Aftermath of a quarrel
A while ago, I inadvertently triggered a quarrel.
Among the things thrown at me was the sentence, "I
don't have a big respect for YOUR writing." I've
never commented on this person's writing, but failing to
comment can be read as indifference or condescension. The sentence has stayed with me. While I attributed it to projection, it made me think about writing itself. I use the word respect regarding writers, not their work, although of course the work engenders the respect. I would say that I admire the work, whereas respect speaks to a writer's motivations.
On a visit to Charlottesville last weekend, I stopped in at the New Dominion bookstore. Local author John Grisham has adopted it, and his work was in the window. They also sell signed copies. I know of his work, but haven't read it. I respect Grisham as a lawyer who now makes a living writing novels. The literary model is Anthony Trollope. I've read several of his novels. I liked them, but they grew repetitious. I particularly like his autobiography, in which he lays out, straightforwardly, how he engineered a similar transition from civil servant to bestselling author. Grisham and Trollope are commercial writers, in essence: they write in large part to sell books. (There are doubtless other rewards and questions of art and craft. Not every author of bestsellers can write.)
I've written up to chapter length, but I don't like it. If I write at any length at all, I have to give the longer piece sections or segments that can be written in one sitting. My best work is short and takes a specific form: essay, post, review, or sonnet, for example. I rarely plan out what I'm going to write, sensing the whole without really seeing it. Revision for me is the bulk of the writing process. Every time I reread something I've written, I see ways to make it better. But getting something down is just as important.
Because I've written or edited for others most of my adult life, I approach my own writing as an amateur. I've always made this distinction. My other work is done to a very high standard, but its motives and satisfactions are professional.
A recent conversation touched on The Book of the Courtier and a parallel example from Ming China of sprezzatura, the seemingly effortless performance of diverse arts. Of course, considerable effort is involved, but the point was to avoid being seen as a specialist, worried about technique. This is why the artist-architects of the Italian Renaissance discounted the Sangallo brothers, the sole professionals among them. Even now, to be an amateur is, I think, to follow in this tradition. The risk, it's said, is to be thought a dabbler, and not serious. Being an amateur doesn't mean that you drop all standards; it means that you write what resonates, what wants expression. Respect for oneself as a writer isn't really the issue, but self-confidence definitely figures.
One reason I respect Stendhal is his willingness to persevere in the face of indifference and a huge shift in the auguries that buoyed his twin careers as diplomat and writer. On the margins of a memoir in manuscript, he notes his motive (to get this down) and his sense that the work will resonate with others at some later point, as it resonates with him, a man out of sync with his own times. Later, he drags The Charterhouse of Parma out of himself as the lights are dimming. To me, these are the actions of an amateur in the sense above. Stendhal uses his gifts for their own ends, his ends, and believes that others will fall in with it later. Or not, who knows, but still there's enough belief to write, and even to write notes to them in the margins.
On a visit to Charlottesville last weekend, I stopped in at the New Dominion bookstore. Local author John Grisham has adopted it, and his work was in the window. They also sell signed copies. I know of his work, but haven't read it. I respect Grisham as a lawyer who now makes a living writing novels. The literary model is Anthony Trollope. I've read several of his novels. I liked them, but they grew repetitious. I particularly like his autobiography, in which he lays out, straightforwardly, how he engineered a similar transition from civil servant to bestselling author. Grisham and Trollope are commercial writers, in essence: they write in large part to sell books. (There are doubtless other rewards and questions of art and craft. Not every author of bestsellers can write.)
I've written up to chapter length, but I don't like it. If I write at any length at all, I have to give the longer piece sections or segments that can be written in one sitting. My best work is short and takes a specific form: essay, post, review, or sonnet, for example. I rarely plan out what I'm going to write, sensing the whole without really seeing it. Revision for me is the bulk of the writing process. Every time I reread something I've written, I see ways to make it better. But getting something down is just as important.
Because I've written or edited for others most of my adult life, I approach my own writing as an amateur. I've always made this distinction. My other work is done to a very high standard, but its motives and satisfactions are professional.
A recent conversation touched on The Book of the Courtier and a parallel example from Ming China of sprezzatura, the seemingly effortless performance of diverse arts. Of course, considerable effort is involved, but the point was to avoid being seen as a specialist, worried about technique. This is why the artist-architects of the Italian Renaissance discounted the Sangallo brothers, the sole professionals among them. Even now, to be an amateur is, I think, to follow in this tradition. The risk, it's said, is to be thought a dabbler, and not serious. Being an amateur doesn't mean that you drop all standards; it means that you write what resonates, what wants expression. Respect for oneself as a writer isn't really the issue, but self-confidence definitely figures.
One reason I respect Stendhal is his willingness to persevere in the face of indifference and a huge shift in the auguries that buoyed his twin careers as diplomat and writer. On the margins of a memoir in manuscript, he notes his motive (to get this down) and his sense that the work will resonate with others at some later point, as it resonates with him, a man out of sync with his own times. Later, he drags The Charterhouse of Parma out of himself as the lights are dimming. To me, these are the actions of an amateur in the sense above. Stendhal uses his gifts for their own ends, his ends, and believes that others will fall in with it later. Or not, who knows, but still there's enough belief to write, and even to write notes to them in the margins.
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