Loyalty: Ann Patchett

Long ago I heard Ann Patchett talk about how she decided, at a relatively young age, that she couldn't be a writer and a parent. Since she knew she wanted most to be a writer, she has not had children, by choice. This has stuck with me as someone who has been a writer since I knew what pencils did--and as someone who does, in fact, also want to be a parent. It's interesting to note that, at least according to Wikipedia, Patchett's mother is also a novelist. I would love to be a fly on the wall if the two of them ever discuss this. For now, however, this is the best I can do.

The following is excerpted from an interview published in The Denver Post.

Q: Do you write at the same time every day?

A: How I wish I had a routine. I think I'm a very hard worker and productive, but I don't think it's about sitting down and hammering out a certain number of pages in a day. I hardly ever have a deadline, and no one sees (my work) until I feel it's ready for publication.

I am very parochial in my habits. I get stuck all the time and can't figure things out, but because I have all these obligations I get things done. I am so grateful I am not a procrastinator.

Q: Do you work on multiple projects at once? Novels, essays, articles?

A: In general, I'm very careful with my brain. I don't think I can do it all, which is why I didn't have children. [Long ago] I understood that I could be good at certain things, but not at 20 things.

Loyalty: Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang, 1954. Image via Wikimedia

"The discussions taking place among writers as to our present course and our path forward seem to me an unimaginable liberty--as if there were any choice in the matter. No doubt the garden of literature is broad and inclusive: when visitors buy their tickets and enter its precincts, they can have their pictures taken on the Nine-Bend bridge, swarm over to the zoo, or roam as they wish across the grounds. Their freedom of movement is truly enviable. But I believe that writers themselves should be like trees in the garden, growing naturally within its confines, with their roots extending deep into the ground below. As they grow, their viewpoint will begin to grow wider, and as their field of vision expands, there is no reason why they shouldn't be able to develop in new directions, for when the wind blows, their seeds will disperse far into the distance, engendering still more trees. But that is the most difficult task of all."

From "What Are We to Write?" in Written on Water, Eileen Chang

The Loyalty of Water: Women on Writing

Of this there can be no question--creative work requires a loyalty as complete as the loyalty of water to the force of gravity. A person trudging through the wilderness of creation who does not know this--who does not swallow this--is lost. He who does not crave that roofless place eternity should stay at home. Such a person is perfectly worthy, and useful, and even beautiful, but is not an artist. Such a person had better live with timely ambitions and finished work formed for the sparkle of the moment only. Such a person had better go off and fly an airplane.

Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures

My first novel is currently out on submission.

It took a long time to get here, but at least during that process there was something that I could do, something productive, even if it was beating myself up about not doing the things that were productive that I knew I could be doing.

Now, however, it's out of my hands. My agent, a wise woman, recommended that I not let myself in for the blow-by-blow of each individual non-response and pass. Listening to her has probably been a smart move for my marriage and relationships in general; I'm not precisely good at ignoring things, but at least I'm not constantly reminded of the small failures inherent in this process. I've been going about my life much as normal, albeit with a small, steady ringing of tension in my ears that never quite goes away.

There are a lot of failures inherent in this process. Recently I spoke on a small panel to potential St. Mary's MFA grad students, and that's what I told them: you're going to fail, so let your MFA program be the safe space where you learn to get back up again. Invaluable, really.

Some of the best advice I've been given: Keep going. When your book is out on submission, start another project. Keep busy.

I'm doing my best. But as I wade deeper into my thirties, what I figured out at about 28 or so only becomes ever more apparent; I will never have this balancing act perfected. There will be moments of pristine performance, true, moments when the hours on this project, the hours on that, the hours for the immediately-paying-work, the hours needed for this person, and the hours for myself, all carefully arranged and maximized, will look like an ancient Greek mosaic.

Those will only be brief moments. The rest of the time, things will more closely approximate a bag of skittles emptied on the kitchen floor. Maybe two bags. Of different flavors.

