Seeing Past Our Heroes

A writing exercise and some problem solving

Writing Exercise

I’ve been lucky enough in my life to meet, and in a few cases to talk at length with a few of my literary heroes. Some, like Barry Lopez and Michael Ondaatje, were everything one might hope for based on their work—humble, curious, generous, spontaneously elegant in what they said. Scott Russell Sanders was exactly the man his books make him out to be, and I left his company wishing he was my neighbor or my coffee buddy so that I might get to talk with him about everything under the sun. Other writers have proven to be better met on the page. In at least one instance a writer whose work I worshipped (and that’s the only right word) revealed himself to be a human I wouldn’t want to pass time with—self-centered, undisciplined, and a shameless womanizer. I was disappointed of course. A younger version of myself would have been shocked. The older version of me has, with reluctance, learned that the best qualities of people, including the genius of their art, does not always align with every aspect of their personality. That’s why there has been wisdom offered throughout the ages warning about idolizing other humans. It’s also why in graduate school literary criticism courses always insisted that we distinguish the work produced by a writer from the writer’s life, even, and problematically, when their art drew heavily from their life. People are inherently complex, of course, so why should we be surprised that the writer who can craft challenging ideas, intricate portraits, and beautiful sentences might also be an asshole? Learning to accept this about people generally, not just creative types, is an elemental part of maturation.

Today’s writing exercise draws on this frequent (luckily not absolute) reality. It is as useful for those of you writing nonfiction as fiction, and the adaptations for each are obvious. For fiction writers, develop a scene where one of your characters reveals a core personality trait that seems at odds with everything else about that person, then have someone confront them on this fact. For nonfiction writers, consider those people who populate your work and then examine such a disconnect in one of them. In both fiction and nonfiction, ask the questions that naturally occur: How did this trait come to be? Is it a way of covering for something else? How have they tried to justify the parts of themselves that are at odds with one another? What we quickly realize is that in fiction such figures create rich complexity and opportunity for the writer. In nonfiction, they offer necessary, if exhausting, reality albeit reality that can prove extremely revealing.

Writing Problems and Finding Solutions

The reality, of course, is that we who write do so 24/7. When you are neck-deep in a writing project, it accompanies you everywhere, which is exactly why I have always counseled young writers to keep a notepad with them at all times and why I still regularly purchase the Moleskin products Hemingway made popular, for they slip so easily into a pocket. It’s also why I keep a notepad and pen in the nightstand. Moreover, it’s also, or so I continue to argue when my wife complains, why I often take such long showers. Solutions arrive when you least expect them.

Or sometimes, precisely when you do. Or more to the point, they arrive when you need them to, which is another way of saying that they arrive when you have cleared the mental clutter so that they can sneak in and you’re in a state capable of recognizing them. One of the places I most frequently encounter solutions to writing problems is while on a trail run. The timing helps because I tend to run after several hours of writing. The place makes it possible for me as well, in a different kind of quiet than the writing desk among pretty landscapes and the filtered sunlight of woods. Today was such a day. An entire scene, one I’ve overlooked for months, appeared fully formed in my head (thank goodness for voice memos—useful despite the record of heavy breathing). I’m thin slices of text away from wrapping up (fingers and toes crossed) a late-stage revision of a new novel, and this scene is critical in setting up key passages near the end. It’s one of those moments where I thank the forest and my body and the manuscript and the trust I put in process.

I’m curious where you find writing solutions (or maybe life solutions). Please feel free to share in the comments. The more the merrier, for you never when your experience helps another artist find a new tool.

And speaking of comments, please don’t hesitate to use this feature of the newsletter, particularly if you have questions. I would love to start a kind of “office hours” feature where I address some of what you might like to ask. A book event Saturday was a reminder that questions always lead to conversation and shared experience.