Dear Creative Writers-to-be,
The start of a new semester. Like a blank page, as Stephen Sondheim said, "so many possibilities."
Where will we be nine months from now? (OK, I know: the answer is simple. I will be grading junior exams and you will be at the senior breakfast. But I meant the question metaphysically, not literally.) Where will we be as writers? There are as many potential answers to that question as there are hairs on my head. Each of you, individually, could go any number of ways. You might be where you are now, wherever that might be. Or you might be somewhere far removed, heading for some new understanding of yourself as a writer.
What are we doing here?
Of course, this is a question that philosophers have pondered unceasingly since before the time of Aristotle, but this time the question is slightly more focused: why are we in this class? If it were an ordinary class, the answer might be "Because it fit into my schedule" or "I wanted to be in the same class as Heather" or some such extraordinary evidence of an intelligent mind at work trying to better itself. But we all know that Creative Writing is NOT an ordinary class. It is not a class for everyone. So why, indeed, are we here?
The answer(s) to that are probably as varied as the individuals in this room. Look around: who are these people? What do you really know about them? What, in fact, do you really know about anyone? What do you even know about yourself? If you are pressed, you could probably come up with a description of yourself, including the things you like to do, the kinds of people with whom you like to associate, your favorite foods, colors, classes, sports, books, movies, records, plays, poems, cars, flowers, vegetables, insects, diseases, dental techniques, and math problems. But is this list really a summary of who you are? Or is there something else, something not nearly so tangible, that defines you?
Writing is one means by which we come into contact with ourselves, the selves whom even we are not certain how to describe. A thought slipping untidily through your mind, a stray remark made in conversation by a friend, a mural on a brick wall hurriedly glimpsed while passing on a train, an image somehow plastered into your head of a moment you thought you had forgotten: anything that comes into our minds defines us. And it is these things which are best explored through art. For some, art is paint and canvas, broad strokes or barely perceptible dots and gossamer threads of color. For others, it is the making and blending of sounds to create sensations of imagery without words or pictures. For those in this room, at least one means of creating art is the written word.
But why do we write?
Do you write for release? Is there something about the act of writing that frees you from the tensions of the day and invites you into some other world where, at least temporarily, you might experience total freedom? Or do you write for pleasure? Perhaps there exists for you a sheer joy in creating images and ideas and complicated characters that never existed before you made them exist. Sondheim, in his musical Sunday in the Park with George, shows us the pure pleasure of composition as his main character explains why he works all night long: "Look! I made a hat where there never was a hat."
There might be other reasons, as well, why we write. Perhaps it's a pleasure derived from a feeling of power: here are entire worlds over which you have dominion. A character, a plot element, a setting is not working? Change it. Delete it. Alter even its most essential nature. It is your creation, yours. Do with it as you will. You are its god.
Whatever reason we write, we continue to do so only as long as we enjoy it and can convince ourselves that we have something to say. And I assume that this is why we are gathered here in this room: we all believe that we have something to say, we all wish to explore better how to say it, and we want to have an audience to say it to.
This class is a means to achieve these ends.
Here we can all try to help each other. We can explore and examine interesting or unusual means of expressing ideas. We can discuss how it is possible to express complex emotions and thoughts in writing without sounding presumptuous or maudlin. And we can, perhaps, figure out how best to express our own muse. Sounds like hard work. But art is never work. As Sondheim puts it, "Work is what you do for others...art is what you do for yourself."
Are you a writer? Can you be one?
Exactly what does that mean, anyway? Some student discussions of writing that I have seen suggest an almost pious reverence of writing, whatever writing is, and the notion that it is, somehow, something sacred, a gift to be treasured and not treated cavalierly. It is a nice attitude to have, as long as it does not go too far. "Too far" means the distance you travel when you convince yourself that, if you can't write brilliantly, it is not worth writing at all. Nonsense. Not everything we write is perfect, just as not everything we eat is perfect. You wouldn't starve yourself to death because you couldn't find any food that you liked, would you? Yet we do that with our writing: we starve ourselves because we don't like the flavor.
An imperfect analogy, you protest. Food is essential for living, you say, so of course we will eat, even if it means eating something distasteful or disgusting to survive. (People lost in the jungle have been known to survive for weeks on diets of grubs and leaves; this makes sense, I think: the apes survive quite nicely on a similar diet, so why shouldn't men? In other dire circumstances, people have been known to eat just about anything, including other people, to survive.)
But you are wrong. Yes, eating is essential. But so is writing. Eating is necessary for the body. Writing--or some form of self-expression--is necessary for the soul. How can we claim to be any different from apes if we ignore, if we fail to cultivate and utilize, the very aspects of our nature that allow us to rise above them? (And no, I am not speaking about opposable thumbs.) The late Samuel Beckett wrote existentialist, Theatre of the Absurd plays in which he attempted to illustrate how far man has fallen; no, how far he has slipped, for "fallen" at least implies some progression, even if it is negative. "Fallen" implies some effort, some aspiration, some desire: perhaps we fail to achieve it, but we fail trying. But Beckett's plays (like Waiting for Godot) argue that we have only slipped: through no effort of our own, through no real attempt to create anything, through, in fact, that very lack of trying, we have slipped into a lifelong coma that threatens not only our lives, but our souls. We have begun to exist instead of live; our lives have broken apart into meaningless little plays that we repeat ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Never any original thoughts, never any attempt to create, never any attempt to break out of the mold.
Damn depressing, right?
Of course, Beckett's nihilistic visions of the world and society don't exactly represent mainstream thinking. But they do represent the original thoughts and ideas of a man who was not afraid to write down his original thoughts and ideas, no matter how out of this world they might have seemed. And they have been the basis for philosophical discussion, thus far, for over a generation, with assurance that many future generations will find them similarly exciting.
No Becketts in here? No Shakespeares? No Millers? No Salingers?
So what? Why do you need to be one of those guys to have something to say and to say it? Not everyone can be a great writer; it requires artistry and vision, two qualities which are hard to come by and cannot be learned. But everyone can be a writer, because all that requires is a pen or a keyboard. And, if properly motivated, you might surprise yourself: there may be a lot of very interesting, very original thoughts in you waiting for the opportunity to come out and kiss the sun.
These pages copyright Karen Kopriva 2002;
all rights are reserved