How to write good

(Art) demands of us that we too see things as ends, not as means —Randall Jarrell.
Poets have a way with words. Okay, that’s obvious, but for writers like myself it’s important to look into the essence of what those poetry dudes & dudettes really mean, because as we all know they never come out and say it.
If I interpret him correctly, Mr. Jarrell seems to be saying that, literature being art, we should read for the sake of reading. Beyond that, and by extension, he may be saying that writers should write for the sake of writing.
I came across this particular Randall Jarrell fragment in this Sunday’s New York Times book review end notes. It was part of an article by a woman named Priscilla Gilman, author of “The Anti-Romantic Child: A Memoir of Unexpected Joy.” Ms Gilman’s son Benj has an interesting ailment called hyperlexia, a syndrome that manifests itself in extremely early ability to read. It seems Benj was reading reasonably sophisticated text at age two! Gilman writes that this was, at first, a source of great joy to her. As a professor of English at Yale, she exulted in her young son’s precocious behavior, until she learned of the dark side of the syndrome. Benj would read mostly by rote. He does read and comprehend, but he derives little satisfaction from reading, and instead uses his exotic ability as a source of comfort in a somewhat dark, sinister world. Benj reads to keep the bad stuff away.
Maybe we all do this to some extent. In my case, perhaps I write for the same reason, to keep away stuff that I’d just as soon not live over again, stuff that happened of the once-is-enough-thank-you-so-much variety. The war comes to mind.
But something else as well, and this has been a recent development. My writing, or part of it, has become not therapy, it never was that, but self-promotion. Now, we’re all self-promoters, of course. Regardless of what business or field or endeavor we find ourselves in we are all marketers. You may call yourself a tinker, tailor, soldier spy, but you’re actually in marketing. Despite what you tell people at parties, on the golf course or in the checkout aisle, you’re in marketing, and your product is yourself.
Especially so if you are, like me, a writer. But the more I pursue this definition, the faster I chase after the writer/marketer branding, the less I enjoy the craft of writing. The more I push the websites, the trailers, the promotional gimmicks the less I enjoy what I’m doing. I chart my day in a kind of rote manner— there’s that word again— by following a careful script: hit the blog with something, check the analytics, key on the hit counter on one author website after another, the visits on Author’s Den or Indie Authors. Get on G+ and FaceBook and Goodreads and Shelfari and check in, so as not to miss anything that’s happening out there on planet Sellazillion. Tweet something! I begin to acquire the promo disease, call it Hyper-hucksteritis, the constantly-selling aura that we believe we must acquire to be successful tinkers, tailors soldiers, spies, and yes, writers. I find myself reading, not for pleasure, but to write a review of the book in question— to promote my own writing. I may order a subscription to a comic book or two just for the pleasure of reading again. No one writes reviews of comic books. Hmmm… I could be the first… See what I mean?
Randall Jarrell was a poet. I’ve known a few poets. Never saw a fat poet. Never saw one that owned a home outright, shopped at Bergdorf’s or drove a Lexus. But they keep after it, Keep writing, poetizing, textualizing their worlds, despite earning little or no hard currency for the effort. There must be a message in the activity of poets, even though they never come out and say it.
Toni Morrison was a poet, too. Once she was asked why she wrote ‘Beloved,’ She said she wrote it because she wanted to read it. So how to write good may be answered this way: write for myself, let my heart guide the pen and the words will flow. See the words as ends, not as means and they’ll be happier words. Almost poetic, isn’t it?