7.17.09 - Coffeehouse & Roastery
One of the joys of being a writer is the chance to get to know an endless number of people - of spirits, if you will - along with the stories they have to tell. I think many "authors" have either forgotten this or never knew it from the beginning.
I find myself forgetting it from time to time.
It's when thoughts like, "Who can I make up" and "what's a good story" crop up. It's when I grab at random description words, cram them together in some sort of semblence, and then smile proudly at myself. It happens when I do the same to character "types" - cliches, stereotypes, just people I know.
That has no art in it, no soul.
It's just collage, not writing.
Don't get me wrong. There is certainly something worth saying for the art of collage as a writing technique. But, as a formula for character aquisition and story developement, it's quite fucking weak.
This all calls to mind the reading we sat through last week. Every offensive, unrealistic character in said reading was just so because he or she refused to contain any reality. The whole lot of characters were pasted together paperdolls of any real person in any real society with any real history to tell. There were no souls on the stage, no breath being breathed. All were vapid, fruitless, aimlessly dramatic about pointless situations contrived for their very existence. As a writer, I was infuriated.
The refreshing part was when I sat down at my own proverbial desk. I have to admit that Wingsong has always had a way of bringing itself together so elloquently, despite my efforts to botch up the telling of it. I can only take credit for what is wrong in Wingsong; nothing that is right or good or real is of my own making. There is a spirit behind it all - behind each player in the scheme - and each spirit is moving some piece of the tale along, telling some section of it that until I sat down, I had not known before.
I suppose in some way, it is my own soul. Or rather, my soul's connection to that ebb and flow of wherever it is this craft originates from. In other ways, the project bears no resemblence. Is is a thing of its own showing itself in light I can merely comprehend.
That is the truth and joy of being a writer. Hearing such whispers from wherever such spirits whisper from, allowing the pen to be the medium - the langugage with which such spirits can form communication where, before my pen, there was none. In truth, it is what has always drawn me to this craft. The pure realness of it, or capacity thereof, when taken in the right way. The chance to know what others could not without my pen, without my hand being their medium, without my reality coming into communion with theirs.
Writing is a strange, inspiring art. I assume other forms of artists: painters, sketchers, scuplters, musicians must feel this way, as well. Art is a beautiful mystery; a strange deep river that we can only but dip our hands and feet into and feel the odd coolness or faint warmth of.
I wonder if the spirits musicians meet are very different - more basic in their forms. I suppose that's true if M-theory is . If ther world is made up of vibrations - of music all humming different parts of the same great composition. If all matter is a song being sung by these spirits, these parts of existence.
Frankly, whether it is the truth or not, I like to believe in it - simply because it is more inspiring and hopeful that way. Sort of like Lewis' warm universe full of wonder and life and sunlight. It might just be better that way - more artistic - more true on some deeper mythological level that our intellects cannot reach.
Music just strikes me deeper than Lewis' warmth. It rings more true to the ways in which I walk, to those spirits which I have come to know. But, it is the same artistic liscence, really.
That's something - art, real in a way very different from the reality of most popular science, has a different sort of truth about it. Like myth: the details may or may not be true, but there is a deeper truth at work - a more essential truth. It is the same of these spirits I have met that drive these characters who tell these tales I am compelled to write. As if I'm a historian of a thousand alternate histories, alternate myths - all just as real as the ones we were raised with. Just as true as the whole of existence singing itself along continuously.
It's strange, though - these spirits. If they can be said to speak, from where or when do they call? Are there other ways of existing or other places to exist in? Is art simply a vein, an undergound fount connecting those who dare to connect to some other form of truth?
I think the latter is probably the most true. It calls, however, into question the whole idea of imperical truth - truth we can obtain through our hands and eyes and ears, our sense that we've set up so high and bowed so low to worship these days.
There is clearly some other force at work here upon us. Clearly, some other way of comprehending all things beyond that which we have said is accurate. Clearly, some other way of living life.
I find it best when we can try to see through both.
I find myself forgetting it from time to time.
It's when thoughts like, "Who can I make up" and "what's a good story" crop up. It's when I grab at random description words, cram them together in some sort of semblence, and then smile proudly at myself. It happens when I do the same to character "types" - cliches, stereotypes, just people I know.
That has no art in it, no soul.
It's just collage, not writing.
Don't get me wrong. There is certainly something worth saying for the art of collage as a writing technique. But, as a formula for character aquisition and story developement, it's quite fucking weak.
This all calls to mind the reading we sat through last week. Every offensive, unrealistic character in said reading was just so because he or she refused to contain any reality. The whole lot of characters were pasted together paperdolls of any real person in any real society with any real history to tell. There were no souls on the stage, no breath being breathed. All were vapid, fruitless, aimlessly dramatic about pointless situations contrived for their very existence. As a writer, I was infuriated.
The refreshing part was when I sat down at my own proverbial desk. I have to admit that Wingsong has always had a way of bringing itself together so elloquently, despite my efforts to botch up the telling of it. I can only take credit for what is wrong in Wingsong; nothing that is right or good or real is of my own making. There is a spirit behind it all - behind each player in the scheme - and each spirit is moving some piece of the tale along, telling some section of it that until I sat down, I had not known before.
I suppose in some way, it is my own soul. Or rather, my soul's connection to that ebb and flow of wherever it is this craft originates from. In other ways, the project bears no resemblence. Is is a thing of its own showing itself in light I can merely comprehend.
That is the truth and joy of being a writer. Hearing such whispers from wherever such spirits whisper from, allowing the pen to be the medium - the langugage with which such spirits can form communication where, before my pen, there was none. In truth, it is what has always drawn me to this craft. The pure realness of it, or capacity thereof, when taken in the right way. The chance to know what others could not without my pen, without my hand being their medium, without my reality coming into communion with theirs.
Writing is a strange, inspiring art. I assume other forms of artists: painters, sketchers, scuplters, musicians must feel this way, as well. Art is a beautiful mystery; a strange deep river that we can only but dip our hands and feet into and feel the odd coolness or faint warmth of.
I wonder if the spirits musicians meet are very different - more basic in their forms. I suppose that's true if M-theory is . If ther world is made up of vibrations - of music all humming different parts of the same great composition. If all matter is a song being sung by these spirits, these parts of existence.
Frankly, whether it is the truth or not, I like to believe in it - simply because it is more inspiring and hopeful that way. Sort of like Lewis' warm universe full of wonder and life and sunlight. It might just be better that way - more artistic - more true on some deeper mythological level that our intellects cannot reach.
Music just strikes me deeper than Lewis' warmth. It rings more true to the ways in which I walk, to those spirits which I have come to know. But, it is the same artistic liscence, really.
That's something - art, real in a way very different from the reality of most popular science, has a different sort of truth about it. Like myth: the details may or may not be true, but there is a deeper truth at work - a more essential truth. It is the same of these spirits I have met that drive these characters who tell these tales I am compelled to write. As if I'm a historian of a thousand alternate histories, alternate myths - all just as real as the ones we were raised with. Just as true as the whole of existence singing itself along continuously.
It's strange, though - these spirits. If they can be said to speak, from where or when do they call? Are there other ways of existing or other places to exist in? Is art simply a vein, an undergound fount connecting those who dare to connect to some other form of truth?
I think the latter is probably the most true. It calls, however, into question the whole idea of imperical truth - truth we can obtain through our hands and eyes and ears, our sense that we've set up so high and bowed so low to worship these days.
There is clearly some other force at work here upon us. Clearly, some other way of comprehending all things beyond that which we have said is accurate. Clearly, some other way of living life.
I find it best when we can try to see through both.
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