Thomas Disch expresses very eloquently what I’ve been trying for years to put my finger on about the hardest part of writing (or at least the part that takes the longest):
“I think it took me a while to figure out what the book was about, emotionally. Also the trick of any book is getting the tone.”
I often know what happens in every scene through a whole book, but am hard pressed to put pen to paper until I discover that magical tone that makes it all come together on the page and in my mind.
Which suggests to me that actually the hardest part about writing is the actual writing. I’m sure to find that elusive tone faster with enumerable miscues of the pen than misfires of the synapses. Leonard Wolf was right when he said (as quoted in Naomi Wolf’s The Treehouse: Eccentric Wisdom From My Father on How to Live, Love, and See) to write anything, just put down the words. Writing is hard, but it is impossible to edit a blank page.
Here’s a quote from an interview with author Darin Strauss that I was reading in Publisher’s Weekly today.
“But I always liked that quote from Saul Bellow: half an idea is better than a whole idea. You can just tell your story and be passionate about it and not try to bang people over the head with the message.”
I completely agree. I think that messages in fiction writing should be treated the way that Churchill treated vermouth in his martinis – he’d “look at it from across the room”.
After all, we writers don’t get to decide what our stories are about. Only the readers get to do that.
Here it is Thursday and I’m still finding myself reveling in the WonderCon afterglow. I can’t seem to get my head back into regular life. And really, why should I? Why not keep this heady mix of admiration and inspiration?After all, the Writers Old-Fashioned table was a success! And bartending at the Isotope parties was epic!
I’m Kirsten Baldock, author of the graphic novel Smoke and Guns and a member of the San Francisco-based writers consortium, Writers Old-Fashioned. I’m also a librarian and the Special Projects Director at Isotope – the comic book lounge in San Francisco.
I’ll be posting here about my writing. Stop by and see what I’m up to!
