I’ve always wished I were a writer. There are so many aspects that appeal to me: the freedom to work at home, wherever you choose to live; the satisfaction of working on something and seeing it grow; the power of creating a world. Also, I have gained so much from being a reader -- not just pleasure, but a lot of my self is formed and founded on the books I’ve read all my life. I’d like to give something back, and to participate in the world of the word on even a deeper level. Unfortunately, I lack the two most essential qualities: the drive to write and the ability to plot.
That sounds unlikely, considering how many words I put on paper (or on screen), but to me the word "writer" means a fiction writer, a storyteller, a maker. I can write pieces like this, so maybe I am an essayist, or a journalist. But when I read something my brother, a real writer, has written, I see so much I can’t do. Characters, and plot climaxes just don’t seem to form in my brain. The complexities of subplots just scare me.
Even in this form, of course, there are things I don’t do well. I can inject a sort of humor, but I’ll never cause anyone’s ribs to hurt the way Bill Bryson can. I write about the mundane, but I don’t know if I ever reflect the universal, like Montaigne. Even closer to home, I think Mechaieh has a facility and grace with words I’ll never equal. I need to work on avoiding the twin lions (lions? more like warthogs) of pomposity and verbosity before I can aspire to grace.
On the plane yesterday, I was thinking about how I’d like to write a book and how unlikely that is, given my complete lack of plotting ability. We always think of a story as centering on a single problem: consummating a love affair despite obstacles, finding a murderer, achieving a quest. It occurred to me, though, how many of books do lack any very cohesive single story. David Copperfield, Tom Saywer, Little Women, the Anne books are all stories of lives, with the ups and downs all lives have, but without ending in a wedding, a death or a conquest. Individual chapters may follow the formula of explication, struggle, climax, denouement -- Beth March’s death, and Tom Sawyer’s escape from the cave with Becky are examples -- but the whole book, like life, is a string of situations overlapping each other and not following any rules. Mark Twain was aware of this, writing something like "When writing of adults, the author knows where to stop, that is, with a wedding. But when writing of a boy he must stop where he can."
Travel writings can be the same way; we end up back home, maybe a little richer in experience than when we left but not necessarily having achieved any great milestone. This doesn’t keep Bill Bryson’s "Walk in the Woods" or Douglas Adams’ "Last Chance to See" from being completely captivating, though hard on the stomach muscles.
I’ve lived 34 years of a life so far. Maybe I could write part of one.
Posted by dichroic at March 13, 2001 12:56 PM