My Wonderful Conundrum That Lead to "Meeting" a Delightful Writer

Our assignment this week is to choose one of the archived articles from Writers on Writing and create a blog post that describes the author’s perspective on the writing process.  I am then supposed to identify whether I agree or disagree with the author and explain whether my thinking has changed throughout our course, COM510, regarding a writer’s perspective in the social media environment, explaining my answer by providing examples.

My wonderful conundrum was picking an author from the list!  I ended up reading each one of the more than sixty articles, which was not my original goal.  Each article fascinated me, and as I moved from one to the next, I respected the unique styles of each writer, their perspectives, visions and journeys.  This was an unexpected, but greatly appreciated, part of my class experience because it provided such rich insights about writing and communication.  I am sure I will return to these articles in the future.

I chose Allegra Goodman for this blog post.  I chose Allegra because her perspective and advice were so wonderfully refreshing.  I would really enjoy siting in a room learning from her, and I believe she would be a delightful speaker.  I also chose her for her transparency and clarity; her writing is “no-nonsense”.  I could almost picture her at her desk, smiling as the thoughts came to her.

Allegra drew me in over and over again throughout her article, Allegra Goodman: Calming the Inner Critic and Getting to Work.  Actually, she had me from the first few sentences as she wrote:

They say writing is lonely work. But that's an exaggeration. Even alone at their desks, writers entertain visitors: characters of a novel, famous and not so famous figures from the past. On good days, all these come to the table. On bad days, however, only unwelcome visitors appear: The specter of the third-grade teacher who despaired of your penmanship. The ghost of the first person who told you that spelling counts. The voice of reason pointing out that what you are about to attempt has already been done — and done far better than you might even hope.  (Goodman, 2001, para. 1)

I completely agree with her about the “unwelcome visitors” who visit.  It’s interesting, reading it from someone successful helps put it in its place more readily, kind of like saying something out loud.  It just sounds different.  I spent much of my life trying to please everyone else, and was surrounded by what she calls “unwelcome visitors” to my work.  As an example, I used to love to write poetry, and remember stopping when someone I didn’t want to see the notebook I wrote all my poetry in, took it during a high school pep rally and then began reading it in a joking manner to other people in the lunchroom.  She then destroyed my notebook.  I was so filled with a sense of unworthiness, my “unwelcome visitor”, that each time I decided to try writing again, that "visitor" stopped me.  As an adult, it sounds so silly, but it kept me from writing for many years.

Allegra drew me in again with her comments about how a writer should silence their inner critic.

Forget the past. Nothing stops the creative juices like thoughts of the literary tradition.
"You'll never be John Donne!" your inner critic shrieks. Or: " `Middlemarch!' Now that was a book!" These thoughts used to fill me with gloom. Then I went to graduate school at Stanford, and I steeped myself in Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Defoe. The experience set me free.

It happened like this. I was sitting in Green Library trying to write a story, and I looked at all the shelves of books around me, and suddenly the obvious occurred to me. All the great Romantic poets and Elizabethan playwrights and Victorian novelists that tower over me — they're dead! Oh, they still cast their shadow, but I'm alive, and they are irrefutably dead. Their language is exquisite, their scenes divine, but what have these writers done lately? Not a damn thing. Think about it. The idea should give you hope. Past masters are done. Their achievements are finite, known, measurable. Present writers, on the other hand, live in possibility. Your masterpiece could be just around the corner. Genius could befall you at any moment. (para. 4) 

The last two sentences of her quote will be a wonderful mantra, helping me to silence the inner critic.  The vision of  “irrefutably dead” writers will bring a smile to my lips and a reminder to “live in possibility”. 

Ms. Goodman's article was so rich with content, I could reference her entire article, but this is supposed to be a blog post and not a seven page paper, so I will provide just a few more delightful excerpts.  In this next one Allegra is talking about how to treat writing and how to be true.