It's become a truism of our times that social networks make people feel bad, or if not a truism, then at least a frequent topic of half-think pieces on various news websites. Those carefully-curated versions of life obscure so much, whether deliberately or no, and it's easy to forget that we're all up against our own monsters. My own personal reality check is my female writer friends. In the past year I've been reminded again and again how remarkably easy it is to feel isolated as a writer and in how little time some personal connection can remedy that. They have this breathtaking range of wisdom and experience and insight and honesty. They keep me both grounded and committed to the long haul of being an artist. In our conversations they give to me perhaps the most essential thing: the story of how they, too, struggle, maintain, fail, and, on occasion, succeed. Their stories have to be heard to be believed—after all, they do have a way with narrative, a way with words.

So why expect you to simply take my word for it?

This is the inauguration of a mini-series, The Loyalty of Water, a virtual meeting of the minds and a reflection on the challenges and failures, the grind and the joys, of being a writer and a woman today. Contributions will come from writers in as many places and stages of life as I can drum up.

Watch this space. 

Notes on a TV show

A friend of mine posted a photo of her Nielsen family welcome packet with a caption that read (approximately), “Now everyone gets to know how often we rewatch Parks and Rec.”

I’m actually really, really glad that there is no Netflix counter for these things. I’m really glad that when I first moved to Stockholm, before we got our VPN set up that allowed for Netflix, no one was counting how often I watched my pirate bay-acquired first three seasons. (Swedish bandwidth is amazing. It took about ten minutes to get them all. What can I say?)

It all started, actually, when my husband went off to Stockholm to interview for the job he eventually accepted. Home alone and up too late wondering about the geography of my near-future, I took solace in binge-watching the show up to that point, about halfway through season four. And oh, how I loved it.

There aren’t many TV shows I love. They come along every few years, when I’m lucky, but once something clicks, I’m with it for life. This particular love, though, rivals even my first, Sesame Street and the Muppets in general, and that’s saying something. That something is probably about the inherent similarities—a zany ensemble cast, each with his or her own agenda, that also functions as a loving, supportive group. A team. A family. Tell me there’s no Gonzo in Tom Haverford. I dare you.

It’s not perfect. I maintain that any new viewers should start with season two, then double back to season one only when you’re already hooked and want some backstory. By season two, Parks has its legs underneath it, but the tonality of the first six episodes is different, darker, less compassionate to its characters, more akin to The Office (which makes perfect sense).  I’m also really getting tired of the whole Jerry thing. Writers, I love you, but do you honestly think no one in the office would have recognized his good qualities by now? It’s funny to a point, but part of what I love about this show is that the characters have recognizable humanity and compassion, even while being characters, that is evident in just about every other situation. (And I can’t argue with my brother—Mona Lisa Saperstein really is Scrappy Doo.)

That said, I’m in for the seventh season, even though I know it might not pan out for me, even though things may well have peaked in season four. There just aren’t many shows that manage to hit that sweet spot of flawed characters whom we love—and who, for the most part, love and care for each other.

Maybe I'm simply predictable. One of my best-loved books is, after all, Sweet Thursday, a lesser-known Steinbeck written as a tribute to his friend Ed Ricketts after Ricketts's death. It takes the Monterey community he captured in Cannery Row and gives it life one last time, really living into the row as a community in a way that the first book, with its slice of life snippets, doesn't quite do. It's Steinbeck's dream of what his friend's life could have been had that car not stalled, had that train not come, and it's glorious. Someday I'll try to write a book like that, but I can already tell that it's deceptively hard. It's not just a matter of creating characters--it's a matter of creating that larger, overarching group spirit in a way that's honest, without tipping either into sentimentality or sarcasm. 

And I’m hoping that one of Amy Poehler’s newest projects, the one that mirrors her brother’s life as a love refugee living in Sweden, turns out to be a gem as well. Amy, I’m sure your brother has it covered, but if you ever need any further observations on Sweden from an American perspective, call me.

CSI: Ancient Rome

They found some ancient bodies, most likely casualties of the Justinian plague, and extracted DNA from a tooth that was actually analyzable. Turns out it wasn't quite the same as the medieval Black Death. So cool. Because I am that person who, on my honeymoon in Rome, bought (and read) a book about Justin and the plague that thwarted him.