Death of a Stone Carver

            Alistair MacLeod died on Easter Sunday. The quiet man who was described in a Globe and Mail review as “The greatest living Canadian writer and one of the most distinguished writers in the world,” passed away at 77 and was buried near his summer home in Nova Scotia.

MacLeod was one of those people who make an indelible impression, both through his work and his character. I encountered both when I attended the Humber College Summer School of Creative Writing in 2003. Swept away by the magnificence of his novel, No Great Mischief, I looked forward to learning from him during the five-day summer program.

I was not disappointed. His spoken words were as carefully selected and rich with meaning as were his written ones. Testament to that is that I have kept my hand-scribbled notes from his lectures pinned up in my study for the past 11 years. Here are some of them:

“Style is the clothing of thought. If you have something to say, say it beautifully.

No tears in the writer—no tears in the reader.

“I have to have a plan. Freefall writing will help me discover my material, but once I have the material, I need a plan to know what to do with it.

Have something that you really want to say. Is the theme going to be about loss? Loyalty? Generation gap? Choices? Spend a long time thinking about that. When you decide, then bring in the characters, and then add the setting.

When I’m halfway through, I write the conclusion, then I write the last line of the story. That way I know where I’m going.

Art begins with strong emotion. If a man kicks his cat, he is expressing strong emotion, but is it art?

Strong emotion channeled through discipline makes for art.

I’d rather have people who are strongly emotional than people who are merely disciplined or intellectually manipulative.

All literature is regional.

People write either about what worries them or what they think about. That will differ according to geographic location or individual circumstances. For example, in Toronto in fall everybody is running around getting ready for winter. There’s a whole industry based on it. Nobody in Mexico does this. Stories about blizzards, slippery roads, etc. are unique to Canada. Geography affects the language that we use.

Writers are the people sending out messages in bottles.

What’s interesting about writing is that you write away from your audience all the time. Your direction is inward.

Caveat: Balance themes. Certain things can take over.

Writing autobiographically is like trying to paper the wall with your own skin. It won’t last. Sooner or later you’ll run out of skin.”

Many great artists turn out to be disappointing as human beings, when you read their biographies. MacLeod was one of those whose greatness seemed rooted within the man. He had a presence that impressed all. At his funeral, Rev. Duncan MacIsaac made reference to that presence and character, describing him as a “quiet, humble, kind, peaceful, loving, compassionate man who took in all aspects of life at a deep level…He made room in his heart for what really matters: family, community, people, a sense of being.”

His editor at McClelland and Stewart once described MacLeod as “the stone carver” because his writings were slow to emerge, but destined to endure.

Maybe there’s a lesson there for all of us who write.