Treat writing as a sacred act. Just as the inner critic loves to dwell on the past, she delights in worrying about the future….But take a step back. What are you really afraid of here? When you come down to it, this is just a case of the inner critic masquerading as public opinion, and playing on your vanity. (para. 8)

I know only one way out of this trap, which is to concentrate on your writing itself, for itself. Figuring out what the public wants, or even what the public is: that's the job of pollsters and publicists and advertisers. All those people study the marketplace. But the creative artist can change the world. A true writer opens people's ears and eyes, not merely playing to the public, but changing minds and lives. This is sacred work. (para. 10) 

In my spiritual journey, we learn about the true self and the false self.  The false self, our ego, can often misguide us, like Allegra talks about with the inner critic.  I must continue to work on my true and authentic self.  If my intent is pure, if I am a “true writer [who] opens people’s ears and eyes, not merely playing to the public, but changing minds and lives” (para. 10), I will be creating what I am supposed to create.  I won’t take ownership of the outcome or its acceptance, I will be doing “sacred work” (para. 10), and it will be right.

When I read the excerpt from Allegra below, I again agreed with her perspective and two different things about her comments came to me.  The first thing that came to me is the recognition that I am where I am supposed to be because in my schoolwork I am “writing in a trance, losing track of time” (para. 11).  I really enjoy what I am doing and learning how to do it correctly.  Interestingly, perhaps surprisingly, the form is as interesting to me as the substance. 

The second thing that came to me is how I really thought about our assignment in the area of a change in my thinking about a writer’s perspectives in the social media environment.  In our course we’ve begun to learn the importance of being ethical, verification of facts, asking good questions, and understanding the impact of our words.  Before I started COM510, that blend of components was a more informal or perhaps instinctive part of my framework, not in the focused, educated, or profound way I now know more about.  Now these components are right up front as part of what I look for when I read something, and what I consider when writing anything.  Social media allows me, and anyone else, to be able to post quickly and easily, with very few rules.  Technically, I’m not held to any formal codes of right and wrong, so what I have learned in the class is, for those of us who aren’t journalists, our work is even harder.  We are mostly responsible to ourselves for the content we create; we don’t have editors and major media outlets reviewing our work or backing us if we violate laws.  That being said, Allegra’s paragraph reminds me not to let those become the content instead of being what supports the content.  If I am to be authentic and build a body of work that will be respected, I need to love what I am doing.  If I am going to engage my targeted audience, they need to feel comfortable with me.  I have to be someone they want to “visit” when they use their tools of social / digital media.

Love your material.  Nothing frightens the inner critic more than the writer who loves her work. The writer who is enamored of her material forgets all about censoring herself. She doesn't stop to wonder if her book is any good, or who will publish it, or what people will think. She writes in a trance, losing track of time, hearing only her characters in her head. (para. 11)

Allegra’s last two paragraphs really spoke to me both about the writing process and creating content.  Interestingly, based on the date of the article, 2001, most social media sites hadn’t been launched yet, so that wasn’t her focus.  Her content is as relevant today, and now through the lens of social media, as it was when she wrote it. 

Ultimately every writer must choose between safety and invention; between life as a literary couch potato and imaginative exercise. You must decide which you like better, the perfectionist within or the flawed pages at hand. 

Perhaps you'd rather hold yourself to the impossibly high standards of writers long dead. Or perhaps you'd rather not waste time writing something that will go unpublished, unnoticed and unread. You have received no encouragement from anyone else, and so you would never think of encouraging yourself. Or you choose to be a realist. You're smart enough to see your talent is limited, your gift too small to pursue. You can convince yourself of all this, or you can listen to your imagination instead. You can fire yourself up with words and voices. You can look out into the world teeming with stories and cast your net. (para. 20, 21)

COM510 has provided wonderful kindling to fire me up so I can, as Allegra says, “look out into the world teeming with stories and cast [my] … net” (para. 21).

 Allegra Goodman

References

Goodman, A. (2001, March 12). Allegra goodman: Calming the inner critic and getting to work. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/12/arts/12GOOD.html

NY Times. (1999). Writers on writing. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/books/specials/writers.html