Thomas D. Isern's Blog: Willow Creek: A Writing Journal, page 41

Spinning Wheels

This is one of those weeks when, from a literary standpoint, I feel like I'm spinning wheels. So many thousands of words entered on my screen, but mostly ephemeral ones. This is academic routine: references, reviews, lectures, instructional materials, routine communications. About the only thing I've written for public consumption is the radio script I recorded on Tuesday, giving two views and a little nonsense about the hard winter of 1907-08. Recently I've been mired more than usual in professional service functions, such as official duties for the Western Social Science Association.

When I free up real time to write, I do so in three genres of which I am quite self-conscious. The first is, from a professional standpoint, mainstream: the monographic. In other words, the one I learned in graduate school, and they taught me well at Oklahoma State University. It's never been a problem to crank out and publish scholarly articles (mainly on the history of the Great Plains). The content may be enlightening, but from a literary standpoint, the scholarly article is formulaic. I teach my students the formula, and presto!, they write like scholars. When I subvert the formula, it still works, because I know the formula.

The second genre is popular, the short essay for newspaper or radio dissemination. This began in 1983 when Jim Hoy and I initiated the weekly newspaper feature, Plains Folk, which continues today in unbroken series (column #1513 this week). I like having this geologist's core sample of literary output stretching over three decades. Looking it over, one thing I realize is that I used to be a lot smarter than I am now. Anymore, my column is likely to begin noplace in particular and stray from there. Another thing I notice is the influence of orality. Although we still write for print, I also write the same sort of feature for radio (Prairie Public, statewide public radio in North Dakota). Writing for oral delivery influences cadence and pitch and pace and other stuff, too. I'm pretty sure that material written for oral use comes out better than material written just for print. Generally. What you have to be careful of is not to become lazy, because you know you can carry meaning with your voice, which can lead you to let the craftsmanship of composition slide.

The third genre is an extended essay, the tone of which is partly reflective and partly evangelical. This one, too, is influenced by orality. Most of my essays along these lines originated as invited addresses, often keynote addresses. When I began getting invitations to deliver such addresses, something welled up that it took me some time to identify, but I know now it was the influence of Lutheranism. The evangelicalism from that source affects mainly tone and rhetoric. As for form, I have departed significantly from the traditional sermon. These pieces can be pretty non-linear. They are not, however, without structure or point. They just proceed to the point by circuitous routes. In oral presentation they are specimens of performance art, sometimes including episodes of song. Many of them have converted to print essays, too. Right now on my desk, begging for attention, is my keynote address to the New Zealand Historical Association, which needs just some touch-up to be ready for publication. Maybe this weekend.

My books, well, mainly they are compilations or extensions of the three genre I describe above. I can honestly say that right now I have five or more books in progress. Don't ask me to describe all of them, but they are filling in nicely.

What surprises me most about the evolution of my writing over the years is the quickening voice, which gets more and more honest through the years, I think; incorporates more and more orality; and has a sort of take-it-or-leave-it quality to it. Of people who have come to know me as an adult, only a few empathetic ones have sensed that like my late brother, I was, as a lad, painfully shy, but also like him, worked through that.

I don't think I'm done yet. There may be another genre or form left in me. I like the prospect. I hope that in whatever you do, too, there is that sense of remaining possibility.

Good night, and thanks for reading.

Home Base

It gets a little intense sometimes in the home office on Willow Creek. What I mean is, this is a hyper-literary place. One level of the house is devoted entirely to office and library; we call it the Library. It's what a realtor would call the garden level of the house, with the floor below ground, but good windows at ground level. I occupy the north end, Suzzanne the south. My windows view the bird feeders and back yard. There are books and manuscripts all over the room, which is one thing that makes this an adult place, plus the whiskey and guns. There's a gas fireplace to take the chill off, and an old Labrador retriever to trip over. It's a good thing the physical environment is relaxing, because the literary atmosphere, as I said at the outset, can get heavy. Suzzanne is a professional editor, as well as a PhD in History. She has her projects, I have mine, we try to help one another out, and more and more we're working and writing together on long-term enterprises. Even when no one talks for hours, this place is wordy beyond words.

OK, that's the home base. Before I quit for now, let me mention one little project ZZ and I have worked on together over the past year: Prairie Churches, a lovely little book published for Preservation North Dakota. It's in the Goodreads database now, look it up. The principal author is Lauren Donovan, of the Bismarck Tribune, but I wrote the Foreword and the Epilogue, and Suzzanne was the editor of the work. We really like the way it turned out. The book is not in general distribution yet, but you can get it from Preservation North Dakota (prairieplaces.org).

Thanks for reading. Good night.