In the Dark
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January is by nature a dark month, and this one feels darker than usual. I think about darkness a lot when I write, about E.L. Doctorow’s quote, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
I’m working on a novel, which feels like wandering around a pitch-black, sprawling mansion with only the weak light of a solitary candle to navigate by. Accordingly, when I sit down to write, I have a specific goal: to discover one thing I did not know when I sat down. To make one shadowy corner of the room a little brighter. It could be a new detail about a character. It could be seeing a better order for a few paragraphs. It could be a few lines of dialogue that ring true. It’s not monumental, but it’s enough.
I use this tactic with nonfiction too; I’m working on an essay now about Zumba, and while I can tell you plenty about Zumba, I don’t know yet why I’m so obsessed with it, why it matters so much. But I know that if I keep showing up, keep slowly moving forward in the darkness, I will, in time, illuminate all that I need to. Eventually I’ll see all of it and say dang, this is beautiful.
Navigating darkness on the page—and in the world—requires faith. It helps to have experience, to know that you’ve made it out of pitch black rooms before. It helps to have community too, readers and friends to cheer-lead and, when you are stuck, offer their own insight and light. I suppose this is why I keep a candle burning on my desk when I write, a reminder that the light is there. That with persistence, we will find it.
We continue to live through dark days, but I see many candles flickering. May yours burn bright.
J.
Reading and Writing Memoir starts February 13
I’ll be offering another session of Reading and Writing Memoir starting February 13th. In this class, we’ll look closely at the craft of memoir, and use readings and writing exercises to get better at accessing the truth and evoking experience in moving detail. Full details and registration are here.
What I’m Reading and Listening To
Melissa mentioned this delightful conversation between design guru Debbie Millman and illustrator Lynda Barry. Although the conversation is about drawing and comics, it explores concepts of creativity that apply across genres. There’s a lot of insight in this conversation and as an added bonus, it was recorded in October 2019 and there’s a lightness to it I haven’t heard in some time.
I also enjoyed this interview of Rebecca Walker (Alice Walker’s daughter) and Lily Diamond, authors of the book What’s Your Story?: A Journal for Everyday Evolution. As anybody who has written about themselves (or gone to therapy!) knows, we own our story and get to shape it as we choose. In this time of reduced control, it’s an empowering listen. Thanks, Karen, for sending along!
The book I’m working on is set in an America that has different rules and circumstances than the one we currently inhabit, many of which I am still figuring out. Accordingly, I found this piece about how science fiction writers approach world building very interesting.
Recently I’ve enjoyed a few wonderful novels. I’m embarrassed to say I’d never read The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison’s first novel, although it was incredibly powerful to read it at this moment in time—worth a reread if you haven’t picked it up in a while. I tore through Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, which I found gripping and full of astounding sentences, and am halfway through Memorial by Bryan Washington, a page turner with a pared down style—it has no quotation marks for dialogue, a convention I’m giving a lot of thought to (first conclusion: much easier for the writer, to skip typing all those commas and quote marks!). Let me know what you’re reading that I cannot miss.
To Go Poems
These poems might be polar opposites, but each speaks to something I’ve been feeling lately.
American Sonnet for the New Year by Terrance Hayes
Don’t Hesitate by Mary Oliver
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