. If you’re an author, you think you’re somehow bonkers when you feel this, not knowing how much company you actually have.

As I’ve previously confessed, I’m of the camp that hews to Bukowski’s regime of daily “butt time” at the keyboard, day in and day out, regardless of how inspired you might be feeling. Many days it’s a dry struggle, but on others something different and amazing blossoms. From my perspective, it’s when writing becomes a kind of prayer and you find yourself in a “zone” where things come together as if by magic and characters start dictating to you, if only your fingers can keep up with what your soul is hearing. It’s a dialogue with the Other, as in Muse, and you’re the mere scribe at her service.

It’s not always at the keyboard, either. Sometimes it happens while you’re in the shower or on the throne next to it or swimming laps in the pool or commuting on the highway to work.

You can’t control this. Realistically, it happens when you’re not in control.

It happened to me at the finale of Subway Hitchhikers, which years later became the launch pad for What’s Left, where I had to make sense of what I’d been given, however intuitively.

Perhaps the best, well, I just had a phone call and lost the thread of thought. Maybe it wasn’t that important.

~*~

To back up, then. I hope you’re among my small but loyal following.

Not just here at the Barn but in the novels and poetry, too.

I would like to think all this work has not been in vain.

How’s that for raw and candid?

Not that I would know how to cope with fame or fortune.

Still, every writer and other kind of artist yearns for the support of fans and a loyal following.

If you like a work, tell everyone you know.

Otherwise, tell the source. In this case, me.

You have no idea of how important even a brief review, too, can be.

I experienced that with my book Quaking Dover, especially when readers delighted in the quirkiness that led one publisher to reject it.

Let me emphasize my deep desire as an independent writer for recognition (affirmation!) – after years of largely reclusive labor. But I’m also asking which circle did I most want to recognize me – Quaker, international literary, Seacoast New Hampshire? At some level, perhaps, it was also wanting to visit Dayton and be known even there – or to hear again from many people I’ve known and lost contact with in my relocations. The Quaker world seems awfully small and restrained, especially with its three sharp divisions. The literary world, meanwhile, has so many high priests and exclusive emphases – could I move among them? Yet, if the Society of Friends is to survive and grow, I sense I must have somehow moved beyond its confines and reached out to a wider audience. In a larger sense, then, my recognition would have been as one who brilliantly bridged those disparate worlds.

Labor on, then. Or simply quit and do something more sustaining.

Still, let me fall back on this: “Jnana, I’m really amazed. I didn’t think thee had it in thee to write a novel, at least from what I had seen in thy letters and Tract Association writings. But this is amazing, I couldn’t put it down. I read the first seventy pages last night after work, and if the rest of it’s just as good … why, it reminds me of Vonnegut. Thee writes in swatches, just like him. Jnana, we’re quite different in so many ways, but thee knows what? I’ve just realized from reading this that thee looks at women the same way I do. I had the feeling that thee was speaking what I had felt.”

Well, perhaps I’m still trying to find the RIGHT people.

And I’m wondering if I’ve been too kind to the true villains along the way. Maybe their “truth” still needs to be exposed as Satan’s?

Oh, will this ever let up?

Some writers manage to follow a detailed outline, but that’s never worked for me. Sometimes I’ve had a vague timeline or trajectory or anticipated structure, but then the piece started going its own way.

Technically, that makes me a “pantser” – someone writing by the seat of his or her pants.

I do write to discover as well as remember, or as another artist once said, “What’s the use of sticking to an outline if you already know how it will end?”

Point taken.

An artwork in progress can become a living organism. It will be seen differently by readers and editors differently than from you do. What you would cut, they might love. What you love, they see as sore thumb.

I’d love to hear from songwriters and filmmakers and playwrights and painters along those lines.

There’s also the potential of becoming so rarified we lose all connection to others.

~*~

I suppose that rigidity can extend to the way we work. Do we keep a tight schedule – so many hours a day, putting in what Bukowski called “butt time,” or do we slack off and then explode in a two-week frenzy the way Kerouac would?

Again, we all differ.

Me? I used to prefer the wee hours around midnight. And then somewhere it switched over to early morning.

I had imagined having three books published each year – one of poetry, one of Quaker practice, and one of fiction or memoir/genealogy. (They were already written.)

The rest of the time would be correspondence and basic living, including a social life, with concerts/plays/etc. filling the evenings.

My wife rather scoffed at that, seeing so much I was overlooking. Alas.

As I once noted: Trying to catch up but constantly behind – the modern mind. The motor mind. As for your visions in the night?

~*~

Another shift has come in my appreciation of slang. It can truly enliven a passage.

The words don’t always continue with the same meaning, either, which is an additional live wire.

But listening to kids today or even athletes and pop musicians I’m finding I have no idea what they’re saying, not even the sentence construction.

~*~

When I first began reading contemporary poetry (for pleasure, independent of classroom assignment), I sensed that often the poem existed as a single line or two, with the rest of the work as window dressing. Now I read the Psalms much the same way, for the poem within the poem, or at least the nugget I’m to wrestle with on this occasion. Psalm 81, for instance, has both “voice in thunder” and “honey from rock.” How wondrous!

Also: Revise, revise, revise, and be alert for the flash out of nowhere.

I translated the motto inside a friend’s harpsichord as “Who sings once, speaks twice.” The original quotation, from Augustine, was “He who sings prays twice.” Maybe out of need?

Good poetry, I’ll insist, also sings. Or perhaps drums, I’ll take either. Even when it doesn’t fit traditional scanning.

Let me repeat the challenge that bad religion can be overcome only by good religion. Ignoring that only allows it to fester.

For me, the act of writing – especially poetry – becomes a form of prayer. Not that you will necessarily see that.

Does that work for any other writer? I’m all ears.

~*~

Remember, you can find my novels in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They’re also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.